Stuttering, backfiring, no blow off, and no power HELP !

[rocafellafw]

This may be alot to read for some but I'm really lost.
Recently me and my dad went through and replaced all the motor mounts with prothanes, while we were at it we did quite a few changes and upgrades. Before we did all this the car ran fine had none of the current issues I'm about to talk about. After having the car undone for about 2 months we finally got to drive it for the first time yesterday and it was not pleasing at all. First the car idles VERY rich and pulls about 9-12 hg's in vaccum which I know is low. When I rev the car it wants to stall, I have ot keep giving it gas to keep it from stalling. Now to the driving part, the car jerks back and forth, smokes, stutters and is VERY reluctant to make boost. The car has almost no power at all even under WOT it take the boost awhile to hit 10 psi and theres still almost no power, even after making 10psi when the throttle is let off theres not one sound of blow off at all. Now here is the recent changes we did so you can get a idea of what we could have done to make it act the way it is now:

-Replaced UICP with Dejon hardpipes + Moved the HKS SSQ to the new UICP flanged for the ssq
-Replaced fuel filter
-Replaced stock j-pipe with stainless J-Pipe
-Replaced power steering belt
-Rearranged vaccum lines, here is a diagram of how my vaccum lines are ran:
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2672/gstengine013.jpg
The MBC goes from the wastegate nipple to the j-pipe nipple.

As you can see nothing to "in-depth" was done to the car, no major changes, but the car now runs like balls. I'm almost sure there is a VERY bad vacuum leak and boost leak. While the car idles I can here the bov whistling, is this normal ? I read you should not be able to turn/swivel the bov around and I can do so very easily so is that a bad leak ? Also by any chance could these be the symptoms of my internal wastegate stuck open ? How can I check and see if it is, reason I ask is the wastegate needed to be removed while working on the car and I think we may have done something wrong when putting it back on. One thing that kind of worries me is we washed the engine according to the guide, we bagged up all the electrical components but could that have damaged anything ? Next we are gonna do a Boost leak test, swap the plugs + Wires and double check all the hoses. Until then does anybody have any ideas on any of the many problems I'm having ???

 

[rocafellafw]

Ok we changed the plugs and wires, double checked all the vacuum hoses. The car runs a tiny bit better but still has no blow off, still is hard to build boost, still bucks back and fourth and just has NO power. We noticed the car run fairly ok at low rpms but in the top end the car falls on its face. We concluded the car is starving for something, fuel or air. Spark is out of the question. Heres something else to consider, when I hook the boost gauge up between the fps and the fpr is sometimes shows 0 vac and 0 boost at all times, but when I hook the gauge up directly to the manifold it reads 11 vac at idle. Is there any chance my fuel regulator is bad ?

Also here are some connectors/plugs that we cannot find mates to:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9586/gst007.jpg
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/8828/gst009.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9863/gst006.jpg

The sit between 10-13 on the wideband at idle and sits at 10 under WOT.
The turbo can't be bad, it only has a few thousand miles on it and ran strong before we unhooked everything. Any help would really be appreciated.

 

[the_mork]

The first sensor looks like an MDP sensor which should go into your intake manifold but it looks like you might have a 6bolt swap or maybe just a 1g intake manifold in which case there is no provision for this and you will need to provide this sensor with a manifold vacuum source.

I'm not sure about the second picture but the last one with the triangle plug looks like it goes to your coil pack (IIRC) but that doesn't seem right because then the car shouldn't run at all.


You will need to do a boost leak test if you don't know how to make a tester search the forums and go ahead and do it.

Have you checked your MAF? Not having the MAF plugged in sometimes causes similar symptoms.


Lastly you have a fairly dangerous strut tower bar setup. If your battery or battery cable were to come in contact with it you could easily burn your car to the ground, I would suggest relocating your battery to the trunk or at the very least at least just use a rubber boot and some electrical tape.

 

[rocafellafw]

The first sensor looks like an MDP sensor which should go into your intake manifold but it looks like you might have a 6bolt swap or maybe just a 1g intake manifold in which case there is no provision for this and you will need to provide this sensor with a manifold vacuum source.

I'm not sure about the second picture but the last one with the triangle plug looks like it goes to your coil pack (IIRC) but that doesn't seem right because then the car shouldn't run at all.


You will need to do a boost leak test if you don't know how to make a tester search the forums and go ahead and do it.

Have you checked your MAF? Not having the MAF plugged in sometimes causes similar symptoms.


Lastly you have a fairly dangerous strut tower bar setup. If your battery or battery cable were to come in contact with it you could easily burn your car to the ground, I would suggest relocating your battery to the trunk or at the very least at least just use a rubber boot and some electrical tape.

Thanks so much for the response man. I will get on the strut setup, yea we found the coil pack already has everything plugged in, just confused on where to mate the rest of the plugs ? I think I actually figured out the problem. When the battery was out we thought it was a good idea to rip out the purge valve and all the hoses, no thinking anything of it we did no plug up any of the hoses hanging. Would having 3 extra hoses coming from the vacuum source venting cause these problems ? I'm pretty sure that's causing one huge vacuum leak

 

[djalogik]

Check to see if you knock sensor is plugged in.. from the third pic, since you say that the coil pack is plugged in then the two remaining connectors should be for your ac compressor and crank angle sensor.

 

[rocafellafw]

Check to see if you knock sensor is plugged in.. from the third pic, since you say that the coil pack is plugged in then the two remaining connectors should be for your ac compressor and crank angle sensor.

And all of my A/C components are out so I will check that immediately, thanks again. Any other ideas anybody has until tomorrow feel free to throw them out there !

 

[the_mork]

Would having 3 extra hoses coming from the vacuum source venting cause these problems ?

Absolutely, when you've got your car running well again (or before) do a boost leak test. I cannot stress how important it is to do this. The $5 and a little time that you spend will increase the performance and longevity of your car as well as making it easier to tune and diagnose.

 

[rocafellafw]

Absolutely, when you've got your car running well again (or before) do a boost leak test. I cannot stress how important it is to do this. The $5 and a little time that you spend will increase the performance and longevity of your car as well as making it easier to tune and diagnose.

Ok I ordered a EGR Elimination plate, plugged all the holes on top of the throttle body, clamped all the vacuum lines down, I will be picking up everything needed for a BLT over the span of this week so hopefully this week we can resolve the issue(s). Any input will still be greatly appreciated !

 

[rocafellafw]

Sorry for digging this back up, just wanted to let everybody know the problem has been fixed so maybe anybody with this problem like this can have a point of direction to head in. Like I said it was something we did (djalogik also mentioned the knock sensor so props to him), the knock sensor must have been ripped out doing the rear motor mount. Replaced the knock sensor and the car runs better then ever ! Thanks again for the help.