This sounds incredible. When my car grows up I want it to sound just like that. Well done on that trim work, makes a big difference.
God I miss having an nasty 8v. Sounds so good!
Agreed and agreed, thanks guys. I definitely don't think it "sounds like a tractor"! Very happy with the side trim, shouldn't have put it off for so long.
Your beige 242 and hacksters beige 242 makes my beige 242 feel inadequate
All beige cars are beautiful!!
well this week has been a stressor. Driving home from work Monday night I was going up a long steady grade around 4k rpm and like 5psi of boost and suddenly felt a big stumble and it immediately started running like garbage. Ahhh crap it's running on 3 cylinders! Limped it off the road and just had a pit in my stomach right away. It was just like what happened when I spit the lash cap out and hung the valve open. But that happened bouncing off the limiter, how could I bounce a valve at 4k rpm?! Either way it was for sure only running on 3 cylinders, and it looked like #4 was the dud.
Got it back to the garage and started trying to diagnose. I have one major serviceability issue which is that I CANNOT pull the #4 plug without removing the downpipe, there is just no way around it. So I had to go through the dance to get the DP off to even start the basics. First thing was just check compression, which is healthy and even across all 4 cylinders. Phew, this came as a big relief because it meant I didn't hang the valve again.
Pulled plugs and they looked fine. I ohm'ed out all of the plug wires and they checked out fine. The wires themselves are hidden behind a couple layers of thermal protection, but the boots were only lightly toasted and not burned through. I took the #4 wire and #4 plug and checked spark visually with the output test mode in tuner studio, confirmed spark with that pair through all 4 coils. Ok, plugs seem good, wires seem good, coils firing..
Checked timing, hadn't moved. Pulled the fuel rail out and checked injectors, they were firing properly (and one popped out of the rail under pressure and made a fun mess) and flowing. At this point I'm starting to scratch my head. After everything I went through last year I still couldn't get the valve train off my mind.. so off comes the valve cover. I didn't wipe a cam lobe off, valve lash checked out OK... now I'm relieved because the head doesn't have to come off the car and the "why did I invest this much money in a 530" setup has not failed me after 6 months.
But what happened? I was going back and forth with my Dad and Tate all day yesterday and we all seemed to think it pretty much had to be a spark issue. All of the components checked out individually but I decided to just test it out practically - reassemble the car and move the #4 plug and wire to #2 and see what happened. So it all goes back together, start the car and.. it's running fine. I let it warm up and it was idling along on all 4. Went for a drive and did 5 minutes getting it up to temp and all seemed good under cruise. Thinking at this point it was a loose connection or some weird anomaly. Roll into some boost and it immediately falls apart under positive pressure. Damn, but it's only under boost now.
back to the garage. Since I'm only dropping under boost I can't confirm what cylinder is effected now, but I moved the wire/plug as the only real change so I decided I'll just swap out all 4 wires and plugs. Take the stupid downpipe off AGAIN. Pull plugs and wires, and now I have to go through the routine of setting up new plug wires. Because of my turbo location the wires are right next to the downpipe, so every wire gets a DEI titanium heat sleeve, then the heat sleeve is spiral wrapped in DEI reflective gold foil, and I safety wire the boot in place.
Soo I check out the number 4 wire. The boot/heat tape is lightly toasted but not bad, I've had them burned completely through before and never had a problem. Well I go to pull the thing through the boot and out comes...
I think I found the problem
I've never been so relieved to see a burnt in half plug wire. First of all I think these wires suck. I had been using some old recycled truck wires for like three years which saw just as much heat. This one failed after maybe 500 miles? Some GM/AC Delco "hi performance" wire. Second it was just an interesting diagnosis. Really the plug wire should have been the first suspect, and it was! But because the things were so mummified in heat wrap I trusted the ohm meter and my visual spark test. I would not have guessed that I happened to wiggle the wire just right so that it made a connection again, but not enough of one to provide a strong enough spark for boost.
For now I wrapped each plug wire itself in heat tape, put boots on, heat taped the boots, and safety wired it all to the coil bracket so I have an air gap to the DP now. Long term I need to a) change the downpipe path b) make a heat shield.
OH WAIT THERE'S MORE.
As I'm crawling around the car I see a bolt missing from the center section of my turbo. Look closer and oh.muh.gawd. 3 of the 5 bolts/mounting clamps that hold the center section into the hotside had backed out. FYI these were torqued to spec upon assembly, but did not use loc-tite. I was realistically a few drives away from having my brand new turbo liberate itself from the housing and bounce around the engine compartment like some kind of battle-bot. I'm now counting the stupid plug wire as a blessing because it forced me to catch a much bigger issue. No credit to Borg Warner for the, imo, stupid design. Never would have happened with a flange and a v-band clamp.
This was extra fun because when things got loose the turbo re-clocked itself in such a way that the drain line was forced up against the header, SO THAT GOT COOKED TOO. Re-making drain hoses is becoming a routine maintenance item now. I will definitely be reviving my project to make a custom hard line for the turbo drain.
Anyways, that's how a burnt plug wire cost me 24hrs of massive stress and a vacation day at work.