All installs are off, parts have been sold. To give an idea of what's been going on lately, I made a thread over on Nasioc:
To avoid having to read through an entire thread, I'll just repost what I wrote over there:
roninsoldier83 wrote:Alright, so I figured I would start a thread just in case I couldn't get this solved myself..
Anyway, I went with a buddy of mine to a dyno day, and figured what the hell, even though it wasn't the dyno I was tuned on, I would strap my car down. Found AFR's leaner than 13:1 under WOT, heart skipped a beat to say the least, as it shouldn't have been anywhere near that lean. I asked the dyno operator there (Nick at MAC) if he would mind tuning my car (as my former tuner was over an hour away), as it scared me to drive it that lean on the street, he said alright. While tuning the car, he said he was having a tough time scaling the MAF (running an AEM CAI), and I don't remember why he said it, but he said a couple of times that he thought I might have a vacuum leak.
Anyway, while tuning, he also played with my cooling fan settings, and basically made it to where there were on a lot more than stock, mentioned it would help in the summer.
He tuned the car, OL/WOT AFR's were now in the low 11's, pretty conservative on E85 IMO. I did a little brainstorming on why my car went from running fine back in December, to leaning out so much under load just a few months later, came up with a few ideas:
1. Possible clogged fuel filter/dying fuel pump. For reference, the pump probably only has 10k miles on it... and after tuning, my IDC's were pretty normal for an E85 tune at altitude. We were at 6000 ft altitude/elevation, car tuned to 19psi, running modded side feeds flow tested at 811cc and my IDC's were around 75% on E85 with AFR's around 11.0-11.4:1 or so. I haven't test fuel pressure, but have a new fuel filter sitting in my garage that's going in this weekend just in case.
2. Possible issues with going from winter blend E85 to summer blend E85. Car was last tuned in December, on winter blend E85, which to anyone familiar in this state, minimum Ethanol content in the winter is 70%, whereas summer blend minimum Ethanol content is 79% IIRC. This could be an issue, but I wouldn't think it would throw the car over a full point leaner?!?
3. My former tuner (which will remain nameless to avoid tarnishing a reputation over something that is likely not his fault) tuned the car leaner than I was told. To give some insight, he first tuned my car on E85 back in September, never had an issue, brought the car back to him in December after adding inlet hose, AEM CAI & APS TMIC. He is a reputable tuner in my area, tuned hundreds (if not more) of Subarus, so likely not the culprit. I also considered the possibility that his WB02 might have been off/faulty, which was a possibility, but I don't think so.
4. Somehow my RealTime map "slipped". Prior to this I was running a V1 AP, and my tuner preferred to tune the car via pump gas as a Base map on the larger injectors, and then run the E85 map as a Realtime map. The ECU had never been reset, the battery never disconnected ect, but I figured anything can happen right? Either way, since then at Nick@MAC auto's recommendation, I unmarried my AP, and switched over the OpenECU. Haven't bought a Tactrix cable yet (due to recent financial situation that has forced me to sell a few parts), but am planning on it in the near future, if this issue isn't solved by then, I'll post logs. Gave me a good excuse to ditch the AP V1, as I'm tired of running blind per se.
5. Vacuum leak. Plain and simple, I think this might be my issue.
Now, with the car tuned more conservatively, I went about my business and thought nothing of it. Until a couple weeks later when I threw a CEL. CEL code P0442 Evap emissions control system leak small. At first I thought it might have just been a loose gas cap, as the same code had popped up 1000 miles prior (only CEL the cars ever thrown), so I again, tightened the gas cap, cleared the code, and went on about my way. It came back a couple days later, and I wasn't surprised... a smoke test revealed it to be the most common cause of this car being thrown- leak at the fuel pump cover gasket. I was shocked to say the least, as the pump had been installed 9-10 months prior, shocked it took so long to throw a CEL, but replaced the seal/gasket, and it hasn't returned since.
Now, when I threw the CEL for the 2nd time, I was using a fairly inexpensive OBDII scanner (around $150) that I bought a couple years prior, and it had a freeze I/M data feature that I used to check conditions when the CEL was thrown, just because I was curious... RPM at 2650rpm, 23% throttle, 40% load, 28gs, but the thing that caught my eye was Long Term Fuel Trims were at 10%.... within "factory spec" per se, but still higher than they should be for a car that was just dyno tuned a couple weeks prior IMO.
Now during this time, the car would jump around at idle when warm, going from 500-800rpm, which it never did before... at first I assumed it had to do with the new cooling fan settings (as they were now on almost constantly), but am starting to doubt it. This has progressed to the point where they now just anywhere from 500-1000rpm. Very unnerving. Although the car has never thrown a misfire CEL, or any CEL really other than the emissions CEL mentioned above.
I contacted my new tuner, asked only about the LTFT's being so far off, and he mentioned they were a little high, and he didn't normally like to see them over 5% +/-, and told me to check for vacuum leaks. So, when I took the car to have a smoke test, I also asked my mechanic (very trusted & knowledgeable Subaru mechanic) if he would mind taking a look to see if I had any vacuum leaks as I couldn't find any... to give an idea, I have zip tied pretty much every vacuum hose I can find in my engine bay. He just did a visual (as the car was only there to preform a smoke test on the EVAP system), and mentioned something that started to make a few things click in my head. He noted the turbo inlet hose was barely on the turbo...
To give a little more info, when the inlet hose was installed, I had a few issues, that I won't go into... but either way, it's a Gimmick inlet hose, and it seemed a little too long, as with it pushed back as hard as possible onto the turbo, it was pushing up hard on the power steering pressure line. So, in order to get it to fit, the rear of the hose had to be trimmed a little bit. Now, looking at it in my engine bay, at the rear, I feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. We're talking the hose clamp is barely on there, and I can see around 3/8" of the metal on the compressor inlet, whereas most stock inlet hoses fit flush, and the inlet hose seems to somewhat flare out a bit behind the hose clamp. I have a feeling this is where my "leak" if there is one exists at.
So, me & a buddy of mine pulled the TMIC, and attempted to tighten the clamp... to no avail. Even with 1 person pushing the hose, until it was fully flush against the turbo, and other person tightening the more we tightened, the clamp seemed to "pull" the inlet hose off the turbo. I even thought there might be an issue with the clamp (as it was slightly bent up), so I bought a new one, and same thing. The tighter you try and clamp it, the more the hose slips/pull away from the turbo, so we just tightened it barely enough to hold it on the turbo, and since then I've been too scared to go WOT for obvious reasons.
I am making an assumption here, but I'm assuming if there's a leak there, unmetered air would be pulled into the turbo without going over the MAF, which could result in the lean condition I experienced prior? Also a likely reason why my tuner had a hard time scaling the MAF and mentioned he thought there might be a vacuum leak. When you give the car throttle it revs & runs just fine, but I'm thinking this also might have something to do with the idle issue I'm experiencing.... I'm just shooting in the dark here, but I'm assuming the additional vacuum created when giving it throttle (even only partial throttle) is creating enough vacuum to "pull" the inlet hose, which is why I'm not experiencing any hesitation/I can hold revs without too much of an issue... but maybe the lack of vacuum at idle is causing it to jump?
It isn't so much an issue at cold start, idle might go up and down slightly, but typically not more than 100rpm, maybe 200 occasionally, but not really noticeable, it's only an issue when the car is fully warmed up. It will try to idle around 500rpm, but jump to 800-1000rpm every few seconds.
A stock inlet hose is going back in tomorrow, I scheduled it as soon as I found I couldn't tighten the Gimmick inlet hose. For the record, this is in no way meant to tarnish the reputation of Gimmick or any of their products, only mentioning my current experiences. I'm hoping that installing the stock inlet hose, and being able to tighten it down to the turbo will solve my issue, but if not, does anyone have any additional insight? Anything else I should be checking for?
For reference, my car has the following mods:
-811cc modded side feed injectors
-Stock STI TMIC (APS TMIC has been removed & sold)
-Gimmick inlet hose
-AEM CAI
-Cobb catted DP & Borla XR-1 cat-back
-Walbro 255lph fuel pump
Before anyone mentions it, yes, I know I REALLY need to pick up a Tactrix cable so I can log, however due to an unfortunate number of events lately, I've been forced to not only not buy car parts, I was also forced to sell a brand new Blouch 20G turbo, brand new CSS FMIC & my former APS TMIC. I'll get one very soon, but for now, money has been tight.
Thank you in advance for any additional tips/insight/advice anyone might have. It's appreciated!
-Brandon
Although I'm a hijacking kind of guy, so I'm ok with it haha. Honestly, I prefer the "preschool" version over here as opposed to Pirates. Something about having adult conversations without mindless banter & people just regurgitating the same information over and over.
