I don't think my aux. ports have been working since I had some exhaust work done months back. I thought it felt fine, so I never bothered investigating. I had a header put on with a presilencer, but the back pressure tube connects after the presilencer, before the catback stuff. I just noticed yesterday the built-up crud on the activator rods, I pushed one down revealing the shiny rod, and realized that it should be shiny if they were working. I had installed the pineapple inserts** and cleaned the sleeves really well last time I had them out, so I'm sure it's not stuck.



Could it not be getting enough back pressure? I'm about to get a muffler/single exhaust pipe welded up. Should I have the guy move the back pressure tube to before the presilencer, would that help?



**I know the warning regarding these, but they obviously aren't posing a problem with no flow going by them yet. I will check them out when I get around to doing my rat's nest soon.

 

mazdatrix puts the 6 port tube way at the front

 

alright, next week I'll see if the guy can move it to right after the headers collect, before the presilencer. sound good?

 

yessir

 

I have thought about this before but never really pittled with the port actuators. Therefore I don't know if they have springs or diaphrams or both.



It seems like one should be able to tune these little beasts to open whenever you wanted for best performance. If you had a vacuum gauge attached to the tube/nipple on your exhaust you could see what amount of vacuum you have at 3800-4000 RPM. Then you could peak and tweak the springs of your port actuators to open at that specific pressure if you had a hand pump with a vacuum gauge on it as well...



What do you all think? It might be cheaper than doing the exhaust work.

 

Wouldn't it be easier to just install an adjustable valve on the vacuum line, and only open halfway or whatever, and let that me your adjustment, rather than fooling with the springs or whatever?

 

Mine didn't open on backpressure after cleaning and even going back to having a cat installed with backpressure tube. I can move these things EASILY with my finger. The metal tubing that goes around the LIM to feed the actuators is clear (I can blow through it). I even went as far as hooking up an RPM activated electric air pump... still don't work.



I'm taking the ****** sleeves, rods, and actuators completely out now. I've had it with these things.

 

did you make sure the actuators' diaphrams were intact and not leaking?

 

I swapped 3 sets of actuators in. I didn't know how to go about testing them but they seem to move smoothly up and down. Would I have to hook up a vac/pressure guage of some sort?



I didn't try the AAS solenoid thing we talked about. Did you yet?



I'm too worried about the pineapple inserts anyway so I'm taking all this stuff out. I can deal with some low end loss.