I had just finished reinstalling everything in the engine bay this morning and fired it up and now I am having a few problems, first let me explain whY I removed the engine and the changes I have made. Or just skip down to the problems.



Why I pulled it:

-Had a bad oil leak removed and installed/sealed the front cover and oil pan.

-Wanted to port the wastgate

-Removed all emissions equipment (decided when I was rebuilding the block to remove them)



What was changed:

-Cleaned injectors w/new grommets/o-rings etc and new FPD.

-All new gaskets, o-rings, seals on the entire block except for LIM and turbo manifold (did not remove these).

-Silicon hose job w/simplified sequential (removed egr, aws, dt, acv) plus the viton check valves and installed resistors.

-SS MOP lines

-FEED grounded spark plug wires (grounded to the coil tray)

-96+ y and crossover pipes

-Full exhuast



**I installed the stock ecu just to be sure it was running right and to hopefully cross out a potential problem, I have a PFC ready to be installed.



The problems I am having:



The engine has a bobbing/stumling idle upon warm up (at about 1500rpm), may fluctuate 50-100 rpm. The drops down to about 8-900 and stumbles there as well. When fully warmed, after I give it a quick rev, it drops to about 500 or less and stumbles alot and slowly dies. The last two times it was running that low it died itself.



I noticed a pinging/ticking noise from the exhaust, last time I heard that was with my FC and the timing was off. I understand the timing cannot be adjust without a SST, can you rest the timing? I took a timing light to the leading front and I could see the yellow mark on the main pulley at about the 11oclock position, is the yeallow the leading or trailing mark?



I had discounted the battery and stepped on the brakes and waited 10-15mins to reset the ECU and still the same problems, actually it got worst because now it dies.



I also noticed two black single connectors (similar to the ones for the A/C and airpump and oil pressure), one male and one female on the drivers side harness, I assume these get pluged together, what are they for?



If anything else comes to mind about the symptomsI will post it. Thanks!

did you change the spark plugs?

Yes brand new spark plugs.



Also the Vaccum is around 12-13 but when reved it goes to about 17-18. I can here the engine miss on warm up, the fuel is from Dec so it is older which maybe part of the problem, but when it is fully warmed it does not miss and the idle stumbles. I am going to try and burn off as much of the fuel as possible and add new fuel and with some premix or mmo to hopefully clean up some of the buildup in the engine.



I had removed the dissasembled the turbos to port the wasgate and now they are smoking, it probably has been ran a total of 20-30 mins and they still smoke. So I am not sure if they are still burning off the oils and such from handlign them. I used new crush washers for the oil/coolant lines and torqued them to about 25-40 ft lbs depending on the size (I could not find torque specs and was going off of feel from when I removed the bolts). I still have yet to determine if it has an oil or coolant smell. Besides it does not leak any fluids under the car.



It could be an exhaust leak, but I would think it would smoke more at startup and less as the metals expand.



I also noticed some smoke out the muffler, but I think it is carbon burn up, because it does nto seem to have an oil or coolant smell.

Also tomorrow I am going to do a compression test for the hell of it.

hmm.... have you tried driving the car around on the stock ecu to see if it clears up?

[quote name='vosko' date='May 30 2005, 07:22 PM']hmm.... have you tried driving the car around on the stock ecu to see if it clears up?


[/quote]



No, becasue of it wanting to stall on its own, and I am worried about the smoking (ie possble fire). Although this last time I ran it it did not stall after being reved and turning the heater fan on, but the rpms dropped. And once the fans were turned off it went back up, still stumbling.



I also gotta fix a coolant leak from my upper raditaor hose and fully purge the air out of the cooling system.

i think your are seeing smoke now because you took off all the cats and there is nothing to filter it out. if you see a city block of smoke when you get on it then you should be worrying....

vaccume leak?

I figured there would be a haze coming out, ecpcially since there is alot of build up in the exhuast and engine, but I had a full exhaust on my T2 and did not remember any smoke, although all the exhaust pieces were brand new, Maybe I should have scrubbed down the inside of these.....



I was thinking a vac leak, but so far no luck with that.

Well now that I had a chance to start it up under good light, there is a good hint of blue coming out the exhaust :( After about 2mins or so all the smoke stopped.



And the bad idle and dying has somthing to do with when it is fully warmed, the idle drops to about 500 or less and stumbles very bad, then dies. Vaccuum lowers to about 10, other than the typical vac lines they only other problematic item I can thing of is idle control seloniod. Is there a way to check to see if it is functioning properly?



The reall kicker is it idled, ran great before I pulled it to fix the oil leaks, and now it runs like ****!

maybe your coolant temp sensor is dieing?

Which sensor is that on the water pump housing? I did have one of the wires snap off and I had to dremmel worund the plastic to get to it to solder it.... I guess I should take a look at that.



How can you check error codes?

[quote name='eyecandy' date='May 31 2005, 06:50 PM']Which sensor is that on the water pump housing? I did have one of the wires snap off and I had to dremmel worund the plastic to get to it to solder it.... I guess I should take a look at that.



How can you check error codes?


[/quote]



coolant temp sensor

I figured out how to check the error codes, and if I did this correctly I have the following:



-30 Split air bybass (is this the ACV?)

-3 Crank angle G (is this the left or right one when looking at front of engine?)

-9 Water thermo sensor (what you guys suspected)



What I am not sure about is why 30 comes before the 3 and 9, I am going to recheck them tomorrow morning to see if they are right.

Vac leak? did the injectors go in ok didnt damage one of the o rings installing, it happened to a friend. You removed egr,seq a nd stuff, youd be better off with the power fc pluged in then you can see whats happening. (remember to go to extras and turn seq off) and you can unplug the solinoids not used.

Did all the vac hoses replaced in silicone go where they are ment to?

The error codes I was recieving were 30, 33, and 39 all of them for the ACV. I just fixed that and now there are no error codes, but it still stumbles and dies when fully warmed. For the hell of it I diconnected the ISC wihile it was stumbling and it died immediatly, atleast that is working. During the warm up (around 1000-1200 rpm) the vac is at 15 inhg and pretty much stays there even when getting closer to normal idle of about 800-850, but then when it stumbles it down to about 10.



Would a bad coolant temp sensor trip the ecu? Also I know the sensor is behind the thermostat housing, its the green one correct? I also have a black one right below it what is that for?



I double checked all the vac lines to be sure they were connected properly and all seems good. I am very tempted to just put the PFC in and see how it handles it, but I have heard from people saying it best to have the car running good before so, do I really need to follow that advice?

This morning I decided to mess with the two idle adjustment screws to see if that would raise the idle, low and behold my idle is smooth in the 800-850, I may go back and adjust it down to 750-800. The engine just sounded smoother at 800-850 so I think I will leave it at that.



I took it out for a quick drive, my god I miss driving it already and wish I could have cruised longer. I had to cut it short due to smoke from under the hood, yes my turbos are still smoking, I cannot see it still being oils/greases/lubricatants from handling them, it should have burned off by now. It seems to be coming more from the rear turbo. So I just need to pinpoint if its the oil or coolant lines, I think its from the top side of the turbos. If I remove them I think I am going to go with a non seq setup.



During the drive I went into medium load and heard loud noise (sounded like a hose blowing off or BOV) I still have the OE bovs around the 6k-6.5k area. Looked at the engine bay quickly and verything seem secure, most importantly it stil drove and idled fine. Would fuel cut make such a noise? I am postive I did not hit over 10psi during the short burst. I will haev ponder alittle more.

if you take the twins off don't bother putting them back on lol

The smoke could be from your new exhaust if you put a downpipe on. I remember when I put my HKS downpipe on it smoked for a good 45 min. burning off all the crap on it. The reason I say that is because I thought my turbos where smoking and it was where the down pipe connects to the turbo.

How/when did yours begin to smoke?mine only starts when the engine is just about up to temperature.

Mine was a blueish grey smoke. At first I thought it was coming from where the turbos and the exhaust manifold attach, but after I started the car and watched it run I finally figured it out. Watch your temp. and oil pressure and let the car run for 10 to 20 min. Mine smelled like something was buring so it worried me a bunch. It took about 3 or 4 min when the car was almost up to operating temp. for the car to smoke. Sounds similar to what you are experiencing. I think we read to many bad things happening to these cars because people don't properly care for them, so we expect the worst when we work on them. My 2nd gens could have caught on fire and I still would have drove it, but if my 3rd gen make a funny squeek I am worried about it. Good luck and keep us posted.

[quote name='rotaryinspired' date='Jun 7 2005, 07:04 PM']Mine was a blueish grey smoke. At first I thought it was coming from where the turbos and the exhaust manifold attach, but after I started the car and watched it run I finally figured it out. Watch your temp. and oil pressure and let the car run for 10 to 20 min. Mine smelled like something was buring so it worried me a bunch. It took about 3 or 4 min when the car was almost up to operating temp. for the car to smoke. Sounds similar to what you are experiencing. I think we read to many bad things happening to these cars because people don't properly care for them, so we expect the worst when we work on them. My 2nd gens could have caught on fire and I still would have drove it, but if my 3rd gen make a funny squeek I am worried about it. Good luck and keep us posted.


[/quote]





I think I am going to need to remove them due to coolant leak (I think) somewhere on the turbos. Its been running for close to an hour now and it still smokes. I am going to try and let it idle alittle more and see what happens. BTW I do not see any coolant dripping from around the turbos, which is very odd.

Well I wouldn't be shocked if you didnt find anything becuase your scenario sounds real familiar to my experience. How much smoke? oil pressure and temp good? drive it around the block and see if it still smokes a bunch and if you can see any leaks.