'smoking boost leak test'

[GarthW]

I have recently found a new dyno tuner. For all this time i've been driving around, not only was the fuel map all over the place, but ignition timing also. I sent my fuel map to Adaptronic, they saw the problems, managed to fix a few of them, and sent me back my map through email.
When i loaded the map i finally had idle from cold start, car was smoother and idles at 900rpm instead of the 1100-1200 i had before.

Drove her to the other side of town and met the tuner today. He performed a smoking boost leak test. I thought now this is great, i'd never even heard of this before so was keen to see how it all worked...

While watching the engine bay for awhile i was looking everywhere, system was full of smoke, but still no smoke to see....then after around another 30secs i notice smoke coming from between the throttle body and plenum chamber. How can i fix this? Could i put a gasket between?

Person doing the test said its very minor, he usually see's much larger leaks, so its not bad and i was really happy, because nothing that i had done was leaking!
So she wont be tuned till thats fixed and my air/fuel ratio gauge and lambda is installed, next week i hope. Heres a piccy. If anyone here is running an Adaptronic, which i'm sure they do, grab one of these, very accurate readings and plugs straight into the ecu's spare plug.



After that the tuner adjusted ignition, and fixed the wiring on my TPS switch...which i didnt wire. Amazing isnt it, the trials by fire you have to go through before you find the right tuner? They all claim this and that, etc. I told tuner it had been tuned at Creatd Motorsports and he almost flinched and just said 'Ouch'. A lot of bad tuning has been done there, and my car was one of them....
So to anyone here in Melbourne....dont go there if you love your car.

Amazing what these guys can do with just a laptop. Cant wait to go back and get her properly tuned....its only been 2 years...

[Mats]

On the 75 TS there is a gasket in there so why not?
If you have a MAP in the plenum it shouldn't affect the tuning though, but sure all leaks must be fixed! I'd probably just put a SMALL bead of RTV on the inside of the screws though.

Nice to hear you found a good tuner, they are not easy to find it seems...

[GarthW]

There few and far between mats, so really happy. Also he knows the adaptronic inside out which is great. Car is very responsive now.

Will try a gasket for sure, i'll find something i can throw on there. Cant believe the only leak i had was there, of all the places..

Might get one extra KW?

[Greg Gordon]

Good job checking for boost leaks. I run into so many turbo gurus who think that as long as the boost reaches the target value, boost leaks don't matter. That's simply false, any boost leak costs power and increases lag.

I have never seen anyone use smoke to find the leaks. That's pretty cool.

The throttle body is often a source of leaks in these cars. Even if it seals perfectly to the plenum, the shaft seals usually leak a little.

Greg,
www.hiperformancestore.com
www.okinjectors.com

[GarthW]

Yeah was great to see. They blank off the intake and blow the smoke through the front of it.
Good to know about the shaft seals cheers Greg. Will operate on her tomorrow and seal it up.

[GarthW]

Even though i was told the boost leak i had was minimal, its made quite a difference...a really nice difference, i hardly had to touch the pedal, i could hear the turbo spool up more and i just felt the vortex feeling a lot more. That smoking boost leak test was worth every cent.

I noticed the throttle body had a factory gasket, which surprised me because these cannot be purchased from anywhere, so i took Mats advice and made my own. For less than $20 i recovered precious kilowatts.
So i cleaned off the old gasket, made the new one, put a little rtv gasket stuff around the bolt holes, and nipped her up.

[BradGTV]

gotta love free power

intersting point, i myself have always wondered about if there were power loss from boost leaks, so many people i know dont bother to check at all....

[GarthW]

Hey Brad, yes free power is great.

The person who did the test said he has seen a lot of jap cars with worse leaks...must have been why that R33 GTR the other day i came up against seemed slower...