I finally have the car back together after being down for three months. Cometic HG, ARP head studs, New timing belt/timing components as well as gaskets on just about everything and new alt/ps/ac belts.

Got the car running pretty good but I still need to crank on the BISS screw it does not want to idle smooth at all.

The car is also running a little hot and I think I have some wires mismatched to the thermostat housing and I think my Thermostat is not opening up.

I get a sputter/buckle sometimes and I get the flash of a CEL and the MPI box clicks.

I am not making boost...at all. I have check the wastegate arm and all the vac/boost lines but have yet to do a boost leak check. The car smokes pretty bad when I get on the throttle pretty good so the turbo might be fried, but that is hard for me to believe because the car made boost on three cylinders before I tore it down.

I have good compression all the way across now so I am actually running on all four cylinders for a change.

Anyone have any suggestions to any of my problems?

Anyone have any input?

Originally posted by ScreaminE
Got the car running pretty good but I still need to crank on the BISS screw it does not want to idle smooth at all.

Did you or did you not already adjust it?

Originally posted by ScreaminE
The car is also running a little hot and I think I have some wires mismatched to the thermostat housing and I think my Thermostat is not opening up.

The thermostat uses heat to open up. The wires are just for the temp guage/ECU.

Originally posted by ScreaminE I get a sputter/buckle sometimes and I get the flash of a CEL and the MPI box clicks. I am not making boost...at all. I have check the wastegate arm and all the vac/boost lines but have yet to do a boost leak check.

Do the leak test and get back to us.

Originally posted by ScreaminE
The car smokes pretty bad when I get on the throttle pretty good so the turbo might be fried, but that is hard for me to believe because the car made boost on three cylinders before I tore it down.

What color smoke?

You say you're not making any boost, but is your turbo even spooling? Even when I had some rather large boost leaks, I had no problem making at least some boost. I also would not run the car until you figure out the problem. No point in messing things up even more. As far as the thermostat, to verify if it works or not, just take it out and put it in a pot of water. Heat up the water, and you will see it open up once it reaches water ever temperature it is set at to open. However, if the ECU does not see the temperature due to the sensor not being installed correctly, then the car will not know when to turn the fans on, which will cause you to overheat. When you tore the motor down, I'm assuming it was empty of all fluids. If this was the case, did you put some oil in the feed line to the turbo? Since the turbo will start up without oil otherwise, you may have fried the bearings. As Tony asked, what color smoke? If it is white, then that usually means coolant (iirc), black is running too rich, and blue is oil. Hope this helps.

The smoke is def. a blue color more than anything. The guy I bought the car from claimed it to have a bad turbo. I did not put oil in the turbo feed itself but I did take out the MPI fuse and cranked the car a good bit before I started it up.

I havent got to adjust the BISS screw yet, I have been trying to work on other things and just havent gotten around to it.

My room mate says that if my thermostat wasnt opening, then my upper hose would still be cold, and everything is definately hot to the touch.

Maybe I have killed the turbo? I have also heard that I may have a vacuum line hooked up wrong?

Originally posted by ScreaminE
The guy I bought the car from claimed it to have a bad turbo.

My guess would be the turbo then, especially with the blue smoke

Originally posted by Hult250R

Originally posted by ScreaminE The guy I bought the car from claimed it to have a bad turbo.

My guess would be the turbo then, especially with the blue smoke

Agreed.

Yeah, the car definately blew blue smoke before I tore it down, but it bosted even on three cylinders. Which was hard for me to rule out blow turbo, but I just cant think of any other reason why this thing wont boost. So the turbo is either siezed or my wastegate stopped working because even if I had a boost leak, I should be getting SOMETHING.

I also found out that my CEL flashing and the car stalling/sputtering is the same problem I had before with the ECU power wire from the ignition switch. So basically the car is shutting off by loosing power to the ECU(not good) This weekend I have to do a little bit of re-wiring or possibly needing a new ignition switch.

I fixed my wiring woes today. I dont know if any of you remember back in Jan. I was having ECU power up problems and today I found the real reason I was not getting power from the ignition to the ECU. The whole problem was in the plug. The wire came loose from the plug and wasnt making a good connection. Today I fixed the plug and put the old ECU back in the car and it cranked up and ran smooth as it has ever ran before. Putting the old ECU back into the car actually fixed my idle problem as well.

I also found out that I have a pretty good sized leak from one of the coolant lines going to the t-stat housing. I tightened a clamp on the hose until it cut into the line and that was the cause of my leaking/overheating issue.

The car is still smoking, and I've pretty much determined that the turbo is bad because the car smoked before the tear down and it still smokes in the same fashion once I put it back together.

I have worked out a lot of issues with this car since I got it 5 months ago and I feel like I'm actually getting close to making it a decent running machine again. The car starts on the first turn and runs like a champion now, all I need to do is get this whole boost issue worked out and I can get insurance and put it on the road where it belongs, not sitting in the woods for almost 9 years.

Originally posted by ScreaminEI have worked out a lot of issues with this car since I got it 5 months ago and I feel like I'm actually getting close to making it a decent running machine again. The car starts on the first turn and runs like a champion now

:thumbsup awesome man!