So I went to the dyno on Friday night. I had the owner of the shop (PerformanceMotorcars(.com) in naples) drive it around to see that it was running safely. He seemed to be mildly impressed at least, so we put it on the dyno. First we do some rull throttle runs to see how the car reacts and shifts on the dyno, all kinds of throttle positions. Then we start logging. We take one sweep and it shows huge a power loss after VTEC engagment. Peak power was 302(!!!) We try and correct the power loss, and run again, and noticed a power loss again, almost the same curve but about 10 hp less.

After about 6 passes we start watch boost, and we're only getting to .6 bar boost. And it takes forever to get there. We start looking for leaks, reclamping hoses, etc. Took the bumper off.

We spent about 2 hours trying to find the problem. At about 11pm I called it quites and ChrisDroveASlowCarHome(.com)

Anyways, Saturday morning I being my quest to diagnose the problem. Took air filter off, inspected turbo, looked fine. Took off wastegate (pain in the ass!!!) I can't even open it, it has so much spring tension (15lbs spring). Put it back on, inspect blow off valve. Tighen intake manifold bolts. Start to take belt tensioner off to get access to more bolts..

Mike Simon suggested on last thing to try besides taking the turbo off. Take off the air intake filter, cover it up and clamp the cover down. Then shoot air in to the system and see if there is a leak. So I went out and bought a really tight air compressor, hose, gun, etc, and started the project....

Once I got the air shooting idea working, I was able to shoot air in to a vacuum line and pressurize the whole system. I saw that the car only pressurized to about .3 bar (about where my max boost was at this point.) I knew it was a leak somewhere. We took the bumper off. I had some friends over and they were in a frienzy to find the problem. We felt air moving.

Then we saw this:

and this

and this (yes that's 3 blown welds)

Now she looks like this:

 

wow, what brand and size intercooler are you using?

 

Dan, I think that is still Speedcraft one that came with the kit.



Damn, tough luck there.

Looking at your blown weld, I want to check my intercooler and tubing as well.
My boost gauge has been ever shaking since I have gone very small with the pulley.
My boost gauge shows about 4psi at 4K rpm. and imagine what boost I may pushing at 8-9k rpm on my measily Comptech S/C. I know the limitation of the NOVI-1000 but I just know I am leaking boosted air somewhere.

My fabricator is very experienced in welding and knows of your problem, so this is what he meant if you don't do quality welding job, you can possibly have your endcaps blown off.
Good thing you caught this before the catastrophic event that was about to happen to you.
Well, my problem probably isn't that but I will check just to see.

Good luck with that, I feel your pain that you cannot drive your monster for a time being.

 

Wow thats a crappy intercooler , time to go with a greddy tri core

 

The intercooler core is fine, it's just the welding job by Speedcraft was not done with high boost levels in mind apparently. Here is what it looks like now after some aluminium mig welding this morning....

 

i'm sorry to hear about the welding problem. good luck with everything!

 

Something to think of in the future.......when you "pressurise the system" put some SMOKE in the system too.........where you see smoke you see a HOLE!

 

Not something you'd expect from a $6K+ turbo kit

 

I wonder if those welds were back shielded? Or even the new ones, could have contributed to low integrity welds. Basically blowing argon inside the intercooler. Uses a lot more gas but it's not that expensive.

 

I say get the HKS Type S Intercooler