Odd Night

[RareGMFan]

Ok. This requires some explaination, so bear with me, here.

 

I don't know how many of you have been following the troubles with my car, but there have been some changes as of real recently. Both my sisters (in one car) a buddy, and myself (in my car) went up to a car show last Sunday. Well...something odd happened on the way up there. On the highway, it was doing its usual "won't let me fully boost" thing. Sometimes, if I keep my foot planted for a couple of seconds, it will finally reach full boost, but that's too little, too late in a race, of course. But when I exited the highway, and was driving down North Avenue, I could hear the turbo spooling LOUDLY over my stereo, even though I was hardly touching the pedal. I muted the stereo, and listened again as I gently steped on the accelerator. I was like "what the hell?" I looked down at my gauge just before I took my foot off the pedal, and noticed it was at nearly full boost!! I'm like "ummmm.....what the hell is doing on?" Traffic cleared out a bit, and I laid into it a bit harder. BOOM! Instant full boost, within a fraction of a second. Both me and my buddy were like WHOA as we got thrown back in our seats. I knew something was wrong, but I wasn't complaining. We had to make a left at a light to get into a gas station, and the arrow had just turned yellow, so I nailed it. Both me and my buddy were like "HOLY S***!!!" I had to back off it to avoid an accident.

 

Anyways, we filled up, and back tracked to the show where me and my sister took home an award. (*Under his breath* Then again, so did everyone that showed). I looked under the hood, but couldn't see any immediate problems. At first, I was thinking "maybe it's just finally running like it should have all along". But I knew that wasn't the case. I did nothing to it, how could it just miraculously start working? On the way home, we took Kingery to experiment a bit more with what this car was doing. I only had a chance to punch it a couple of times (too congested), but I hit boost/fuel cut a couple times, and got the SES for it (which I figured was what the code was as soon as I saw the light come on), so I knew something was wrong.

 

Well, when I got home, I took a closer look under the hood, and realized the line going from the wastegate selenoid to the turbo had popped off on the turbo end so nothing was limiting the boost!! I couldn't bring myself to reconnect it. :oops: Last night was the first time I had a chance to push it without a ton of traffic in my way. I took it out to that Rt. 59, a street near me that practically becomes a race track on weekend nights . Well, we gave a late 70's and a mid-80's Camaro a surprise, an S2000 gunned it behind me and changed lanes to pass me, but by the time he got next to me, I was very, very slowly starting to pull away from him (should have seen the look on his face, lol!), and I couldn't get this C5 'Vette to bite (-I'm not a ricer- I know he would have wasted me , but it still would have been funny to see him have to really push it to beat this "piece of crap, ancient family 4-door Pontiac"). Keep in mind, this thing is far from functioning 100% correctly, yet. It's just having a MUCH, MUCH easier time boosting like it should. It's still having a ton of trouble off the line. I can't even get it to peel by brake torquing, which even the n/a can do very easily, so there's still plenty of issues.

 

Now the REALLY odd part. Coming back home, we ate at the Denny's by the mall, and headed back down New York St. When I came up to the light at Rt. 59, I got in the far right lane, which comes to an end just after that intersection. There was a Corsica next to me, and a newer Cavalier in the far left lane. The light turned green, and I put the pedal half way down. I heard the chirpping of the wheels next to me (the Corsica), so I put it down a hair more. I look in my side rear view, and he wasn't disappearing. I turn around and look, and he was just in my blind spot. I'm like WTF?? So I put the pedal down all the way, and just barely creeped past him and made it into his lane before mine ended. The whole rest of the way down to Ogden, we were going back and fourth, gunning it, and I had to keep putting the pedal to the floor to be slightly faster than him. I wasn't willing to go past 70 MPH in cop central, so when we turned onto Ogden, I just let him go. I wanted vary badly to stop him and ask him what the hell he had done to that thing, because there isn't a China man's chance in hell it was stock! Believe me, I know n/a 3.1s, and they're slow as molasses. My AWD 6000 should have been able to keep up with it (maybe a slight edge to the Corsica, due to the weight advantage), let alone the turbo 3.1??? Now not knowing what happened there is going to haunt me forever.

 

Oh well, the car is performing 10 times better, and I'm more than happy with that. Though I know I'll have to reattatch that line, soon. Constantly leaning out and melted pistons wouldn't be a good thing, but it's so much more fun this way. Anyway, just had to share.

[90TGP]

I would just replace that vacuum line entirely.

[RareGMFan]

I plan on it. The end of the line is actually cracked, so it wouldn't stay, anyway.