I've got a new engine going, and I've got two probably related issues; even the slightest bit of load causes the car to fumble (wideband goes dead), and that I'm maxing out at ~9 PSI. I'm redoing some of my vac lines, but I'm pretty sure they're all good cuz my boost gauge seems to be reading right. There's a bunch of tiny things going on, but I can't link them together. I'm running out of things to check, so I'm looking for ideas.

Car runs about -19-23 vacuum at idle, runs at about 2k revs when cold, 1.5k after it's warmed up (probably fuel trims and not temp related). Did a boost leak test, held until about 2 bar, then air started pissing out one of the fuel injectors (bad o ring, replaced, going to test again later). When driving, you have to feather the clutch as much as humanly possible or else it immediately goes lean and stalls. If you feather it enough for the turbo to start going, it IMMEDIATELY levels out at stoic.

I ended up raising MAF scaling about ~5%, and dropping injectors by ~10%, and that made the car at least drive-able, but I ended up bench flashing to another rom, and lost those changes (I was pretty confident with the numbers I had set, seems wrong to have to adjust so much). Not sure if trying to recreate that is a good plan, or if I should figure out the boost problem first. As you might imagine, STFT just bounces around, and spikes up when the car leans out. I don't have any long logs because the car's a b**** to drive, and my alternator isn't working right now.

With the boost issue, I know wg is about 1 bar, so logic tells me that I should be hitting at least that, no? I know this is all pretty specific but my Google-foo is failing me, so I'm hoping this story rings a bell in someone's head.

 

What is your fuel pressure? Did you check to make sure your Fuel Pressure Regulator has a solid vac source? Make sure your fuel pump relay is okay?

 

Thanks for the reply, I don't have a fuel pressure gauge right now (stock fuel rail, etc). Whatever it is, it's high enough that it keeps blasting off my fitting while I'm cruising . Here's a pic of my FPR:

Nothing clamping it down, but it's on there enough that I can't pull it off. Is it still a good idea to put some zip ties or something on em? As for the relay, I swapped my lowbeam (blue) and fp (black) relays, and they both seem to turn the lights on fine. Do I need to pull out the multimeter and do some sort of test on it?

 

I did a compression test today, all cylinders hit exactly 100 within 2 psi. I think I'm just running low on oil, or not using the gauge properly, or both. Tied lines down, retightened everything and got my alternator working so I went for a drive. At the end of the ride, I popped into neutral and just tried to rev the engine, and STILL almost stalled it out, so either it has nothing to do with load (like I thought it did) or my clutch needs adjusting :P

Here's the log (it's just a 10 min drive, have developed trust issues going too far away). I can't really tell anything from this see of numbers, but what I can see is that it seems like there's 0 correlation between the AFR it wants and the AFR it's getting hahaha. I think most of my major sensors are working. I haven't checked in a while, but the only thing throwing CEL was the "system lean" DTC.

 

You need to fix the high fuel pressure issue. I’ll put my money on clogged return venturi in the fuel pump housing.

 

High pressure, eh? Shows how much I know. When you say: "in the fuel pump housing", are you talking about the bit that goes from the hose on the top of the tank, then into the pump itself? I was hoping to just to pop the line at the tank end and blast some air through it, but now that I read that again I'm guessing that won't do anything.

 

You stated a fitting keeps blasting off. That’s a sign of high pressure.

You need to pull the fuel pump housing in the tank. It’s a simple job, just takes some time. Search on here for high fuel pressure problem. There are a bunch of threads showing what you are looking for.

 

This is probably all fuel system related. Were the injectors cleaned while the engine was out? And check the venturi like razorlab said. As well as the fuel pump relay, make sure its the updated one.

 

You're totally right, I don't know why I never made the connection.
Pulled the pump out today, drilled out that hole and blasted air through every line I could get my mitts on. Seems a tiny bit better now, but could just be a placebo. Ran to the hardware store and grabbed a tester afterwards, everything looks good to me.

Only weird thing is when I had the key turned, it jumped up to 60-70 for a split second, idk if that's normal or not. Another thing I should mention is that I just noticed there's MASSIVE rev hang, not sure if that's relevant.

I didn't get em cleaned; I just wiped em and dumped them into a ziplock bag. They only have a few miles on them, but I definitely should've thought of that. I know a diesel shop down the road that does injectors, so on payday I'll wander down there and see what they can do for me.
Just to double check, the new relay is the blue one, right? Or is there more to it?

I have another log below

EDIT: went for another drive, it's definitely a bit better, like "I'd go through the drive-thru" confident, but that's about it. Rev hang seems to come and go randomly, comes at the same times as not being able to rev in neutral.

 

I added some gas in the tune and now it's running way better, and I think my boost gauge might just be off a bit (feels a lot more like wg now). HOWEVER, now my gas line pops off almost every time I spool up.

I can hook up the fuel pressure gauge again, but doesn't seem like there's a good way to spool up hard while in the garage? Any suggestions?

I have a suspicion the fitting might be crap too (it was fine before the new engine, and before I ported out the pump just now), so I'm gonna try to order another one (I think it was 5/16" to AN6?) in the meantime.

 

Which line/connection is blowing off? Do you have a photo?

 

Sorry I should've been more specific. It's just a generic inline filter kit from MAP. The listing says it's an AN6, but all I can find online are universal parts, so I just wanna double check the size on fuel rail (intake side).


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There is your issue. Use a better connector like a Russel 644113. Easy fix.

You will have to bend that little tab on the OEM line out of the way

 

Sweet, I was looking at the 640863, but I'll order one of each just in case. Thanks for the tip on that, I spent all night trying to figure out what might fit and work better. ​​​​​​I'll redo my vacuum lines and hopefully see a positive change in boost, too. For the lean problem, I ended up dumping the scaling for my ID1050Xs to 830, which seems really low, but I'll just roll with it for now. Does that seem weird?

 

The 640863 is more of the same crap as you have now. The 644113 uses a metal screw on attachment that will literally NEVER blow off.