Been having some issues when it comes to accelerating recently. It’s almost like it’s hesitating to build power. From what I’ve been able to find, people with similar issues seem to come to the conclusion that it is fuel related. Checked the fuel pump relay and it is the “old” black one. Already ordered a replacement and decided to take a look at the spark plugs. Found that two of them have white chalky residue on the bodies. I’ve only been able to get mixed opinions on what it may be from. Possibly oil? Any ideas/thoughts are appreciated.

 

Is that salt spray getting into the spark plug tubes?

I had a similar issue, no accel due to lean out between 2200-2700 rpm. Razorlab suggested a fuel pulse damper from radium. Fixed it 100%
I guess it's a bigger issue for large injectors.

Could you share mods?

 

Just basic bolt ons. Intake, intercooler/pipes, test pipe, catback. Only has 6k miles on it. Had to replace the spark plugs at about 2-3k miles which I found odd, but they didn’t have the white residue.

 

That is 100% from moisture in the spark plug tubes.

Can you describe the rough acceleration a bit more? Is it at WOT? Part Throttle?

 

The acceleration issue is more during part throttle. For example, getting on the highway building up speed, when it starts to hesitate/surge. Have to let off the gas and get back on it to resume acceleration. As far as the moisture in the tube goes, do you think there’s a bad seal?

 

Check for signs of moisture in the tubes and on the coil packs. The tube is sealed by the coilpack.

What intake do you have? Does the car have a tune?

 

Didn’t see any moisture and the coil packs are dry. I have the AMS intake and it is tuned. Not sure if it would make that kind of difference, but the intake is from my last X and probably needs a new filter.

 

I had this same issue before was driving me nuts. For my case it was the exhaust manifold to turbo gasket went bad. I noticed it only cause the leak made a hole on my
heat shield. so you might want to also check for any possible leaks.
The residue on the spark just looks like spark plug anti-seize lubricant

 

I had the same basic issue. Drove me crazy trying to diagnose. Turned out to be a clogged fuel filter that was restricting fuel flow and creating a pressure drop across the rail. Granted, i had a aftermarket screen type, billet inline filter, but it was clogged nevertheless, and the symptom/fix, is the same for any fuel filter. If you have the tools to check your base fuel pressure vs part throttle cruise pressure, you know if its fuel related. Ive found that the relay only tends to effect high load or wot fueling, due to the fact that evos run a two state fuel pump configuration. They run on a lower voltage during low load, low fuel demand engine operation. They switch to a high voltage state during high load, high fuel demand engine operation, ie. boost. The bad relays dont seem to effect the low voltage state, only the high. However, i cant say with full confidence that this is strictly the case, its just the most typical scenario.