When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Can't get anything by you guys. When I went to start the car to leave the track I heard it. The tick tick sound that makes your ears perk up, wondering if it is a rod bearing or something else. By the time I was home I had it figured out. Exhaust gasket leak. Took the exhaust manifold shielding off and guess what... The turbo to manifold bolts were FINGER tight. How could this happen? STUPID stupid avoidable mistake. The OEM belleville washers were shot and I reused them thousands of miles ago. Without the spring of those puppies the bolts had worked completely loose. Using a USB camera scope I found that due to the turbo hanging off the manifold, the gasket had blown out the side as well:
Blown turbo gasket
I am now the proud owner of a bunch of OEM MHI gaskets and TWENTY of the OEM belleville washers.
Looks like an updated VD and 1/4 run will be in my future. To be continued!
So after discovering why my boost was coming on slower and the tick tick exhaust sound, I went to work. It is never a good idea to leave things out of sorts.
I documented how easily it was to take the studs out and swap the gasket. I then replaced the studs with OEM bolts (four total) and eight new OEM MHI washers.
Maybe it was luck, but this all went as slick as KY:
This graph was posted on another thread where I am discussing the knock background noise multiplier table. The manifold has been fixed, and the car is running great. Now I am trying to squeeze out the last drop of power from this 20g freak turbo on 93 octane.
The results are too good not to post here, where it all started:
smoothing =2 with AFR and boost represented with smoothing enabled in the options menu.