Alright guys,

thanks in advance for any advice you can give that might help nurse a poorly S15 Spec R back to full health.

Heres a quick run down of the story/issues we have..

Weve imported the Car for a customer at his request direct from Japan at auction and of course with it being modified it was a bit of risk, the customer wanted the car bad and thus we bid on and won it and had it imported to the UK.

Just as a bit of background info were specialists in Hondas (mainly K20's such as the integra, EP3 and Fd2) but saying that weve imported EVERYTHING over the years.

Im very competent and confident with the Type R engines and thus the SR20DET is sort of new territory for us.

Anyhow the Car comes across from Japan and immediately i realise theres an issue with the Boost as it felt like it was making only 150bhp or so with no boost being felt at all.

Spec of the car is -

1999 S15 Spec R
Aftermarket Intercooler
Standard MAF with HKS mushroom Filter head.
Full Exhaust from Mani Back

We realised after investigation that the original Boost solonoid had been removed and no after market boost controller was present. The VAC pipes had just been teed off.

We then fitted a BOV and set it up correctly at 0.8psi, however the car now hits a wall at 4000rpm approx and stutters like fuel starvation. We did plug it in to Diagnostics and its mentions its running lean.

Since then weve done the following for the customer but with no joy.

Changed the plugs
New Fuel Pump
Fuel Filter
Oil and Filter Change
New Blow off Valve
Manifold Lam Sensor

Weve also parted out with a known good S15 the following to no avail

Coil Packs
Leads
MAF Sensor
ECU
crankshaft Sensor

Were at a bit of a loss with it which is very frustrating.

The Car now idles fine, pulls very well on boost but will just hit a wall at around 4k, sometimes it will then only be temporary and it will pull tghrough on boost all the way to 7K, most times it will just bog out and not rev any further.

Also worth noting is that there was a HKS idle Stabiliser Mod wired it to the ECU loom which we removed as it didnt seem to don anything....

Sorry for the long post but i wanted to be as descriptive as possible.

Lastly i realise some of you guys might feel reluctant to help a "importer" but seriously guys were forum regulars, and were a small business that trys to provide a unique service to customers, were not out to get rich - just enthusiasts for the JDM scene thru and thru and im lucky enough to make a living doing it.

any help and advice will be warmly received as were keen to sort this out for the customer asap....

Cheers

Andy

Sounds like fuelcut what you are discribing.

I'd say start with checking for boostleaks ;)

Sounds like fuelcut what you are discribing.

I'd say start with checking for boostleaks ;)

Also, what spark plugs have you used and have they been gapped? If not, gap them to 0,8 mm.

Cheers guys, I'm gonna go thru all the vac hoses etc today checking for boost leaks. Will also adjust the sparkplugs and report back. Thanks, andy

Don't check only the vac lines, but most importantly check the intercooler piping as well.

Also you could test the intercooler itself foor leaks.

What method would you suggest for the most effective way to check for boost leaks!? Iv visually inspected all the pipes and there isn't anything obvious....

Andy

Take hot pipe hose of the turbo and block it off with a rattlecan or something, then attach a footpump with wich you blow up rubber boats or footballs or something to the vac lines and use it to pressurise the system. ;)

OK, will do, BTW i had to google "rattlecan" - its commonly known as a spraycan here in the UK - lol - you had me stumped for a minute :rofl:

will report back when done

cheers

andy

Ok leak test done, all the system
Seams to be fine at 10psi part from a little breather vent which is part of the boost controller solenoid. Not sure what the purpose of this is but why would it be leaking?
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i61/200bhpcars/e3e29821.jpg

Also tried re-gapping the plugs to 0.2mm however the problem
Is still there, if anything the regapping of the plugs made things worse... :-(

Also point to note, when driving the engine surges on full pedal from around 3000rpm till it hits fuel cut at around 4500rpm, you can feel the engine pulling in surges and not in a complete fluid motion, does anyone know what this could mean!?

Forgive my poor english, I'm dutch ;)

I'd take the solenoid out of the system to test, it shouldn't leak when there's no power to it.

0.2mm is too much, gap should be at 0,8 mm. What plugs have you put in there?

Plugs are ngk pfr7b's

7's should be ok...

What's the cars specs? Still on original turbo and ECU?

It's deffinatly fuelcut what you're discribing and everything you discribe sounds like a boostleak... So I'd try to take the solenoid out of the equasion and see if it helps.

PS: Wait a minute, now I come to think of it... I had a problem with mine once, almost the same, car came on boost fine and then it just went flat, all power gone. In the end it was the elephant trunk between turbo and AFM that was being sucked close with the turbo coming on boost, see if it's on correctly, if it's twisted this can happen, I replaced mine with a piece of 45 degree aloy piping.

Can anyone tell me what this in the pic? It's attached to te dump valve via vac hose??

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i61/200bhpcars/786eb96d.jpg

Also if we disconnect the dump valve and solenoid, it sounds like the turbo is acting as the dump valve which can be heard thru the air filter head, I do t know if this indicates a problem or not if someone is reading this who may know.

Thanks

Andy

Yeah took the solenoid out of the loop but it still doing it unfortunately.

Defo no leak in the Vac system, it held 10psi no bother in there on the leak test.....

PS: Wait a minute, now I come to think of it... I had a problem with mine once, almost the same, car came on boost fine and then it just went flat, all power gone. In the end it was the elephant trunk between turbo and AFM that was being sucked close with the turbo coming on boost, see if it's on correctly, if it's twisted this can happen, I replaced mine with a piece of 45 degree aloy piping.

hmmm, yes the pipe is very squashed. i will defo look in to that tommorow am...

cheers

Andy

p.s.s - the customer has just said to us that the car apparantly has aftermarket injectors... i dont know about that though, will have to have a good look at the grade sheet translation now,,,,

ppl i wnna swap my ssentra 1999 stock engine for an s15 but i wnna know like how much do i will spend and what so i need to change ?because is all stock and its not modified PLS HELP!!!