TT chip and octane

[Steve Wood]

how old is the gas in the tank?

[Shimy87]

Brand new

[Steve Wood]

I never get an easy one! 

[Shimy87]

Tinkering yesterday I discovered by accident the vacume line that used to go to the egr i think......the cap was broken, it only leaked when it was pushed against the wire loom there. Replaced that one. Also the turbo inlet bell has that tube that is always capped. That cap had a crack in it. Replaced that also but no test drive yet. Hopeful this might do something???

[Steve Wood]

Would not think so.  That would make it leaner, but, your O2s look good at the moment...

On the other hand, such things can cause problems and need to be fixed to keep problem areas to a minimum.

If that fixes it, I will come back and edit this post

When you rev it under the hood, do you have any noisy lifters?

Have you added any octane booster yet?

Any blow by coming out the covers?  I am beginning to believe we ought to have a catch can in the pcv line.

[Shimy87]

I actually did start to hear some clicking when driving, under the hood not so much. Maybe an exhaust leak, not a lifter?

No oil leaks anywhere....ye t, only a matter of time.

No octane booster yet.

[Steve Wood]

I am sure you have noticed that my logic jumps around all over the place.  You can blame it on old age, but, I suspect it is just because I have a warped mind and don't worry about conventional thought processes that follow some order LOL

I was thinking about a Miata video where a guy installed a turbo and somewhere along the line he plugged off the pcv line.  When the boost came up, blowby pressure blew the valve cover gaskets and several other gaskets.  Oil was all over the engine and smoke was boiling out of the exhaust.   Now that has nothing to do with our cars where we typically install breathers on the valve covers and when the boost comes up, oil vapor comes out the breathers.  It is much worse if the rings are sealing poorly.

Anyway, It made me think about how low octane oil is and how too much oil will make an engine detonate.  Typically we plug off the line to the turbo inlet from the valve cover to prevent it from pumping oil vapor back thru the turbo and into the throttle body on the way to the combustion chamber.

It also gets sucked back into the intake thru the pcv.  Hence, I was thinking about the practicing of installing a catch can to separate the oil out of the pcv system.  Any oil in the tb, of course, comes from the turbo seals going bad.

Purely, a side thought along my train of thought.

[Shimy87]

I have considered a catch can on my car. At the track it likes to push oil out the dipstick so I pull it and put a blocked hose over it, and it does smoke a little at the end of the track so probably pushing oil out the pcv and burning it. 

I think this car has an issue with a valve seal. On cold start if you let it set and idle it will start to smoke....after it is driven  and warms up it stops.

Hope to test drive it this afternoon after I get my chores done

[Shimy87]

Crusing O2's act just like my other car now, numbers all over but very few below 200.

3 WOT pulls, 1 with zero knock, 1 up to 1.4 but was at 40 mph, ran up to 85, and one at 1.9, again at much lower speed than end of run....all O2 recalls were over 800. I did have some extra fuel in the chip.

Also now I do have an exhaust leak at front of drivers side header, will have to correct that.

[Steve Wood]

Like I said, I am sure that will help it! LOL

Sounds good!

[Shimy87]

🤣🤣🤣  really need to get knock to zero but its progress!

When i add the octane booster, if I still get knock will that just confirm its false? Probably a stupid question but never had to try this. If it eliminates it what dose that tell me?

[Steve Wood]

If you add some booster and it keeps doing it, I think it says it is false knock.  If it goes away, I don't know what could be doing it at such a low boost.

It looks so strange as if it is an incidental event.  It does not grow in amplitude and it may diminish and then repeat again.  That is why I think it is not conventional detonation.  Once the real events, it almost always ramps up.

Have you ever tried wiggling each injector wire while the car is idling?  Looking to see if the car misses for a moment which might indicate a bad connection in the injector connector.

Check the coil packs for resistance across each one after the car is warmed up?  Or swapped the entire module/coil between the cars? 

[Shimy87]

convinced this car is cursed....star ted to fix the header leak and discover the heater core is leaking......n ever ends 

[Steve Wood]

LOL...it's typical.  You just have to wade thru the problems one at a time.  Cars that sit for years without being driven act like this.  Altho I see guys posting all the time about how unreliable their buicks are, most of them don't have a clue about cars in general and the car may have passed thru several owners who knew nothing about them either...just beat the hell out of them.

Usually, if you just work your way thru the problems, they will become good daily drivers.  You just have to endure the usual problems that would have been fixed one at a time over the years.

[Shimy87]

I hear what your saying.

Header flange was way bowed, had a terrible leak in the front and a smaller one in the rear.. im getting it milled flat at a local race motor builder.