changed my turbo yesterday in my bug wrx as when i was replacing engine a while back i noticed turbo wasnt spinning freely, so was blaming this for my lack of power. when i removed turbo found it was after freeing out,so was bit confused. fitted 2nd hand turbo anyway but still have no boost,it idles perfect and drives away normal with no probs but theres no boost there at all if i floor it. have had an ongoing fault code with cat effeciency so will be replacing downpipe soon with sports cat. also it was showing lean mixture fault bank1,but that takes a while to show itself after 1st code pops up. getting it mapped soon so want to have any faults fixed before that. at the mo a 1.4 focus would pass me out

 

Check boost solenoid

 

Has your up pipe cat broken causing it not to come on boost?

 

+1 they fall apart over time, swap for a sti decat up pipe

 

thanks guys, ya i checked the uppipe and the last owner took the cat out,so its just straight through pipe now. Il clean the boost solenoid next and see if that helps. I was also thinking of the maf, but it idles very good and cruises away at normal speed

 

Boost solenoid is not the issue I dont think if you are seeing no boost at all

 

well im getting stumped to be honest, ive checked all hoses etc and they all seem fine. the 1 thing i noticed is if your driving in 5th and start to go up a hill as in the engine starts to be under load the engine seems to feel a bit jerky,feels like a very slight missfire. but i dont think its missfireing. engine just dosent seem very smooth under load. when i drop a gear and go for boost i can hear the turbo slightly spooling up but theres very slugish boost if any at all

 

Have you a boost gauge?

 

dont have boost gauge in the car, have vacuum gauge in work alright, might hook that up and see what its doing while driving. what kinda boost should i have on standard bug wrx??

 

A vacuum gauge won't show boost as that positive pressure. So how have you come to the conclusion that your not boosting with no gauge?Bit stupid in fairness.
Buy a boost gauge and see what happens. Boost depends on if it standard or mapped standard I think around 0.9 bar or 13psi roughly

 

well if its a turbo car and the turbo isnt spooling up and also theres 1litre citreon saxo's passing me out id say its fair to say it aint boosting properly.dont think im being stupid. thanks anyway for your input.

 

Could be a issue somewhere else as you said yourself the turbo wasn't seized.
Sorry I thought you meant no boost at all. Now you say it not boosting properly. Hard to know unless you borrow a boost gauge to see what the car is actually boosting even at actuator pressure if the issue is the solenoid you should still feel a kick.

 

as a one time test, remove the pipe that connects to the wastegate actuater and put a screw in the end of it. Drive the car in second gear and floor it, if it rips ur face off then the problem is either the actuater or the boost solenoid, more than likely the solenoid, if still no boost then the circlip has come off or your turbo is f¥cked

 

thanks guys, only got a short while to look at car today. put a boost gauge on it and drove it up the road. was very strange,when it was coming on boost the gauge flickered up and down very fast from about 6psi back to 0. it kept doing this as i was excelerating and eventually the needle on the gauge calmed down and seemed to settle at 7psi, bit low im thinking. Il get more time tommorow to investigate more.

 

have you tried what i said? if not then try it, it will rule out your turbo, actuater or solenoid, which pipe have you tee'd the boost gauge into and check your dumpvalve, you should be making 14psi, i hope you get it sorted lyk theres nowt worse

 

hi, no didnt try what you said as only saw your post few mins ago. will try tommorow. I have a feeling its the boost controll solenoid. i took off the pipe going onto the wastegate and put a t-piece there and fitted gauge. ya it could also be my dump valve. its a bailey one and ive heard they give trouble.

 

ok so took pipe off the wastegate and drove it, car boosted way better. so took off my boost controll solenoid, hooked up a battery to it and it cliks everytime i power it up. cleaned it out with brake cleaner but what came out looked clean, cleaned all pipes and restrictor pill too. drove it again with all pipes connected,seemed a bit better but not perfect. checked power supply to bcs and i have 12v with ign on. my pipes are sard aftermarket dont know if there causing the prob,or even if the pill is the right one.

 

So turbo and boost solenoid and dumpvalve are ok. From previous heart ache i can tell u that aftermarket boost control pipes are a pain in the ****. Try a zip tie around the pipe where the pill is to stop the pipe expanding around the pill, or just refit the standard ones, if that doesnt fix it then the pill may be wrong