I picked up the car last night and I know one thing for sure, I own one of the most "leak free" 996TT's on the planet, after removing the engine Sol found 7 minor leaks and just to go the "extra mile" he staggered hose clamps, tightened everything, found some bad hose (thats another story), and fixed a small oil leak.

I had to see for myself so I bought a new sending unit and had it installed, The car now does show boost reading's up to 1.2 but according to the analog gauge these readings are a few psi off.

I think at the end of the day it was money well spent and now I need some ideas where to mount an analog gauge. As far as the tuner goes my only complaint is still that I was not told about this issue in the first place, and the fact he never called Sol or myself back during the 8 day's the car was at the shop even though the were several messages to do so. I am sure there must be a good reason for that though.............Right?

 

wow, that's a real bummer. I have heard this is pretty typical from evo. I've had some issues with them also, and it had taken a long time to resolve a simple problem. but was eventually handled. this is a perfect example of what can happen if you can't get satisfactory communications in a timely manner. look at it this way, it's only money and time.

 

Yea, Mine right!!!

 

Just to clarify I bought an Evo kit but it was not through Evo, I have had no real dealings with them directly.

 

I received an email from my tuner and was told he did try to return the call to Sol. At the end of the day I think the work Sol did was necessary because there were several leaks that needed to be fixed.

In my tuners defense I will say again I know it is hard to diagnose everybody's problems over the phone, but I guess if you are going to sell stuff over the internet you will get people being pissed when this kind of stuff happens.

I am taking my "leak free" car and driving off into the sunset now

 

Most TTs have small leaks we just don't even know about them...

glad you found them all ... Sol knows his stuff.
markski

 

After being alerted to this thread, and reading it today, I couldn't resist responding.

Here is the list of things that were wrong with Maximus' car, and what we did to fix them:

-The left wastegate actuater rod jammed when the nut hooked on the turbo's compressor housing during actuation. This probably caused the bent rod. It certainly caused an overboost. The computer recorded fault code p1249-overboost of 33 psi @4240rpm @78mph. We tweaked the rod slightly, fixing this MAJOR problem, exacerbated by an inaccurate boost gauge.

-The hard line to the diverter valves had a 'repair' that connected the hardlines with a soft (non-vacuum or heat rated) section of plastic tubing, which was sucked flat and closed from heat and vacuum. This delayed or prevented the diverter valves from opening when the throttle was closed.
This was easily fixed by replaing the 'non-spec' tubing with 'diverter valve spec' tubing.

-Leak testing the engine brought out at least a half dozen leaks, hissing loudly under less then 10 psi. We pulled the engine to repair all leaks. Pulling the throttle body and reseating the sleeves that attach the manifold to the throttle housing on the left side cured one major hiss. The plastic suction pipe leaked where it attached the aluminum plenum and was replaced, since we couldn't get the original plastic piece to seal. The 'F-hose' needed to be repositioned on one of the diverter valves, and several other smaller leaks were sealed tightly. With all of these leaks sealed, the engine was now silent during the leak test. Even at 18psi! However, none of these leaks were like blown off hoses, or major enough to limit boost. After the engine was back in the car, everything was leak tested again to make sure nothing was bumped or dislodged and everything was quiet and tight.

Now with the engine back in the car, it was clearly running better but showing only .9, never more. This was odd, since it was responding to actuater adjustments (set with air pressure). After turning the boost up, and feeling it, we attached the analog gauge and saw 20 psi! We set the actuaters to make 18psi and started calling the 'tuners'. I heard the boost gauge was basically inop from them. This was odd, since it was behaving correctly and just not getting past .9. We finally decided to change the boost pressure transducer (on the Y-pipe) to see if the gauge responded. It did. It reads low, but responds to boost. I believe that the xener diode makes the transducer's signal read about 12% low, to the gauge and the ECU. I may be wrong, but none of the 'tuners' gave me a better answer.
All we wanted was a straight answer on what the boost gauge was supposed to read after the diode mod. This turned out to be futile.

If troubleshooting over the internet worked, we wouldn't be here! Sometime, there are mechanical issues that have to be solved. That was the case here. We didn't install this kit at Perfect Power, nor did we sell it, or rebuild the engine. We often get these cars after everyone else has had their paws in them and we have to solve the problems by finding what they did wrong. I wish we could just wave a magic wand to fix these, but sometimes it's just time consuming. I guess this is where I should suggest that you just bring your cars here! We've been tuning 911s for 30+ years here.

The car runs great now. It needs a real analog boost gauge, but so do all of you who are believing the Porsche digital boost gauge. This thing shows boost, while you're still in vacuum! A real gauge is critical in a turbocharged car running higher than stock boost. It is your most important gauge. It will tell you faster than any other gauge when doom is near!

Sol Snyderman
www.perfectpowerinc.com (don't judge us by our website! It'll be updated soon.)

 

Ahmen Brother Sol