65 replies to this topic

[B4TT]

You should get the tune for free for your troubles

No.

Glad that they are going to sort it out for you dude! I had the engine pop in my B4.

Can't say I have ever heard of an insurance company covering mechanical faults before - pretty awesome if they did that for you Nik but it is not common place for them to cover that.

As some of the other said, lucky it happened there and not on the road somewhere.

[krazynayba]

Sean did actually mention that he'll re-do the tune at no extra cost to help me out

It's a shame that the engines seem to go so easily but I blame myself for not being strict enough with the service history, which did have quite a large hole in it. Somewhere between impatience because I needed a car and just enjoying how it drove I chose to overlook it. At least I know to be more careful in future. That being said, even with regular servicing I've heard B4's are known to pop, but nonetheless a lack of servicing would no doubt speed up the process.

I just hope that no other major problems manifest after the repairs. The car really is a joy to drive, despite the fact it was horribly underpowered (without me even knowing). Hopefully I can make the car last long enough to save for a brand new GT

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[B4TT]

That is freaking awesome of them dude! nice.

[migoreng]

Ouch. I own a stock b4 and do keep the boost down when the weather is around 30degrees or higher...

Pulse racing quoted me just over $1100 for a tune.

what fuel and oil do you use? Ive decided to stay with penrite hpr5 5w40 and bp ultimate 98...im glad my engine doesnt burn or leak too much oil. I believe only half a litre is lost every 6250km.

my engine sounds fine on cold starts and when idling before turning off. Only thing is when I really push it, boost randomly gets limited to 0.5 bar or about 7 psi. Im getting a few tinging/tick/ heatshield loose? noises randomly when i put my foot down to accelerate quickly. Usually happens in 2nd gear starting from about 3500rpm.. in 3rd gear, there's too much wind noise to hear the tinging noise if there is any.


Im not after loads more power, just wish to get a smoother power curve and get rid of as much valley of death as possible. Lol

[Liberty]

Sean did actually mention that he'll re-do the tune at no extra cost to help me out
 

 

Awesome bonus! That's some awesome customer service if you ask me. At least you'll save a fair bit of cash now.

[B4TT]

Paul at Pulse did my tune, did a good job as far as I am concerned.

[Liberty]

I might use Pulse Racing when the time comes to get my car tuned... Are there any others around the area that come recommended?

[krazynayba]

 
Awesome bonus! That's some awesome customer service if you ask me. At least you'll save a fair bit of cash now.

Yeah I'm pretty happy with that considering it's gonna cost me so much already.

I've asked Sean to go ahead with the repair and he said he'll get his guys started on it shortly. Fingers crossed it all goes well. Thankfully my dad and older bro got an Accord we have here up and running so at least there's something I can use in the interim

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[Cam.]

Pulse racing tunes are good.

[Liberty]

Nice. And they're not far away at all! Thanks for the recommendation Cam.

[SAV84C]

Ouch. I own a stock b4 and do keep the boost down when the weather is around 30degrees or higher...

Pulse racing quoted me just over $1100 for a tune.

what fuel and oil do you use? Ive decided to stay with penrite hpr5 5w40 and bp ultimate 98...im glad my engine doesnt burn or leak too much oil. I believe only half a litre is lost every 6250km.

my engine sounds fine on cold starts and when idling before turning off. Only thing is when I really push it, boost randomly gets limited to 0.5 bar or about 7 psi. Im getting a few tinging/tick/ heatshield loose? noises randomly when i put my foot down to accelerate quickly. Usually happens in 2nd gear starting from about 3500rpm.. in 3rd gear, there's too much wind noise to hear the tinging noise if there is any.


Im not after loads more power, just wish to get a smoother power curve and get rid of as much valley of death as possible. Lol

 

Is that Pulse tune or EcuTeck tune?

 

Paul quoted me $550-650 for a retune

 

Pulse racing tunes are good.

 

Mine is done there and its pretty good, runs it a little rich at full boost though...

[migoreng]

^ Paul said pulse edit.

[krazynayba]

Hi All,

 

So after a couple of weeks without my beloved B4 I finally got it back today! Sean was really helpful and ended up doing the bearing replacement for $3k total. He said it was more cost-effective to just put new conrods in (rather than grinding the current ones) so he got some left over from a 2000 and something sti wrx - he said that they usually have these left over as rex owners tend to swap them out for forgies (he said these particular ones were brand new). He also put a second hand crankshaft in (which might have also been from an sti wrx, I cant quite recall) rather than grinding mine back.

 

He re-did the tune for me - my stock power was still only 94kW, so it's likely something else is causing my lack of stock power i.e. it wasn't the bearing necessarily. He was able to get it up to 138kW on the dyno, which I'm pretty happy with considering the increase from 94kW. He said in other B4's he usually has room to up the boost a bit, but he wanted to play it safe on mine in the unlikely event we ended up with another mess like last time (which was quite responsible of him).

 

The driving experience is significantly different, yet it's difficult to notice much difference in acceleration. However, I have definitely noticed that the acceleration is much more "linear" and consistent, which makes it more comfortable to drive. With the stock tune it used to accelerate in a different fashion every time I put my foot down, and instead of a consistent, powerful pull, it was more of a "violent yank" forward. The "yank" never occurred at consistent times and was rather unpredictable. 

 

Anyway, thanks for your support everyone! I really do appreciate the advice people have given and love the community here on subyclub I'll leave you all with one last question - If the issue was fixed up and my engine still only pulled 94kW, what could be causing the engine to be lacking in power? I know this can vary wildly, but is it more likely to be the cylinders/pistons? Perhaps the head could do with a recondition? Or perhaps it could just be something to do with a sensor on the car? I don't want to obsess over it, but it would be nice to unleash the full potential of this car

[TSG]

Glad to hear it went well. I don't know jack about tuning, but 138kw atw is ok considering he was playing it safe... I've seen a few dyno runs (just google B4 dyno sheet) on these in stock form and they usually only get about 140-150kw atw, then if you push them you can see 160-170 - the lucky ones see more than that and it takes a fair bit of work to get to the magic 200 - not worth it with the twin turbos for most people. I'd say if everything is working correctly you might have to check for boost leaks or look into opening up the exhaust a bit to push a bit more power out of it.

 

Wouldn't they have cleaned the sensors and serviced the motor in the rebuild, they probably even looked at the heads when it was apart?

[Morgan]

Good to hear she's running again!

[allpaw4]

For 3k, I doubt much was intently looked at. They would have been given a once over look just to check there wasnt anything wrong, but no big looks would have happened. I'd say it may just be a monday/friday motor as they say.

Clean all the sensors you can get to, reset the ECU and see what happens. Also, just for a trial, get a hold of some 8 guage amp wiring. Make up an earthing kit to run across the top of the engine. For $50 worth of cable (cheaper if you know someone) you may be suprised.

Also, look into servicing the black box of death. Might be a sticky solenoid not fully opening or something. While thats being done, clean out all the vac lines that lead to it/come from it. Make sure you use CO contact cleaner. DO NOT use NF. NF cleaner is not plastic friendly, and will make things brittle (and snap when you put it back together) or melt things.

 

Cheers,

Ben

Oh - spend the 250 bucks or what ever and have your injectors cleaned. May be a dirty injector not delivering enough fuel.

[krazynayba]

For 3k, I doubt much was intently looked at. They would have been given a once over look just to check there wasnt anything wrong, but no big looks would have happened. I'd say it may just be a monday/friday motor as they say.

Clean all the sensors you can get to, reset the ECU and see what happens. Also, just for a trial, get a hold of some 8 guage amp wiring. Make up an earthing kit to run across the top of the engine. For $50 worth of cable (cheaper if you know someone) you may be suprised.

Also, look into servicing the black box of death. Might be a sticky solenoid not fully opening or something. While thats being done, clean out all the vac lines that lead to it/come from it. Make sure you use CO contact cleaner. DO NOT use NF. NF cleaner is not plastic friendly, and will make things brittle (and snap when you put it back together) or melt things.

 

Cheers,

Ben

Oh - spend the 250 bucks or what ever and have your injectors cleaned. May be a dirty injector not delivering enough fuel.

Yeah you're probably right - was more just a "fix what was wrong" thing. After taking it for a proper spin in some higher speed limit areas I definitely can notice the power increase. I really love the more consistent acceleration too - it's really easy to hold a particular speed now whereas previously the inconsistent, jerky acceleration made it a little difficult. My major service is -technically- due as i'm at around 149,000, but I just had them do a minor service and they said to get a major at the next interval. Perhaps then they'll be able to have a comprehensive look over the car? I don't think they looked at the head at all, probably just removed it to get to the bottom end

 

Just a few more questions:

1. What are boost leaks? Would these be detected on the dyno when they do the turbo pressure testing?

2. After cleaning the sensors is it alright to reset the ECU if it has been tuned?

3. What would an "earthing kit" do? What does it earth?

4. What does the "black box of death" refer to?

 

I'm pretty happy with the car as is for the time being - So long as it doesn't die on me I'll be content When I go in next for the major service I'll see if they can maybe check if there's anything that could be holding back some hidden power Next project for the car is to install a decent sound system and a Nexus 7 in the dash (got most of the parts for it and have tested it outside of the car but haven't had the time to work on it).

 

Thanks again guys

[allpaw4]

Boost leaks are exactly that - under boost, pin holes in hoses or loose worm clamps, something that would normally be closed off (ie on the rubber piece between intercooler and throttle body) will leak a bit. I had it on my engine once - I forgot to do up one of the worm clamps, and under positive pressure (boost) it would leak air. Things like this. Look around for any obvious signs like soot/oil residue on any of the inlet tract or manifold. I never took a photo of it, but it was pretty obvious when I did look around the engine.

Certainly is. You aren't reseting the tune as such, more so the learnings of the ECU. Reseting it back to how Sean gave it to you.

The earth kit just gives the sensors a more direct earth. It can cause issues with eddy currents, but generally it will do more positive than negative. Giving sensors clean earths will let the ECU read a cleaner signal. I'll post up a photo later today if I get a chance to show where I put mine. It should be noted here that on most dyno tests I've read about concerning this, these kits give a real, measureable 3 to 5 kw atw.

The BBOD is the black box mounted against the LH strut tower. There is a lot of vac lines connected to it. It holds all the solenoids that control the twin turbo system.

[nickknack]

I would be worried about something causing that loss of power - mine makes 145kw atw with a tbe and on the stock tune.