Hey all,

I am having an issue that popped up this afternoon out of the blue. I am getting no turbo spool. At about 4500-5000 RPMs, it feels like my car goes into limp mode. I lose all power until I shift, and then I get marginal power until that RPM range again. The turbo is clearly not spooling. I havent changed anything on the car. On a 30 minute drive about 4 hours ago, the car was fine. I parked for about 30 minutes, and went out again and there was no power. It went from 100% (from what I can tell) fine, to just not working right.

Some details about the car. I have a forge FMIC, forge blow off valve, Akropovic DP, NM engineering exhaust (last mod that was done), Alta stage 3 tune. I went to the track last weekend and the car performed great. The only symptom I can think of is I have noticed recently that when my car idles at about 1k rpms, there is a slight surging. It will fall to 800 or so RPM's surge up to 1k, and then repeat. My initial impression was a boost leak. Another thing a friend noticed today was a strong exhaust smell at the turbo area when the hood was raised. He said that wasn't normal. I also smelled the exhaust. One thing I can think of is when I put on my downpipe, I had to remove the exhaust manifold to get the turbo off (long story short, an engine stud broke off in the turbo and I had to drill it out). So I purchased a new exhaust manifold gasket and put it back on. I made very sure to make sure the engine studs were tightened correctly and securely, although I will admit that I didn't torque them. I thought maybe I hadn't put the manifold on perfectly, but my logic is that I would have seen an issue before now if that was the case. These symptoms were so abrupt. One minute the car was fine, one minute I was getting no boost.

Any insight would be appreciated. I will be at the dealership tomorrow anyway getting a few spare clips for my grill, so I will ask them what they think. I am hesitant to have them take a look as this is a brand new 2012 clubman JCW with 5k miles on it. I dont want them to see all the mods and immediately say "your fault, you voided the warranty with all of these mods."

 

Run the codes on it, check to make sure a hose did not pop off, and also you might want to reflash it. Alta stage 3 is a little too aggressive and causes the car to boost cut which can throw your car into limp mode.

 

Get your car to a dealer or forum member who can read codes, otherwise you are guessing and will be chasing your tail.

Do you have the yellow engine light on or the half/diagonal yellow light?

My bet it is that the most likely culprit is the forge blow off valve, which is known to cause boost plausibility errors. By comparison the forge upgraded diverter valve is an excellent mod.

Again, I would reinforce the fact you need to get the codes. Even with the codes trouble shooting some of these is extremely difficult

 

Sounds like you may just be hitting boost cut/ or you could also just be shifting fast enough to jam the bpv.

 

*Update*

I pulled out of the driveway this morning to head to an appointment to get all of my chrome wrapped in CF vinyl (pics going up later), and the issue was still there. However, after driving for about 10 minutes, I decided to try again. Low and behold full boost was back. Now, I am not naive enough to think the issue is solved. I will be flashing to stock this evening and going for a good drive to see if I get some CEL's. I have an appointment tomorrow with the dealership to have the service department take a look. The service manager is a good friend of mine, so I am not worried about warranty issues, he will simply tell me what they find and how to fix it and I will be on my way. I am really hoping that I dont have to pull off the downpipe, turbo, and exhaust manifold again. That was a royal PITA. Hopefully it was just boost cut. I just received my scangauge 2, so I need to get it setup to monitor my boost pressure. What are normal numbers I should be looking at?

 

Was it a hotter day than usual?

 

Hi robbo,

Can you elaborate on this point a bit more?

 

Not at all. I has been very cool here on the east coast. I am in DC.

 

Also i didnt catch that part but if you have a venting bov you're bound to throw cells/timing cut due to lean conditions.

 

Im in dc too, who are you going to see? if you goto mini of alexandria see me buddy David rockwell, he'll take care of you.

 

Oh nice, we should definitely hang out and take the minis for a ride some day! I have always liked the look of your car.

I am headed to Mini of Montgomery county. I live about 20 minutes from there and I work just around the corner. I am great friends with Bogdan, the service manager.

 

I know Bogdan, Tell him Federico says whats up. Cool guy

 

Will do,

I am actually stopping in to see him in about 20 minutes. One of my headlight washer chrome pieces broke today -____-

 

Bogdan says Hi Federico =) I have also confirmed that it is an exhaust leak at the DP. Sigh... Guess I know what I am doing this weekend.

 

But it seems too inconsistent to just be a dp leak, that would be a degradation of performance but it would be constant. You say it comes and goes which leans towards electrical.

 

From what Bogdan told me, the computer is reading the exhaust and it reacted last night by putting me into limp mode. Its clear I have a leak as the smell of exhaust is overpowering right at the turbo when my hood is up and even when its not I can smell the exhaust driving down the road.

 

Happy to help.

Forge offers 2 different products

This is the one you want

http://www.forgemotorsport.com/conte...product=FM207V

This upgrades the oem diverter valve, which is prone to failure. Once installed this is pretty much bullet proof, and will not throw any codes on the car, as it is replacing the stock item. It still recirculates the air as the oem dv does

This is the one you don't want

http://www.forgemotorsport.com/conte...roduct=FMDVMCS

Instead of recirculating the boost air this simply dumps it to the atmosphere. This makes a satisfying "whoosh" sound, but freaks out the computer. Under light driving you might get away with this, but under any aggressive driving or racing this will almost certainly trigger codes and limp modes.

Robbo

 

Hi Robbo,

I have the first product =)

 

As much as i like bogdan, i disagree. The accessport will trump any exhaust voltage checks. I had a turbo manifold leak for months and would still hit full boost(slower). The problem is up stream. The bov(low probability)/ limit cuts. Id have to experience it to be able to say for sure.

So you cant replicate the issue?

Is it intermittent?

Did it start after a certain mod?

Temp dependent?




Either way they'll get you straight. You ever kick it with him and his folks?

 

Well, intermintent would imply that its happened more than once. It has not. That was the first time it happened and has since resolved. I continue to get full boost. I havent done anything to the car mod wise in months, so I cant think of anything that would just NOW be popping up as an issue. I will try to replicate. I will leave stage 3 on for now to see if it happens again. If it does, I will go down to stage 2 and see if it still happens. As far as temps go, I need to get my scan gauge setup to monitor and log the temps. I doubt this is the case though as I had this exact same setup during the summer months and was tracking the car with no issues.

And not yet, we are planning some track time for next season. I know he wants to get his Z06 out there more. He was disappointed with how little track time he got this year. How often do you track your mini?

 

Im a track junkie... but on 2 wheels lol. Have yet to track the mini but i will this up coming season. Ive tracked all my previous cars so its just about timing.







BTW: You may have just gotten your pbv stuck during a shift. You have the forge unit so i cant say for sure, but i know sometimes if i shift too fast when at 21psi ill keep the bpv requiring me to let off the gas(to close it ) then back on.

 

Just log temps with your AP.

 

big, what do you use to monitor your boost?