Bizarre Spark Plug/Turbo Issue - Boost Forum

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Bizarre Spark Plug/Turbo Issue
Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:21 PM
I am hoping that someone will have some answers for me on a really bizarre issue that I ran into yesterday night. To give you an idea on what led up to this....I had a turbo installed about 1 month ago and never had any problems with the car running. I never pushed the car to hard until I could afford to upgrade the exhaust. Yesterday, I had a custom 2.5 inch exhaust system installed right from the manifold back (high flow cat, magnaflow muffler, and tip). What a difference, my car had a nice rumble very similar to the dodge srt 4. When I picked the car up from the muffler shop, I let it warm up before I left. I took it easy for about two blocks and then decided to lean into the throttle a bit to see what it would do. I was very happy with the power that my car was displaying until I felt a faint 'pop'. My car died . I restarted my car and had to hold down the gas to keep it running until I could find a parking lot to pull into. I noticed that my car had very little power (barely made it over the curb) and that the turbo was not spooling. I listened to the engine for a bit and was happy to here no knocking or pinging, it was just idling very rough. I then got the car towed back to the guys that installed the turbo. They looked at my car today and found that the gap on all of the spark plugs had changed?!? Two spark plugs had 0 gap! My mechanic re gapped the plugs and took the car out for a test drive. As soon as he spooled the turbo, the car did the same thing as when I left the muffler shop. My mechanic is going to further investigate tomorrow but appears very confused as to why the gap in the spark plugs could have changed (spark plugs have been in the car for 2 years and were re-gapped by my mechanic after he installed the turbo kit)).

Has anyone ever heard of this happening? Any thoughts or ideas?

Saturn Ion 2.2 2004
Gude Turbo
2.5 Inch Exhaust (high flow cat, magnaflow muffler, and tip)

Re: Bizarre Spark Plug/Turbo Issue
Thursday, February 05, 2009 3:54 AM
Is it possible that there was detonation. Just cause you dont hear pinging or knocking doesnt mean there isnt any. What did you tune your car with? If the gap closed on the plug when you went into boost, first thing that jumps out is detonation.
Re: Bizarre Spark Plug/Turbo Issue
Thursday, March 05, 2009 9:38 PM
First off man... Change those plugs!!!! 2 Years is a bit much ... and then to throw boost at them could be bad..... if they happen to come apart then its all bad. What i did was i got ahold of NGK support found out what plug my car took, then went 2 numbers colder , this droped my EGT by like 200" F. And ya dose sound like detonation . PLEASE change them !



491whp, 393wtq
11.93@ 127mph
Raven Autosports (902)850-3330

Re: Bizarre Spark Plug/Turbo Issue
Wednesday, November 17, 2010 3:42 PM
most likely you just got too much pressure in your system and blew a vacuum line somewhere.. happened to me,, if your car doesnt detect the vacuum right it will idle terrible and die unless you give it lots of gas... hopefully this helps..
Re: Bizarre Spark Plug/Turbo Issue
Tuesday, December 07, 2010 9:31 PM
These plugs Your text to link here... gapped at 0.032. And for the love of god get it tuned by someone who knows what they're doing.


1994 Saturn SL2 Home Coming Edition: backup car
2002 Chevy Cavalier LS Sport Coupe: In a Junk Yard
1995 Mazda Miata R-package Class=STR
Sponsored by: Kronos Performance

WPI Class of '12 Mechanical Engineering
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