Okay, so for today, lets speak about the one of the most common problems in turbo-charged engine industry:
the boost leak and the ways boost leak can be checked.
First of all, before we start discussing the ways of checking it, let's speak about the symptoms and the reasons why the boost leak may acquire.
We have couple for both of them, like
Symptoms:
Slow spool Loss of power Poor idle (MAF cars only) Erratic timing / Injector pulse (MAP cars only)
Possible reasons:
Weak coupler Cut/ripped vacuum line Loose clamp which either can't hold the boost at all or cannot support the amount of boost that you are trying to make.
Blown rubber / silicone coupler
Fortunately, none of this reasons is hard to solve and there are many methods which can be used to ease the finding of the boost leak, including a handy boost leak tester, and we'll cover them all down below, to make sure that you will find the issue fast and easily and you'll continue hauling ass.
Solutions:
1) Visual inspection of all couplers and clamps: This is the most common source for boost leaks, it usually happens after installing bolt-ons or other charge piping removal related modifications and we simply forget to tighten down all the clamps after finishing our project because of the excitement, fortunately that is not a big of an issue.
2) Using a boost leak tester
Still couldn’t find that annoying boost leak? No worries, there’s a tool called boost leak tester which does exactly what it is supposed to do. It is a great tool for those who aren’t experienced in car work and also for people who don’t want to spend the money taking the car to the nearest mechanical shop.
All you need to do is remove the turbo inlet and attach the tester in its place. Alternatively, attach an air compressor to the system and watch the machine build pressure. Now, simply listen for air leakages and mark them.
You can also use boost leak testers which build up boost with colorized smoke with which you can visually see where the leak is coming from and it is simply called boost leak smoke machine.
