I just got a new turbo and 3 inch turbo back exhaust. then I run into this problem. car is 1985 S12 200sx.
OK, when I 1st start the car, it didn’t go to the warm up mode at all. then the vacuum on the boost gauge is not at the very left but at the left edge or middle of the 1st bar on the vacuum side. I have autometer boost gauge, and before I got this new turbo and exhaust it always goes to the warm up mode and vacuum reads at below 20 (20-22) in-Hg on the boost gauge. now it’s between 15-12 in-Hg when the engine is cold. when the engine is warm it’s fine. Today was a cold and rainy day, so it should go to the warm up mode.
then there is the drive/cruise problem. it feels like the car getting too much fuel randomly. It’ll buck/miss now and then . it feels like when you just learn manual transmission and you buck the car. not that drastic; it is very subtle but you can feel it (another benefit of blown shocks). it happens at random around 2.5k-3.5k rpm at partial throttle (1/8th maybe) or when speeding up very slowly and the turbo is just start spooling. to me it feels like the car is getting too much fuel.
what can be the problems and what are the solutions?
what does the vacuum pump do? when is it working?
This is what I did yesterday:
I tighten up the clamps on the charge pipe. I wanted to change that stock charge to TB hose w/ silicone, but it’s 2.25 instead of 2.5. so I just tighten the stock one to the max. I haven’t got a chance to look at the engine today as it rains all day, and I don’t have covered parking space.
i dont know if this will help, but on my B14 200SX, the car would randomly run maad rich during the warm up cycle. sometimes so much so, it would stall, flood and i would have to pull the fuel pump fuse to get it running. but it would also “buck” with richness the way u said.
obviously a B14 200 and an S12 200 share nothing but a name, however my symptoms were very similar. it turned out to be the engine temp sensor.
if the car is bucking while accelerating you usally have a boost leak i would check all your hoses and clamps first. A vacuum leak will affect your bucking under throttle and also your vacuum reading at idle.
Backpressure on a turbo’d car does mean something, especially depending on how far down the exhaust from the turbo your exhaust wastegate gets its feed from, but that’s a separate discussion. Like I said before, this is the least likely of the options.
My car produced similar problems a couple months ago. It turned out my Detonation sensor was on its way out. I would suggest it here but there’s no Detonation sensor on the S12. I fixed it in an hour with the Detonation sensor off of Alex’s last RB motor.