Time for my yearly appearance on the forums. lol. Near the end of last summer I was pretty pissed with the car. Started having severe detonation issues under moderate boost and load. Then I couldn't build boost past 15 psi, or so I thought. My mechanical boost gauge, electronic boost controller, and ECU were all getting vacuum/boost readings from the same source line, and this line had a bad leak that was found when Lightspeed Innovations had the car to diagnose the issue. Originally it was thought to be a tuning problem. So, long story short, according to their explanation, the car was actually overboosting at 35psi, but the controller and electronics were only seeing 15psi because it was bleeding off so quickly at the leak. It was running fueling and timing for 15psi. Not good. I had personally done a leakdown test and compression test and things were very grim.
So, over the winter the motor came out again, another rebuild and repair job, and in she went. Got the car back a few weeks ago and I've been putting some break in miles on the freshly built motor...again. While I was waiting for some of the snow to melt I found some time to do some things I've been neglecting.
1-Removed the aftermarket boost gauge I had installed. I'll be going off my electronic boost controller's built in gauge function for this info.
2-Extended the wiring for my wideband O2 sensor gauge and placed it next to the steering column where the previous boost gauge was.
3-Removed the decrepit aftermarket alarm system and all related splices and wires.
4-Replaced the shifter-base bushings with nice solid units from Speed Source.
5-Replaced the front and rear engine mounts with poly inserts, again from Speed Source.
6-Replaced the front subframe bushings with solid aluminum ones...yes, again from Speed Source.
I've had those Speed Source parts sitting for a few years and it was nice to finally get them in. All in all the car feels a lot tighter and I didn't notice any excessive vibration or harshness. Another problem that I'm hoping to deal with is my faulty factory tach. When the car is cold and the weather is cold the reading is either nonexistent, or it reads VERY low. Highway speeds around 120km/h display an engine speed of usually 1500-2000RPM. As the car warms up, the gauge becomes more accurate. Here's a quick cel-phone shot of the wideband gauge in it's new home. The car is idling, cold, and as such the tach is reading 0RPM. Such a love-hate relationship I have with this car...