Vacuum leak! Help!

[D Money]

So my car threw a check engine light, it's back firing alot, and the car stalls or shuts off when I am at idle or red lights, although it drives fine. I was told it was most likely a vacuum leak.

I checked almost everywhere! I can't find any hoses disconnected or with any cracks in it. I will redo some of my i/c piping couplers hoping that's the problem, but they all look good.

The only thing I could find was near the intake manifold and turbo inlet there is a evap sensor or something, that's what I think it's called. Well it has alot of vacuum lines running off of it and near the back, there was a blue "T" fitting and it only had two lines off of it, and the one end was exposed with no hose attached to it. I couldn't find a hose anywhere that was disconnected but then I was told that since my bov was atmospheric that there shouldn't be a line connected there. Can anyone confirm? I also played with the hose coming off the bov and pushed it on more with the car running and it made a hissing noise as if there was air coming out when I touched it. I gotta look into that more, but could that be the problem? It doesn't make any noise unless I move or touch it. haha

Does anyone know how I might find this problem? Where else should I be looking?

If you want to take a stab at it, i'd be more than willing to be your best friend if you can figure it out. I'd pay $$ or pizza, or beer, or I can let you borrow a girl or something. haha

Please help!!!!!

[BradC]

Carb cleaner (non-chloronated). Spray some on the suspect area. If there is a leak, it will injest the carb cleaner, which will cause the idle to drop. Check around until you find it.

-or-

Take it to a shop with a smoke machine IIRC, R/T Tuning has one, but not sure how far Lansdale is from your area of NJ

edit - or you can make a boost leak tester. Google "boost leak tester", you will find many DSM sites showing how to make one.

[D Money]

thanks!

Updated with more info!

[assault187]

Boost leak test.

[Gregory]

You need a boost leak tester and an air compressor and you can find it yourself. You can make one for under $10. You want to hook it on the turbo inlet (or you can start back at the throttle body if you're not worried about the IC piping) and pump air in. Spray soapy water on any suspected hose or fitting and look for bubbles. If you loose the air quick, you probably have a leak, so keep looking untill you find out where it's going. Good luck.

[pearl]

if you have the time, take all your intercooler pipes off and put them on again.

[fastjim]

yo d if your by toms river ill take a look at it tonight for ya... let me know.

[D Money]

Originally Posted by Gregory

You need a boost leak tester and an air compressor and you can find it yourself. You can make one for under $10. You want to hook it on the turbo inlet (or you can start back at the throttle body if you're not worried about the IC piping) and pump air in. Spray soapy water on any suspected hose or fitting and look for bubbles. If you loose the air quick, you probably have a leak, so keep looking untill you find out where it's going. Good luck.

Yeah, that was what I was going to try next. So I just take the intake filter off and put air through the inlet and then check the hoses? That's ok to do, right?

I have off tomorrow so I will try that.

This is such a pain in the ass, though. haha!

Thanks everyone else, bump for more possible solutions.

[fastjim]

do you know what code number its setting? if not run up to an autozone and they check it for free..

[D Money]

yeah I am going to have my friend come check it with a code reader

[CarbonIS]

did u try loosening and tightening the IC clamps we talked about?

[D Money]

Originally Posted by CarbonIS

did u try loosening and tightening the IC clamps we talked about?

It was 11:30 lol, didn't get a chance to. I am at work til 7pm so I will try it tomorrow during the day. Are you still going to come over tomorrow if I can't figure it out. lol

[CarbonIS]

yeah i can still come

[Gregory]

Originally Posted by subwrxkid

Yeah, that was what I was going to try next. So I just take the intake filter off and put air through the inlet and then check the hoses? That's ok to do, right?

I have off tomorrow so I will try that.

This is such a pain in the ass, though. haha!

Thanks everyone else, bump for more possible solutions.

Is your air filter connected directly to your turbo? Than yes. If you have an inlet pipe, it should be okay, but generally you only want to pressurize the system that sees boost, so you don't pressurize something that's not meant to hold pressure, so hook it directly to the turbo if you can. You probably will want to turn the regulator on your air compressor down to about the amount of boost you run so you don't overpressurize your intake. It will take a little longer to pump up, but better safe than sorry. You can have someone watch your boost guage to see how long it takes to fall off to zero. Basically spray soapy water one whatever sees boost or vacuum.

[D Money]

I posted this thread on Nasioc and people are saying that the third part of that T fitting needs to have a hose off of it, and that would be my problem.

Someone also suggested to smoke a cigar and blow it into a vaccum line and look for smoke coming out in the engine bay. lol

[Gregory]

Originally Posted by subwrxkid

I posted this thread on Nasioc and people are saying that the third part of that T fitting needs to have a hose off of it, and that would be my problem.

Someone also suggested to smoke a cigar and blow it into a vaccum line and look for smoke coming out in the engine bay. lol

yea, i missed that. You need to cap that off, or idealy, run a hose from the first source to the second. This is assuming the missing hose is supposed to be missing and was mod related.

I hope the cigar thing was a joke lol

[D Money]

I found out the problem. That T fitting I found last night was the problem!

here is a diagram:

[Evo8kid]

who put a WRX engine in a hyundai elantra?

[MuddyREX]

D, your engine bay is WAY too clean. You need to get some mud up on that bitch.

:EDIT: Nevermind, that's not your car. But I bet your engine bay is still WAY too shiny.

[D Money]

^^haha I was about to say. That's a bone stock engine bay. Nice and clean, though.