Hey everybody, been a while since I've been on here. All the back and forth on tuning was a little frustrating (lots of technical issues with getting the log file to work properly). I did end up getting the tune driveable. I mostly lost interest, and I've just been driving the car as my DD.
Lately, I started getting a lot more 'tick, tick, tick' noise (actually a lot louder than a tick...) that you'd expect from an exhaust leak. The connection between the turbo and downpipe didn't look great, so I took that apart, new gasket, one new stud, new copper nuts. That didn't fix it.
The exhaust smell is pretty bad now, and last night I checked the exhaust manifold nuts. IF you read the rest of the thread, you know that one of my exhaust studs was already broken (cyl 5 - end of the manifold). Well - wouldn't you guess it, the stud at cylinder 1 broke off right at the block, too.
So, my next step is to either remove the cylinder head and get the studs extracted and threads repaired, drop in an entire different engine (B5244Tx probably), or donate this car and be done with it.
I'm leaning towards removing the head and repairing. I have a machine shop at work and they can easily handle the repair for me. The problem will be the downtime of having my DD out of commission. I may end up buying another DD so that I can take my time with this.
On the plus side - the AW51 transmission seems to be holding up fine with the increased HP/Torque. I still have the torque limit in 1st and 2nd gear. I have been doing periodic trans drain and fills.
Waiting for Hilton to get back to me if that’s normal / to be expected.
