The Project Pad

Go to a foreign place pepboys will likely only be able to get American bosch plugs which are crap.

um the non R are 7a's, try searchin autohausaz.com or google the fr6dtc to see what they came on

dealership? then play dumb and jsut keep repeating fr6dtc until they find some ahha

hrm ok ill check the local places and then make my way to the dealer if i need to

jsut play the dumb its my bro's car im the messanger and im not leaving til i get ( insert PN here) or he'll kill me

haha well i just got some champion ones for temporary. I have an unbelievable amount of things I need to do before 5:00 today, so I just got them until I can get some good ones from the dealer (which is quite far from me).

We'll see how she runs on my way to the gym in a few

loxxrider wrote: so I just got them until I can get some good ones from the dealer (which is quite far from me).

We'll see how she runs on my way to the gym in a few

hahahah youre in FL!! how far could the dealer be? try being here in NH or rural nowhere haahah

lol yeah its not that far really...but it seems far when your gas funds are as limited as mine are haha. I've been driving a Nissan Titan around for the past month or so thanks to the 200 being a BIOTCH. Kinda sucks the funds up. I can't wait for my pops to get home so I can drive his E36 around 33mpg and sweet torque, AC, and comfy FTW!!!

regardless, Ill get other plugs asap

so it definitely feels much better on these plugs. I'm sure with better plugs it would feel even better...the whole open wastegate thing on n75 is messing with my head. The car just sounds gross when it hits wastegate. I'm also not used to hearing it open practically before boost even hits.

I'm used to an MBC where the wastegate opens only near peak boost. This one opens all the time and because of its PWM nature, it just sounds weird as it fluctuates to keep the boost in check. I almost want to get a turbo xs or forge MBC and set it to stock boost levels just so it doesn't sound so poopy all the time.

It definitely doesn't feel like its stuttering though. Maybe just lacking in power a little, but I have to remember that its 50% humidity and 90 degrees out...and I'm used to 15psi spike on the standalone.


oh and I forgot to mention I gapped the new ones down to .026. They are just regular single tip copper plugs.

car ran great all night! besides the stupid open wg dump which just sounds stupid on this setup. I really want to reroute it if I can.

Anyway, it feels great being able to drive it again!

now if only I could get this FREAKIN standalone bullisht sorted out! :curses:

I had a little inspiration tonight, though I'm not sure where it came from. I didn't get to stay outside long because the mosquitos are so bad. Even with bugspray on I got bitten way too many times. I have probably accumulated 200 or so bites in the past month.

Anyway, I love walking out to my car when its under the cover (it hides the nasty 4x4 status I guess )...you wonder "hmmm what badass car could be lurking under there..."




finish isn't perfect on the fronts and they are pretty dirty, but they are still nice



yumm meat



and a peak at the goods...i had fun with the new stopping power last night with 4 friends in the car. Even with all the extra weight it managed to stop QUITE abruptly




now if only I could get it to stop rubbing when I have friends with me!

Car is in good shape still. I cant really be doing much with it right now as money is tight...but I'm planning on spending a few hundred on all the t-belt stuff including new crank cog, waterpump, idler etc.

Car will also be getting an alignment next week, and then whenever the timing belt stuff comes in I'll install a new CV boot since mine is torn. The patch with silicone is still working though haha.

Now that I think of it, car needs an oil change too.

Still have to cut holes in the door panels, etc. and still have to get the VEMS stuff sorted out.

Also still need to know what wires to short for the brakes so that I can stop the warning from coming on all the time.

need to get a new jack too, since mine started spewing oil on the floor.

So thats about it really. I may talk to 034 about their standalone...(if the VEMS doesn't get straightened out this time).

What sort of stuff needs sorted on the VEMS?

Well.................

I've had a LONG list of problems. Let me put it this way, I paid for the ECU last August. First it started with the firing order being rotated one cylinder. Then we were going to tune the car once we got it running, but the car was having really bad issues with cutting out. Come to find out that was the shift cut getting interference. Disabled it in megatune and it was fine. It was probably march by the time we figured this out

I was pretty happy with the car after that point even with a pretty crappy tune. It ran alright given the circumstances.

Well I finally got the time and money to go tune the car about a month ago. Thats right when it started having its current issues. I tried a new fuel pump and fuel pump relay thinking that was the problem. I actually thought it was fixed, so started to make the drive up to get it tuned. On the way the problems came back and started to get a LOT worse than ever before. The car would basically just shut off. After some diagnosing it seemed that ecu was actually losing power although this did not necessarily show in the logs. Just the gauges went pink while the computer was hooked up.

I dont know how to describe it any better than it was like the ignition was turned off while driving. It did this probably 30 times in a day of diagnosing. We put a new ground wire on the battery, made sure power to the coils was solid (we hooked it straight to the battery at some point and still same issue).

So in hopes of getting home from the tuning session (about a 40 mile drive), I put all the stock ecu stuff back on the car and it hasn't had a single problem ever since.

Sooo basically I have no idea wtf is going on, and neither does Kevin. He has offered to send the ecu back to Hungary to get some really intensive bench testing done and then if it doesnt work properly when I get it back, then he will refund my money.

The only thing I can say is that the launch control and shift cut features got burned out when this happened once. I dont see how thats possible because the shift cut is just wired to the clutch switch thru a toggle, and the launch control is just wired to the e-brake thru a toggle.

so here I am nearly a year later with nothing to show for my money.

oh and one more thing that I forgot to ask...where to get r12 to r134 fittings?? My car was supposedly converted, but the compressor doesnt have the adapter on it. I am assuming that wherever the high side fill point is also doesnt have the adapter so I'd like to order them.

What are the thread size on the fittings? NAPA only carries non-metric ones. I'd love to just be able to order them soon so I can get some darn AC (its a slow leak and filling it will last a few months at least)

Car was acting up slightly today. It was around 92 degrees out and I attempted to get on it a bit in third gear. Car just didnt want to pull when it hit full boost. (like 8-10 psi)

It was kinda a high frequency stutter.

On the way back from work, it as about 78 degrees out because it had been raining the whole time, and it felt "normal" again.

When its hot out my car SUCCCKKKSS with the stock IC, u dont think it was ultra bad heat soak?

Nah, its not heat soak because it happens even on the first pull.

I do believe its heat-related though. I have been on it a lot for the past few days testing my theory out. If its over 90 degrees, the car runs like ass when it hits full boost.

Sub 90 degrees (like even when it was 87 on the way home from work today), it runs just fine. lol I have multiple instances of each case, so I'm really not too worried about it. I guess its just some protection from the ecu or something. No idea really.

loxxrider wrote:Nah, its not heat soak because it happens even on the first pull.

I do believe its heat-related though. I have been on it a lot for the past few days testing my theory out. If its over 90 degrees, the car runs like ass when it hits full boost.

Sub 90 degrees (like even when it was 87 on the way home from work today), it runs just fine. lol I have multiple instances of each case, so I'm really not too worried about it. I guess its just some protection from the ecu or something. No idea really.

Does VEMS have a pressure based dwell multiplier or a mechanism to increase dwell with boost?

My guess is your spark is going out due to the increased combustion pressure and from increased temp based coil resistance increase.

ah sorry, I should have stressed that the car is on stock ecu right now because BOTH of my VEMS ECU's suck donkey dicks :(

Is Mr. Atwood going to do anything about it?? It really sucks you have had all these issues with it..

Mr. Atwood?

Yeah, it does suck. Basically I have to send one of the ECU's back to Hungary. If I get it back and it works flawlessly, then good. If something is still wrong, then I have been promised my money back.

Woops sorry i was thinking jeff atwood lol, a buddy of mine is in the process of getting his VRT jetta tuned by him and i got the two mixed up :bashtard:

Well hopefully this time is the charm.

OK then pull the plug wires and look for arc trails across the plug ceramic.

Also could be one or more coils is failing (dielectric breakdown).
Higher temps and higher pressures require a higher coil voltage to ensure that an arc can occur across the gap.
If it cannot arc across the gap, it will find another less convenient location to arc.

Gotcha...maybe the plug wires then?

Which totally sucks because I shouldn't even have to be using the old crappy plug wires right now. Although I suppose I could just use the ones that I use for the coils. hmmm...duh haha

Car is just running on the OE coil for now. I'll def pull the plugs and look tomorrow. Thanks!!