I cant feel boost kick in! Cars lacking power.

[jdm s13]

Hey guys. I'm from Australia and over the past few years I have been modding up my jdm S13 silvia with CA18DET.

The trouble with it now is that whenever the car hits boost I don't feel the G-Force anymore and the car lacks a hell of a lot of power yet my boost gauge goes up to 1 bar. Now a lot of people in Australia especially on nissansilvia.com are SR20 lovers and they hate the CA18 so I got the usual answers like "oh Seeee AYyyyyy, thats your problem" and silly answers like that.

My list of mods to the engine are

-T28 Ball Bearing from S15-Walbro fuel pump-FMIC-CA16DE intake cam-2.5" exhaust-OLD! HKS EVC EZ boost controller-GTR injectors-Z32 AFM-Dr Drift tune (don't know if you heard of him but down here he is the CA18 tuning god)

I run 1 - 1.1 Bar boost (~16 psi) and last tune it made 203.8rwkw and internals are bone stock.

So far I have checked for ECU codes, boost leaks and exhaust leaks. I checked the timing and on fully retard it sits over 20° BTDC for some reason.

Sorry for all the writing but any help would be greatly appreciated.

[articzap]

Best place to start would be to do a compression test.

[jdm s13]

I did one yesterday

If i convert from kpa to psi I get

#1 # 2 #3 #4158 162 159 162

Those figures are pretty good.

I'm now thinking blocked/melted cat? Would that make my car really sluggish?

[r34 gtr]

A blocked cat would do it. What timing do you get at idle? I also think your exhaust is a bit small, but thats just me.

Your compression is fantastic, no need to worry there.

Side note, do they even require a cat in Australia?

[ca18detgabby]

check your coil packs? they love to steal power

[float_6969]

Does it run fine otherwise? Tried pulling the codes from the ECU?

[jdm s13]

r34 gtr: I ordered in a decat pipe so ill bust off the old hi flow cat tonight. Yes down here we are as tight on emissions like up in America. $10k fine if your caught without a cat.

At idle with the CAS fully retarded it sits over 20° BTDC and I cant reduce it to 15.

ca18detgabby: The car doesn't seem to be missing but i guess it wouldn't hurt going over the coil packs again. Maybe this may motivate me to do the Bosch coil upgrade.

float_6969: yeah i pulled the codes from the ecu. I get code 55 which if i remember correctly means that everything is a-ok

What I might add now is ever since I upgraded to the T28bb the car does feel a hell of a lot slower than with the t25 on. But now its gotten worse but the turbo has minimal shaft play.

[jdm s13]

Put the decat pipe in to day and no difference. The old cat was a bit dusty so I'm sure it was on its way out. Any other suggestions guys?

[dattodude]

At idle with the CAS fully retarded it sits over 20° BTDC and I cant reduce it to 15.

Sounds like the timing belt may not have been installed properly?

I'm not asking you to pull it all apart, unless you've been playing around with the timing belt.

Also possible, if you've busted the tongue off the cam, that the CAS is not on the right tooth on the exhaust cam. As you are running a CA16 intake cam, you might also be running a CA18 intake cam as your exhaust cam, it's very likely you are out a tooth. As you've played with the cams, did you follow the FSM exactly to get timing positions and belt pretensioner correct? many people lose the tensioner spring while doing the timing belt. (I did).

the unable to set 15 degrees, does worry me a bit.

[jdm s13]

yeah mate thats the thing. The previous owner put the belt on a few teeth off and thats why it wouldn't idle well. When i put the intake cam on i lined everything up to the TDC marks including the crank and both cams and i installed a gates performance timing belt which has those indicator marks that make it easier to put the belt on correctly.

I think your onto something. I know i have the stock DET exhaust cam but i never checked the key way for the cas.