Houstinger1
Member
Guys, I am having some issues with my 2018 GT2 AWD, and I need some help. This is going to be a little bit long because of all the changes, issues, and observations. Apologies in advanced.
First week I got the car, I got a K&N intake. Not long after, I got the JB4 with fuel wires used and hooked it up. No issues there and has been running great on Map2 with 93 octane. Fast forward about a year, and I got a catback installed. So far, so good. Until I blew not 1 but 2 plugs. I bought some replacements, gapped them at 0.26, and had them installed.
After doing a little looking around, I found a place not too far from me that sells e85. Seeing as I had the JB4, I decided to mix a little in with a tank of 93. So the next time I needed some gas, I stopped by this station, put in 5 gallons of E85, and then the rest 93 octane. I put it in map 3 and… meh? Not much of a difference. I talked to Will who thought I needed to test the ethanol. So I got a Fuel It sensor and hooked it up to the JB4. The install was not super successful initially; I installed the Fuel It sensor backwards. After I figured it out and swapped it around (and with the help of Terry on the forums with the correct pin placement) I was able to confirm that the JB4 and the Fuel IT sensor were seeing the same ethanol content, e30. So I hadn’t mixed it incorrectly. Again, tried map 3 and was underwhelmed.
Will suggested I get a draggy to help provide quantifiable performance data while tuning. So I did. And the results were not impressive. 0-60 in 5.4 in map 0, 5.3 in map2 & 3. So I switched back to 93 octane, and the car felt better. Did another tank of e30 and map3, and this time really pushed it. After 60mph, the car would flutter and the JB4 would fail to map 0 with the error “fuel pressure.” Sent Terry the logs and did some back and forth runs with his input. He had me lean the car out as much as he felt comfortable. No real change. Terry’s comment was that some cars tend to not like going over 20psi, and that mine appeared to be one of them.
Given that the JB4 was reporting a fuel issue and since I am in Houston, I went directly to Spool and Eurocharged to get the HPFP and LPFP pumps installed. Since I am also in Houston and it is frequently 95-100 degrees, I also got a full WMI setup from Burger. I had the shop install the WMI and the fuel pumps at the same time. I gave them an ipad where I loaded the JB4 app on to it so they could test and tune with it while I kept my phone with me. With more fuel pressure, more fuel, and a JB4 to add more boost, I was set!
Or so I thought. Once I got the car home, it smelled of gas. Spool said it could be a KPFP gasket and that they would tow it in. ok cool. After that was fixed up, I was driving it home, and the performance just kept getting worse and worse and worse. I never saw any real gains from the WMI or the fuel system upgrades. We are talking, after the 30 minute drive home, it was driving like my grand mothers 84 crown Victoria. The logs of the worse runs were screaming about high IAT’s, close to 130. Which was odd since I had a WMI setup and was running 50/50 additive. It should be cooler, right? Additionally, the HPFP and fuel trim corrections were there. Tried map 7, map 6 with some of Terry’s previous suggestions. Increasingly worse performance. Once almost home, I was running mainly in map 0 because the JB4 kept safety closing (if that’s the right term). With map 0, taking the JB4 out of the equation, it was still running like poo.
So I drove it back to Eurocharged the next day. We got the ipad out so he could see while I drove. LOTS of super rich AFR, fuel trims, and throttle closures. HARD throttle closures. When it wasn’t doing that, it was still fluttering some. We tried map 2, map 3, map 7, map 6. Still pig rich at like 10:1. The next morning, I drove it home, and the same thing. After I let it sit and the IAT’s dropped, it was better, but still far worse than stock. Closer and closer to home, it got bad worse again, so I set the WMI threshold to 23 psi to essentially disable it, returning the car to stock as much as possible. Next day, same thing, but this time the car finally through a code. P0049. I cleared the code, but I am afraid to drive it for fear of further damaging the engine. The smell of gasoline has returned, but very faint and only when the car is on. Eurocharge suspects it could be a bad injector due to the fuel smell.
At this point, I am at a loss. I do not think anyone’s advice or actions (other than my own) damaged my car, and that the cumulative set of changes I have done, instead of helping, has only exacerbated an underlying mechanical issue. What that is, I am at a loss. What to do, I don’t know. I am leaning towards taking it into a dealer asking for mercy. I do not want to revert to stock, I don’t want to give up, but I don’t know where to go at this point. I have attached the last set of logs with it car running on map 0. Has a few pulls in one combined log. I do have several others from the week prior if anyone thinks that can help.
As an aside, prior to my first tank of e30, my car was the test car for Spool for their HPFP to see if it would work on our cars. As payment, they gave me some dyno pulls. With my AWD GT2, intakes, the JB4, map 2, 93 octane 81F, I got 377HP and 427HP. Fairly standard and unremarkable. Should I have been higher? Have I had an underperforming engine that I have pushed too far?
To anyone that finished this, thank you for reading. Any help is appreciated.
First week I got the car, I got a K&N intake. Not long after, I got the JB4 with fuel wires used and hooked it up. No issues there and has been running great on Map2 with 93 octane. Fast forward about a year, and I got a catback installed. So far, so good. Until I blew not 1 but 2 plugs. I bought some replacements, gapped them at 0.26, and had them installed.
After doing a little looking around, I found a place not too far from me that sells e85. Seeing as I had the JB4, I decided to mix a little in with a tank of 93. So the next time I needed some gas, I stopped by this station, put in 5 gallons of E85, and then the rest 93 octane. I put it in map 3 and… meh? Not much of a difference. I talked to Will who thought I needed to test the ethanol. So I got a Fuel It sensor and hooked it up to the JB4. The install was not super successful initially; I installed the Fuel It sensor backwards. After I figured it out and swapped it around (and with the help of Terry on the forums with the correct pin placement) I was able to confirm that the JB4 and the Fuel IT sensor were seeing the same ethanol content, e30. So I hadn’t mixed it incorrectly. Again, tried map 3 and was underwhelmed.
Will suggested I get a draggy to help provide quantifiable performance data while tuning. So I did. And the results were not impressive. 0-60 in 5.4 in map 0, 5.3 in map2 & 3. So I switched back to 93 octane, and the car felt better. Did another tank of e30 and map3, and this time really pushed it. After 60mph, the car would flutter and the JB4 would fail to map 0 with the error “fuel pressure.” Sent Terry the logs and did some back and forth runs with his input. He had me lean the car out as much as he felt comfortable. No real change. Terry’s comment was that some cars tend to not like going over 20psi, and that mine appeared to be one of them.
Given that the JB4 was reporting a fuel issue and since I am in Houston, I went directly to Spool and Eurocharged to get the HPFP and LPFP pumps installed. Since I am also in Houston and it is frequently 95-100 degrees, I also got a full WMI setup from Burger. I had the shop install the WMI and the fuel pumps at the same time. I gave them an ipad where I loaded the JB4 app on to it so they could test and tune with it while I kept my phone with me. With more fuel pressure, more fuel, and a JB4 to add more boost, I was set!
Or so I thought. Once I got the car home, it smelled of gas. Spool said it could be a KPFP gasket and that they would tow it in. ok cool. After that was fixed up, I was driving it home, and the performance just kept getting worse and worse and worse. I never saw any real gains from the WMI or the fuel system upgrades. We are talking, after the 30 minute drive home, it was driving like my grand mothers 84 crown Victoria. The logs of the worse runs were screaming about high IAT’s, close to 130. Which was odd since I had a WMI setup and was running 50/50 additive. It should be cooler, right? Additionally, the HPFP and fuel trim corrections were there. Tried map 7, map 6 with some of Terry’s previous suggestions. Increasingly worse performance. Once almost home, I was running mainly in map 0 because the JB4 kept safety closing (if that’s the right term). With map 0, taking the JB4 out of the equation, it was still running like poo.
So I drove it back to Eurocharged the next day. We got the ipad out so he could see while I drove. LOTS of super rich AFR, fuel trims, and throttle closures. HARD throttle closures. When it wasn’t doing that, it was still fluttering some. We tried map 2, map 3, map 7, map 6. Still pig rich at like 10:1. The next morning, I drove it home, and the same thing. After I let it sit and the IAT’s dropped, it was better, but still far worse than stock. Closer and closer to home, it got bad worse again, so I set the WMI threshold to 23 psi to essentially disable it, returning the car to stock as much as possible. Next day, same thing, but this time the car finally through a code. P0049. I cleared the code, but I am afraid to drive it for fear of further damaging the engine. The smell of gasoline has returned, but very faint and only when the car is on. Eurocharge suspects it could be a bad injector due to the fuel smell.
At this point, I am at a loss. I do not think anyone’s advice or actions (other than my own) damaged my car, and that the cumulative set of changes I have done, instead of helping, has only exacerbated an underlying mechanical issue. What that is, I am at a loss. What to do, I don’t know. I am leaning towards taking it into a dealer asking for mercy. I do not want to revert to stock, I don’t want to give up, but I don’t know where to go at this point. I have attached the last set of logs with it car running on map 0. Has a few pulls in one combined log. I do have several others from the week prior if anyone thinks that can help.
As an aside, prior to my first tank of e30, my car was the test car for Spool for their HPFP to see if it would work on our cars. As payment, they gave me some dyno pulls. With my AWD GT2, intakes, the JB4, map 2, 93 octane 81F, I got 377HP and 427HP. Fairly standard and unremarkable. Should I have been higher? Have I had an underperforming engine that I have pushed too far?
To anyone that finished this, thank you for reading. Any help is appreciated.
. Most of us gap between .022 - .024, Burger recommends .022. Why did you choose to go .026? 
Or show it but don’t give it. If it did it on map 0 (or whatever the stock map is) show that log to them you can say the JB4 is simply a log tool. I don’t know just thinking out loud. Good luck and keep us posted. Cheers
