1.4 bar low boost and recent owner impressions

[Phil Rose]

At 10:14 AM -0800 1/28/04, Dan Cordon wrote:
>I've been following this thread, and if it were me, I'd be doing the 
>same things that have been suggested. Minus one thing.... Diagnosing 
>the low boost condition is tedious, so I'd want to check the actual 
>boost level before diving in to the troubleshooting.
>
>Even if you don't make a permanent home for your boost gauge, it may 
>be well worth your time to T in to the feed line for the ECU and 
>measure what pressure is getting there. If it's seeing something in 
>the 10 psi range then you're boost is just fine and it's the display 
>that's at fault. If it's in the 5 psi range, then you know your 
>digital display is okay (even if it's got horrible response time), 
>and it's time to continue with the troubleshooting.
>
>The few times my car has gone in to *low boost* mode (~1.3-1.4 bar I 
>believe) I can tell instantly. I don't think the 20V is all that fun 
>at 1.4 bar, which makes me wonder....if it really is fun, then you 
>may be getting full boost already.

Good advice, if he's planning to install another gauge anyway, now 
would be a good time to do it--to be sure.
That said, I've never heard of the dash display gauge being _that_ 
inaccurate. I wouldn't necessarily get too worked up about seeing 1.6 
bar without verifying with a good gauge-- but 1.4? That IMHO very 
likely indicates a real boost problem.

For sure, a '91 200q isn't that much fun at 1.4 bar, but the 
perception of 1.4 bar performance will depend on whether or not 
you've accustomed to full boost.

What's that old saying? Oh yeh:
  "I been _down_ so long that it seems like _up_ to me."

Phil
-- 

Phil Rose
Rochester, NY
mailto:pjrose at frontiernet.net