Check your plenum bolts if you have a spacer
#1
Check your plenum bolts if you have a spacer
Lately, I've been having issues with my car. It felt like it was losing a lot of power for some reason and my car's idle was irratic (normall it is at 600 rpm but started to dip down to 200 rpm and almost [but not completely] stalled). This incident occurred after I cleaned my Amsoil nano air filter (which I don't recommend btw - no matter how you clean it, it will still have dirt trapped in the folds and won't come out).
Other symptoms were that when I was cruising at 80mph on the highway, all the sudden my RPM dropped by 2000 RPMs and my engine felt like it got bogged down. Also, when I gunned it, my car would not take off like it used to and struggled to gain acceleration. I was a really unhappy camper.
So just now, I replaced my air filter with the K&N air filter again and while I was at it, I decided to check my plenum bolts to make sure they didn't loosen. To my freaking astonishment, the bolts were ALL LOOSE. I mean seriously loose!!! When I took my torque wrench to it, it turned freely. I retorqued them to 100 inch/lbs. I also torqued the bolts to those specs when I initially installed the spacer.
My recommendation is that anyone with a spacer periodically check to make sure the bolts are torqued to the proper setting.
Good news is that my car drives like a bat out of hell again. It is like I breathed new life into the motor.
Other symptoms were that when I was cruising at 80mph on the highway, all the sudden my RPM dropped by 2000 RPMs and my engine felt like it got bogged down. Also, when I gunned it, my car would not take off like it used to and struggled to gain acceleration. I was a really unhappy camper.
So just now, I replaced my air filter with the K&N air filter again and while I was at it, I decided to check my plenum bolts to make sure they didn't loosen. To my freaking astonishment, the bolts were ALL LOOSE. I mean seriously loose!!! When I took my torque wrench to it, it turned freely. I retorqued them to 100 inch/lbs. I also torqued the bolts to those specs when I initially installed the spacer.
My recommendation is that anyone with a spacer periodically check to make sure the bolts are torqued to the proper setting.
Good news is that my car drives like a bat out of hell again. It is like I breathed new life into the motor.
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#8
Originally Posted by Philly_G35
I just checked mine this past weekend and they were all loose. I did not receive thread lock with my spacer or remember being instructed to do so. I guess I will have to pull it back apart and add some thread lock. I did torque them down in the proper sequence as well.
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I doubt the Amsoil filter was causing any sort of problem. For the lodged particles, did you try using compressed air and flowing from the non-filtering side? I believe that is the recommended procedure. The driveability issue was most definitely caused by a slight vacuum leak with the loose bolts. Mine are holding fine with 100 in/lbs and no thread locker. I'd be a little worried about using thread locker on a low torque, super brittle bolt.
#12
Originally Posted by DaveB
I doubt the Amsoil filter was causing any sort of problem. For the lodged particles, did you try using compressed air and flowing from the non-filtering side? I believe that is the recommended procedure. The driveability issue was most definitely caused by a slight vacuum leak with the loose bolts. Mine are holding fine with 100 in/lbs and no thread locker. I'd be a little worried about using thread locker on a low torque, super brittle bolt.
#14