Just wanted to announce my membership into this exclusive club. Some of the leaks I had to tackle along the way incude:

-IC clamp
-some open vac lines
-bov gasket
-TB gaskets
-TB shaft seals
-injector seals to head
-turbo outlet gassket
-PCV valve (wasn't OEM... now it is)
-3 leaks at the FMIC endtank welds

I'm very happy that my car now holds 22 psi off my air compressor... even with my stock uncrushed 1G BOV .

Who else has successfully made it through this long process?

Not me, my intake system won't hold 1psi and while pumping in 30psi the boost gauge will only show 15psi, so I have some major leeks. But I still ran my best time with the leeks... I should really make an effort to fix them soon I guess...

Almost there...
Just need to do the shaft seals.

Out of curiosity:
If you have intake leaks and tune with an SAFC, would that tuning compensate for the richness caused by the leak and therefore you aren't burning away the rings? So, the leak is no longer a risk to your engine and only sacrifices performance? Can someone correct me if I'm wrong here? I just want to see if I can delay fixing my shaft seals indefinitely.

Mike,

When you do the test does it actually hold 22psi after youve stopped pumping air or does it slowly start falling off? Currently min holds 15psi and when I stop pumping air it slowly starts to fall. I presume this is normal?

I'm not sure as the nozzle I am using for my air compressor slowly leaks out air once I stop pumping it in. It's the only leak I can hear though.

If you tune with your logger and an S-AFC you can compensate for the air loss. But this still means your turbo is working harder and hotter then it should be.

So in theory If I pump it up and dont hear any leaking then I dont have any leaks, even though the pressure drops on the guage

...but the air has to be going somewhere if the pressure is falling off. If you don't hear it, then it may be internal. Take a faulty PCV valve as an example - the air would escape into the crankcase and out the breather into the intake tube you've disconnected. Since that's partially enclosed, you probably wouldn't hear it. I'm sure there are other examples, just can't think of them.

Like I said my air is slowly leaking out my nozzle. Ideally it should stay pressurised.

In the real world a slow leak that you can't hear is probably good enough.

Mike already knows I just recently joined this club myself but I'll let everyone else know as well, NO LEAKS I think mine was even holding close to 30 psi if I remember correctly.

DUMB QUESTION: whats the point of having a pcv valve if these things leak easily? would the car run fine without it?

It creates a vacuum in the crankcase. I've been told you don't want to mess with that. Some race setups just loop the PCV and breather ports through a catch can, and plug the port on the intake manifold. I think this is for race only though and is done to keep the intake spotless.

Yours held 26 psi in just the IC piping Rob... and 20ish with the TB connected. You don't want to put anymore then about 22~23 psi in the engine due to the valves.

Just joined my self. I hooked up my boost leak tester to my new HKS TB-elbo after my gasket dried and tested no leaks.

I dont get it Mike, could you expand

Damn I hate getting called out on things I pull from the deep dark regions of my mind... the "I once remember hearing" area way back there .

I remember being warned that the stock valve seals won't hold much over 25 psi of constant pressure coming in the intake. Now I'm pretty sure it was just that they'll start leaking somewhere around that point throwing the pressure test results off wack and not actually cause any kind of damage. Since I've never been in there I should probably have kept my mouth shut about the why. Please dispell this myth if you have the power Mr. Randall

Never heard this theory before and I cant dispute it either

So how do some people run 30 psi?

Wouldnt the fact that the motor is running and air is flowing make 30 psi less dangerous than if the engine was off. By dangerous I mean wrecking seals such as valve cover, intake manifold, yadda yadda yadda. I have know idea here, just taking an educated guess.

Ok, let me say this...I'm not sure where this myth came from or even what exactly is meant by it....but.....

The valves and seats can take alot more than 30psi...I have had my compressor connected to the spark plug hole pushing 125psi into the cylinder in order to keep the valves shut to change valve seals....

Mike, you can now free up some of those used memory cells by deleting this theory from you memory banks..

Len, pressure from the bottom, and pressure from the top are two very diffrent animals It'll probably hold several thousand psi from the bottom, but i'll bet 30psi from the top is pushing your luck.

Anyone know what stock valve spring seat pressure is?

Paul

Ok, I know what your talking about now...Mis-read part of Mikes post. I'd also like to know what the spring pressure is.

"So how do some people run 30 psi?"

Who runs 30 psi with stock valves/springs? (I mean more then once )