1st Gen R53 Cooper S P0171, P1237, and now P1688. Help appreciated!

So in the last few months I've had the following codes pop up. I'm not able to begin the process to try and resolve them but I would really appreciate your assistance as I feel bad bothering Chad and TJ @ Detroit Tuned though they've been more than extraordinarily helpful. I will try and be as detailed as I can, hopefully someone can see what is going on here.

Purchased the car in Dec. 2012 with 126,513 miles completely bone stock. Have 30 pages worth of service history indicating that the following was changed.

-Thermostat
-Passenger motor mount
-A/C Compressor

Drove it up until 134,714 miles with a couple of bolt ons to which point the stock original clutch gave out and I did a big overhaul. I changed out at that time;

-Input Shaft Seal
-TOB Guide Tube
-Rear Main Seal
-Valve Cover Gasket
-Valve Cover Hardware
-Plugs
-Wires
-Shifter Cables
-Clutch
-Ported & rebuilt supercharger
-15% pulley
-Boost gauge
-Powerflex FLCA bushings
-Quaife
-Fuel filter

Over the next 3,000 miles it ran without much of an issue.

*On 9/15 I ordered a DT BPV as I noticed the throttle response had started to get pretty terrible. I received and installed it before I drove down to H2Oi which was the last weekend of September. That round trip alone was roughly 900 miles. A few days later I did another 1,000 mile round trip helping my girlfriend move from Northern Maine back to Connecticut. I figure within the course of the next few weeks I accumulated an additional 600 miles or so. That being said over 2,500 miles after I installed the BPV I got a check engine light on 10/27 registering P0171 on my way to her house. P0171 has been persistent ever since then.

*A short time after that I'd have to say around early November P1237 started showing up with it as well. I'd scan and clear the codes, they'd come back a few miles later. I wasn't in a position to resolve the issue at the time so I just dealt with the horrific gas mileage.

*Around late December/Early Jan I started seeing P1688 and some weird driving quirks.

3 times now the car has died on me. Throttle response will be maybe 5% at WOT. I have to shut it off and start it back up and the throttle seems like its back to normal. I noticed at some point in October/Nov that the car had a weird hesitation/hiccup when letting off throttle after building some boost. Below is a video showing what I mean.

[ame=http://youtu.be/DuuJu8_Z9kk]R53 hiccup - YouTube[/ame]

I then started to notice the boost was fluctuating when applying partial throttle only ever occurring under 3,000 rpms. I suspect this has something to do with the ECU switching over from open/closed loop? Video below of example.

[ame=http://youtu.be/e5QG6FvqHsc]Boost fluctuation - YouTube[/ame]

Finally, its hard to tell in the only video I have but when I go WOT the boost seems to dance around. It doesn't vary by much but the needle itself is very shaky, as well as I can feel a very minimal vibration which is only when the car is under heavy load. I suspect both of those things are probably signs that my crank pulley is going to **** the bed soon?

Now, I replaced the secondary MAP sensor since I assumed it was probably faulty because its old. P0171 did not go away surprise surprise :frown2:. It should also be noted that at idle with the a/c off the gauge registers 18 in/hg of vacuum. From what I've been told by very many people the magic number is 18, dropping down to 16-14 when the a/c is activated which the car does.

Also, when I did all the work I didn't replace any of the gaskets on the intake tract. I also noticed the tab had broken on the throttle body -> supercharger inlet tube so I ordered a new one, as well as a new profile gasket, throttle body gasket, post intercooler horn to manifold gasket, in hope that my gauge just sucks and I do intact have a boost leak. I also got new Alta boost as upon closer inspection it seems I cut the smaller one on 2 spots when trying to install it before I realized the magic way is to slid the assembly onto the manifold with the boot already on the intercooler. Back to the point they don't seem to leak, but I am changing them anyway.

Now I'm posting this because its driving me absolutely bat **** insane and I'd really like the car 100% so I can attempt my first track day at Lime Rock in April. Also because I have an underlying feeling in my oh so pessimistic fashion that this will not fix the first 2 codes. I'm pretty sure the 1688 is the crank pulley from what people seem to have mentioned before, as well as the vibration that occurs only under load and the shaky needle. It only makes sense. As for the other 2 codes, is there anything you guys could think of that might be the cause or I should look at to replace???

I did briefly check all the PVC lines and they seemed fine.

Sorry for the long post, I figured its better to be thorough rather than leave out potentially critical information . Greatly appreciate any advice.

 

Haha no worries. Thanks for reading!

 

Thanks Dave. Waiting on some MK2 stuff to sell from the car I parted out so I can order a crank pulley. I'll probably go with the ATI since its less than $100 more than an oem one and I've seen that its pretty much bulletproof. Hopefully I don't need a throttle body . I'm heading over to the shop now, I'll let you know what happens tonight.

 

Ok so small update. I installed everything onto the car, it now idles like garbage. Not sure what it could be so at some point this weekend or early next week I'm going to attempt to fabricate a smoke tester. If I can't I'll have to get it towed to my friends garage and smoke test it for free after they close.

What its currently doing now. The increase in revs is from me. Throttle response seems fine so I don't think its the TB, at least yet. Sigh….I hate cars.

[ame= surge - YouTube[/ame]

EDIT:

Bought a cigar and used my lungs to smoke test the car blowing through a PCV hose. Well it worked lol! New inlet tube is defected. Was never sealed properly at the s/c end.

 

I'll take a peak and see what I can find about them, glad to know theres someone with serious mileage on one, and I'm always ok with saving money! Thanks for the heads up.

I'm hoping the car runs, at least how it did before I changed all this, once the inlet tube comes in so I don't have to drive the drift car anymore and can focus on fabricating a smoke tester this weekend so I can properly do it with some pressure in the system rather than blowing into a hose with a cigar hahaha.

As for positive are you referring to a boost leak?

 

Oh wow. Well I have a compression tester so I could do that. Actually I might just for ha ha's.

What year is the R55? I thought those cars had a known issue with oil consumption via bad rings, so if everything looked fine that might be the only explanation?

And for photos I can't help you other than suggest you use a 3rd party site like imgur, photobucket, or imageshack. That's what I do for all my uploads.

 

Yeah true, but for 145k I'm curious now to see how my little motor's holding up. I can tell you that I could see the cross hatching on the cylinder walls when I did an oil pan gasket and absolutely 0 flakes in the pan.

I found this over the weekend, and its just too cool of a little project not to do as well as the endless uses.

DIY smoke machine tester!!

But for what its worth I put everything back together fired the car up to see how it idled. Throttle response is significantly sharper than when I parked it. I am going to button everything up and head over to Advanced Auto and clear the codes and see what comes back. I'm still going to smoke test it though either way and I will upload a video of my crank pulley tomorrow when I replace the broken washer reservoir pump. It definitely doesn't spin true..

 

So updating this for anyone who has might have this issue in the future. I changed the driver side horn to intake manifold gasket, throttle body gasket, and inlet tube which had the charger side tab missing and the profile gasket on the blower and it fixed it. I do think the latter was the fix, but glad its fixed. I still have some kinks to work out though but thankfully so far it seems it fixed it. The fluctuation @ WOT is gone too!

[ame=http://youtu.be/k2WZdhQUw_M]P0171 fixed - YouTube[/ame]

 

Thanks Dave, me too! God I missed 34mpg on the highway

 

So false alarm, CEL came back on today just for the P0171, though I'm sure the other two will show up too . Smoke testing the car on Sunday at my buddys old shop. We'll see what the outcome is.

 

Smoke tested the car yesterday, found 1 leak and it was from the diaphragm on the bpv which TJ @ DT told me is normal at very small quantities which is what it appeared to be. So no pcv/vac leaks, what next. Anyone have any ideas?!

 

Anyone??!?!?!!?!?!?!

I scanned it again today and its soley P0171 now.

Freeze frame data:
Trouble Code P0171
Absolute TPS 16.9%
Engine Speed 3022
Calculated Load 30.2%
Map (inch/hg) 10.6
Coolant 189*
IAT 48*
Ignition Advance 49.5*
ST Fuel Trim 14.1%
LT Fuel Trim 6.3%
Fuel System 1 Closed


Any ideas?