Hey, I just came home w/ an 02 WR Blue wrx today and so far I love it. but one things bothering me. I bought it used from a dealer, and it already had the factory boost guage installed on the steering wheel. now from my understanding these cars are supposed to run around 14 somthin psi stock, which would be a little less than 1 bar on the boost gauge right? only my gauge never really goes much past .5 on the gauge, in fact Ive never once seen it go past that. tho ive never really been in wrx before it seems to pull pretty well...so anyone have any idea what could be the problem? vaccum line not hooked up right? anything i should look for? if need be i can upload a video of my friend going thru the gears, you cant see the boost gauge very well but you might be able to hear if anything is wrong or somthing. thanks

 

put it in 3rd and mash the gas, pedal to the floor, and see how high the gauge goes. If it doesnt get to about 1.1 bars you might have a boost leak.

 

welp, I went out and looked under the hood, and found some interesting items. first order of business...the 3 connectors that are under that black plastic plate on the passenger side...i found that the third connector on the bottom was unplugged, and a a resitor was jammed in its place...what is this plug for, and why would a resistor be jammed in there?? here are some pics of what im talking about

heres a pic of the 3 connectors, the one on the bottom is the one thats unplugged


heres the connector


heres a pic of the resistor thats jammed in there...kind of hard to see but i circled it


Also...this isnt right is it? shouldnt there only be 2 hoses coupled together, and not a third coming off it? Is it possible the person who installed the boost gauge tried to tap off this line? which is not the right spot to do it, correct?


And just for good measure, heres the vaccum line under the dash that runs to the boost gauge..they had it coupled there, and i cant tell where they came in from w/ the line, but it looks like behind the radio somewhere.


Anyways, i'll have to wait till tomorrow to fire it up and check for leaks...but....this does not look right to me. Im new to impreza engines, but i especially know that resistor isnt right, and from other pics ive seen, there shouldnt be another line coming off of that hose on the passeenger side should there? Any help is appreciated.

 

0.5bar boost means the factory boost controller is not working.
and the reason is, the wastegate solenoid (stock boost controller) is not hooked up.
The previous ownerprobably had an aftermarket boost controller and the car was probably boosted up. The resistor eliminates the Check Engine Light.
You can get boost pressure for the boost guage there, but taking the pressure from intake manifold is ideal.

Try this tomorrow.
Take the resistor out. It should give you CEL.
then connect the orange harness together. CEL should be gone and boost should be up around 0.9 to 1.0

 

thank you, I will try that tomorrow. :banana:

 

my bad...after looking at a couple more pics of other engines this appears to be a normal T ....like i said im still learning these engines, my boost gauge line was run off the stock bov w/ the T like it should be, so thats all hooked up right. Im gonna go out and take that resistor out in a little bit and plug the connector back in and hopefully return to full boost again

 

Good luck man, I hope the people before you didn't damage your car from some of the mods they put on. It looks like you got yourself some nice samco intercooler hoses with the deal!

 

i sure did, but I just took the resistor out, plugged the connector back in, and i still dont go over .5 on the boost gauge. the car still feels like it pulls pretty strong...but since iver never been in a wrx before its hard to really gauge it by. i went all the way thru third almost up to redline in wot (i shouldve hit full boost by then right?) but still stayed pegged at .5 ....im thinking its probably a boost gauge problem...but I dont know where to start to look for leaks or anything. anybody got any ideas?

 

Once you took the resistor out and plugged the harness back in did you get a cel? If you did I would suggest getting it scanned and see exactly what it is.

 

nope, no cel that i saw...i unplugged the battery (just for saftey sake) pulled the resistor out, plugged the connector back in, and reconnected the battery. started it up, everything started fine...didnt notice any cel's

 

hmmmmmmm you've got me stumped, you might have to take it in to the dealer or a shop to see what exactly is wrong with your car.

 

sorry i think i was wrong in my previous post
wasnt sure where i was looking.
The orange connector is EGT actually, so the car had downpipe.

The wastegate solenoid is around there to the left. it should have 2 wires coming out and it should have blue connector
Check the hose that splits from the turbo, the one you circled in red. That hose that splits from turbo should go to wastegate solenoid.
Check that hose because it might be plugged

 

i took a look at it. the hose didnt appear to be tangled or caught up in anything, should I pull it off and check it? I disconnected the blue plug on the wastegate solenoid and plugged it back in in case it wasnt getting a good connection, but i still only peg .05 on the gauge. hmmm. I tried just letting the engine idle w/ the hood up so i could try and listen to see if i could hear any kinda leaks...but its hard to tell what to look for since im new to these engines

 

On a sort of off topic note, how much could the ECU have to do with his problem?

 

hmmm seems like wastegate solenoid is Ok.

so probably ECU is on Safe mode.

try resetting the ECU.
to do that, you need to disconnect the negative terminal of the battery and leave it for a while (30min or more)

If that doesnt solve, you might wanna take it to dealer and have it checked.

good luck