Gillan

In a previous post, I showed you all a picture of what was going on with my driver side intake tube and how it was apparently missing the right angle PCV breather connection thing. I went ahead and removed my left intake entirely to get a better look at what was going on with the previous owner's hoses. What I found was that he had placed that breather thing (which I previously thought was missing) on a random hose coming from the deeper part of the PCV system. I took a few minutes to disconnect all those hoses and rearranged it the proper way. Then, I noticed that my intake tube was missing the resonator that attaches to the bottom of the tube. In it's place was a random hose with a clamp on it that was attached to nothing, and that hose wasn't plugged either. In other words, I had a vacuum leak after the MAF from two spots on the same intake. I went to my nearest NAPA Auto store and asked them for the fattest bolt they can find (their plugs were too small so I resorted to using a big enough bolt as a plug). I removed the random hose from the tube and replaced it with that fat bolt, reusing the clamp that was on that little hose. I will now reset my ECU again, and I will update this post if my P0037 and P0057 codes finally clear. I will lose my mind if they don't :/

UPDATE 1: RPMs are stable, consistent, and is no longer rough at idle. Before fixing this vacuum leak, car would sputter (for a lack of better words) when coming to a full stop. By that I mean the RPMs would bounce around inconsistently and the exhaust would make a sputtering sound. Also, the car itself would feel very jerky, kind of like the feeling you get when downshifting but a bit more extreme. I no longer have any of those problems.

I noticed a few more things after doing this fix:
1. The engine is running ever so slightly cooler (I could tell by the temperature gauge needle being slightly below the half-way mark compared to it being slightly above the half-way mark before. Also, I can physically feel the ambient air around the engine being much less intense than it was before)
2. The exhaust fumes don't smell as smelly as they did before
3. The exhaust note sounds better in terms of consistency and there is no longer that hissing sound I heard before, which I don't believe I mentioned in any previous threads
4. Throttle response is much smoother than it was before, and it feels like I don't have to press the accelerator down as much as before to maintain highway speeds

UPDATE 2: CEL came back on with the same codes. I am currently losing my mind, any and all prayers for my wellbeing will be much appreciated. Also, I accidentally found even more suspicious bull$hit in my car, which I will be documenting in a detailed fashion over the weekend. Keep an eye out for another thread that I will be posting in a few days! (Never mind, the suspicious bull$hit is nothing worth dedicating an entire thread to)

I'm no mechanic, so I can't explain why fixing this small vacuum leak led to such noticeable results. But I will say that I have put enough hours and miles on the highway in this car before fixing the leak to say that there is indeed a big difference after fixing it. I am 100% sane and haven't lost my mind (yet).

Here are some not so glamorous pics of my results:


Located the right angle breather piece and put it in its rightful spot (circled the place where the aforementioned random hose and clamp was attached to)



Properly connected everything (circled the bolt that I used as a corkscrew)

Ponyryd

^I think you’re misunderstanding what was missing here…it was simply a baffle/resonator, nothing to do with the pcv system, but purely for noise/resonance/nvh. I checked my old intake tubes and I don’t even have it on mine (‘08 35).

Glad you got it sorted op, as long as it’s sealed you should be fine with that repair.

projectpanda13

iTrader: (2)

glad it all worked out after plugging the hole.

From your previous thread, that hole was for sure a vacuum leak. The rear port is to help bring in fresh air.

Gillan

Just updated my post. Will be uploading another thread over the weekend, so you guys better stock up on popcorn because this one might actually be interesting to some of you.