ok, so after the embarrasing spark plug bootordeal were having some crazy issue. so the car idles great, boosts great and is overall doing pretty good for not having the complete fuel upgrades. the problem is the any time we boost over 10 pounds the car bucks and stutters and blows little puffs of black smoke. the a/f's are reading rich during all this. so with the afac we tried to pull some fuel, didnt help. also turned down the boost, still nothing. were thinking maybe bad wastegate(turbonetis evolution)??? any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sounds like an ignition related issue to me (Or Map sensor issue). Are you sure the entire ignition system is on par? I don't know what you mean by spark plug boot situation as I never read that, so I can't say anything in regards to that subject.

 

Haha that's exacly what mine was doing when I had the "embarrasing spark plug boot ordeal". For those of you who don't know about that, here's what happened. Earlier models (like my 03) came with a wire set where all 4 boots at the coil pack are straight. The heat from the turbo was overheating the boot at cylinder 1 and the car would misfire and buck and definitely run slower and not boost as high. To correct this, Dodge dealers started installing a 90 degree boot wire on cylinder 1.

I eventually switched mine again a few times, and each time I change the wires I notice a difference. I now have a set of Granatellis on there with a MPx heat shield and it's running great. I think the heat shield isa must. BTW the last couple sets I've used had straight boots but get 90 degree if you can just to be safe. In any case, You just have to keep your eye on this. If you notice your car misfiring or feeling sluggish change the wires and plugs. Don't just assume its only the plugs. It kinda sucks that you have to tune the car up this much compared to other cars but it's a small price to pay to keep your SRT running optimally.

Oh well, just my 2 cents.

 

Thats not an "embarassing spark plug boot ordeal"thats a TSB. It happened on 03 and early 04 models to the FOURTH plug wire only (the one closest to the turbo). So it wasn't happening to cylinder one, but to cylinder four.

 

well im sorry if i confused anyone, by "embarrasing spark plug ordeal" i was talking about a previous post i had written about an issue regarding idle. i thought it was really serious and then came to find out it was just a bad boot. thanks for everyones help you all kick a$$

 

That happened to a friend of mine's car. Don't ask me how he did it, but he dislocated the wire from inside the metal connector in the boot. The car was running like it was in limp mode.

 

oh yeh, limp mode for sure!!!!! oh and i've since found the new problem, yeh it's another spark problem. i broke the insulation on one of my spark plugs. haha i always think its worse than it is.

 

The symptoms you described had to be ignition related. Thankfully you found it. Get some new stuff will ya?!

 

Yeah that's right it's cylinder 4 not cylinder 1 lol what was I thinking? [8D]

Haha when you said "embarrassing spark plug boot ordeal" that's what I thought you were talking about since everyone I know with an 03 and some with 04s have had that problem. And yes, there was a TSB on it eventually, but I took my car to the dealership like 3x before the TSB and they couldn't figure it out and told me I put bad gas in it and to bring it back in 2 weeks if it still has problems. I don't know why they nor I didn't think to change the wires but the car was pretty new and only had like 12K on it. Oh well. sometimes it's the simple stuff.