Heres my pickle, bear with me:
Every now and then (say once every five or six weeks) my car decides not to boost properly. Rather than peaking at 12ish, it goes up to about 8.5 to 9. When this has happened in the past its been a case of taking off the air filter and Maf and giving it a little clean with some carb cleaner and a cotton bud, then also doing having the pipes off the boost solenoid and cleaning that out too. Reconnect all hoses, put back filter and maf. Since then i have found that just cleaning out the solenoid seems to do the trick. In the past this has always fixed it and its been ok for a few more weeks.
Yesterday however, i was driving to work and the boost didn't reach the norm so at lunch i did the usual and cleaned the bits out. On the drive home it still wasn't boosting properly so had it all apart and did the same again when i got home and left the car til this morning.
Started on my way to work today, waited for it all to warm up, floored it, lo and behold... not boosting
Stopped off on my way to work just to have a look for any little air leaks/horrible noises etc. Didn't find anything. Seeing that i was getting fairly irritated by this stage i floored it out of the services and rather (unexpectedly) it boosted really well.... but i hadn't touched anything!!!
Apart from the throttle assembly which i'd poked at and don't really understand, why are there two separate little levers? Is one for the throttle then the other for the turbo?
Anyway, i need some things that i can try next time it happens. Being that i thought it was the solenoid causing the problems i'm getting another in the week (not costing me much) so i'll be able to rule that out of the equation.
Thoughts please
*Oh yeh, for info, its a 96 WRX