Alright.

I got new got new premium gas.. a bit over 3 gallons.. since im broke as ****.. and added it to the tank.. which had just about 3 gals in it i think. I also added almost half a can of seafoam to the crank, and close to half to the tank.. and the rest that was left over i dumped in the throttle body. so.. it appears there is a minor leak from one of the valve cover gaskets.. nothing major.. I'm not going to worry about it as it's not causing the problems i'm having. I played with the throttle off and on.. held it up at 6k rpm.. dropped it to 2k.. brought it back up and held it.. etc.. and then let it idle an hour.... as long as it's over 2k rpm there doesnt seem to be any throttle issue.. from what i've read around a shitty idle @ under 2k means a vac problem.. from what i can hear.. it sounds like something extremely close to the TB is sucking in air.. so i'm gonna do my best to pull all those things out tmw and check 'em...

if I step on the gas quickly from idle... the engine makes a kind of... clattering sound... but if i accel up only a few hundred rpm more slowly and then gun it... it doesnt make the noise :-\

I also tried switching the sparkplug wires back and forth a couple times.. but the engine stalls if they aren't the way they are in my diagram.

I also have a seemingly random blinking CEL now.. it used to stay solid.. now it seems if i actually drive a little it starts to blink.. for a few moments... though it definitely doesnt seem there are any misfires.....so.. i dunno. this car is such a headache... so instead of getting an apartment in a month.. i have to sink more $ into this to make it run normal... yay.

oh.. and the engine seems to be putting out quite a bit of heat since i seafoamed it... the temp gauge (which was replaced a week ago) is acting a fool now... and the whole front end of the car gets hotttt.

 

Don't leave the seafoam in the crankcase for too long - it does thin out the oil. Recommendations on that are to have it in there and drive it maybe 20 miles or so (which should be enough to do what it's supposed to do), and then change the oil. If you have driven it some, plus idled it for an hour or so, you may want to go ahead and change the oil to get it (and any sludge it's broken up) out of there before too long.

 

I cannot help you with most of your problems from a technical perspective, but I will offer some advice. You need to fill your tank up and drive it ~50 miles (which is what I have read to drive with sf in the crank case) with the seafoam in it. Half a bottle in your gas tank with only ~6 gallons is a lot of seafoam. Why would you put seafoam in the throttle body??? I really don't want to make you feel worse, but putting 2300 bucks into it without fixing some serious problems sucks. It kinda seems like you cant afford the car, maybe shoulda thought about that before you got it (not trying to be an ***, but an audi is quite different from a geo prizm. You gotta pay to play.) I would take it to the dealer or euro car shop and have them figure out what is wrong with it. After you know what is wrong, figure out what you can do yourself, price parts online, fix what you can, pay the labor on the other problems. Its really hard for an amateur to figure out what is wrong with the car, these german cars are quite complex.

I think that running the bad gas in your tank caused a lot of problems. FILL THE TANK with premium. Run that tank through, make sure your coolant levels are normal if you are running hot. Check your vac lines if you hear air flow. Regardless, don't freak out and panic thats when mistakes happen. Don't pull anything off that you don't know what it is and can't put back properly. I am a poor college student so I know how it is when things go wrong on the car and they are expensive, but you really need to plan for that with a b5. It comes with the territory and is why I don't own an e36 m3 cause they are even more $$$ to fix.

BTW What year and engine car do you have? Might help a bit with the diagnosis.

 

Agreed on the car's info. If you go to your profile page, create a signature there. Include year, engine, trans, drivetrain of your car (ie, like in mine below - 1999 2.8qm (quattro, manual)) - it'll help out a lot when it comes to trying to figure out what the problems are with your car, and new people adding to the thread won't have to ask you for that info, or dig through existing thread posts to find out.

 

Bad gas. Fill completely full with fresh premium and run that. Change your oil, and then see what happens. Also try disconnecting your battery for 10+ min and then plug it back in. This will clear the codes and put your car into a learning mode. This might help you out.

Oh and do a throttle body alignment . To do this disconnect the battery and let it sit like stated above and then when you hook it back up turn your car on (BUT DO NOT START IT!!!) and just let it site for about 2 min or so or until you can no longer hear the humming noise coming from your throttle body.

Josh

P.S. car info would be great!

 

I might be completly off the mark here, but I do speak from some personal experience. Allowing the car to idle so long without being driven around can melt the internals of the Catalytic converter. This can cause restricted exhaust flow and will make a car run really bad.My experience with this problem was on a non turbo car, but I would think a clogged cat will cause even more problems for a turbo. You mentioned you thought you had an exhaust leak somewhere, that might be because if the exhaust can't get through the cat easily it's trying to find the path of least resistance. So before you go throwing money at it, get the catalytic converter checked out or removed. If it doesn't have a cat then disregard this post. Good luck.

 

ok.. well.. i'm pretty sure i definitely have a TB issue anyways.. i tried d/cing the battery and re-aligning? the tb the way suggested.. but.. i didnt even hear the humming that was said would be there... so theres a bad sensor or something.. but as far as the cat conv goes... i had someone rev up the engine and i got on the ground.. it definitely sounds like a lot of noise is coming from it.. and nowhere beyond it... so i hope possibly i will be able to take it off myself and check it out.. i dont have the money to replace anything.. so .. yeah.. i have a feeling i'm not going to be happy tmw when i get under the car.