- We just bought this Subaru WRX.
It looks pretty good.
It technically runs,
but inside it has one very big, very WRX problem.
This is Tim.
Now he's never seen this car before,
but if he can figure out what's wrong with it
and fix it in the next three hours
he can keep it.
- Two hours remaining.
- Getting the downpipe off
will free up a lot of room.
- That downpipe doesn't need to come off.
- Along the way,
we'll talk you through what's going on in Tim's head
so that you can learn how to think
like a mechanic and get the skills to take
on a problem like this on your own someday.
Will he be able to fix it?
I don't know.
Let's find out.
If he doesn't fix it,
do we get to keep it?
So this car starts,
but there's something wrong with it.
We're gonna let you take a test drive first.
We're not gonna start the clock until you get back.
- So Tim is out right now with the WRX doing a test drive.
We sent along Nolan with him
to see how his diagnostician brain works
and make sure that Tim doesn't steal the car.
I don't know anything about this guy.
- What are you thinking?
- Well I'm gonna try to get through the rev range.
- [Nolan] Okay.
- Maybe.
- [Nolan] Like any decent mechanic,
Tim knows that some issues don't reveal themselves
at low RPMs.
Dirty air filter or iffy fuel injection
might not affect idle,
but once you spin that engine up,
it needs a lot of clean air and fuel.
So Tim's winding up the motor during our test drive.
If it sputters at high RPM or struggles to reach red line,
he'll know something's wrong.
- Yeah, so I'm looking at the temp gauge.
EJs are kind of notorious for that.
- Okay.
- [Nolan] Most cars have a gauge
which tracks the cooling temp.
Once the engine is warmed up,
that needle should remain steady in the middle.
If Tim sees that creeping up,
that could show him there's a serious problem
like coolant loss from a blown head gasket.
He knows that Subaru motors have a bit
of a reputation for this.
- Have a boost gauge right there,
it's showing me boost.
So I'm gonna check that.
- [Nolan] Complimenting our WRX's turbo is a boost gauge
and Tim's watching this one closely.
Turbo boost is just an increase
in intake air pressure.
If you're losing pressure, you're losing power.
That boost gauge tells Tim if there's a leak,
but he can't check it at idle,
turbos only make boost
when the engine is above a certain RPM.
So Tim's watching to see what the gauge does
at different engine speeds.
- Do you have experience driving these cars?
Do you know how this car should feel?
- They range about 300 horsepower.
I didn't feel any sort of like boost kick in.
So the possibility of a boost leak there.
- We got some open road.
Let's give it the beans here.
- Yeah it's not building any boost.
It's still at zero.
Little bit of boost there,
but it's like maybe a PSI.
- [Nolan] Would you say the car's making any boost at all?
- No, hardly.
I mean, it gets like a tick above zero.
- Should we try to listen to it?
- Yeah, let's do that.
I know that this car should at least build a bar boost.
A tiny bit of,
we should be hearing the spool,
the whistle, you know?
- [Nolan] Yeah.
In most turbocharge cars,
you can hear the turbo spool
and when it releases excess pressure.
Those noises are big reason why we love them.
- [Nolan] This WRX uses a turbo,
which can spin up to 190,000 RPM,
but even at much lower speeds,
we should be able to hear it.
We should also be able to hear it releasing excess pressure
through the blow-off valve.
No turbo noises means no turbo boost.
Now that Tim knows this,
he has a pretty good idea of what he needs to do.
- More turbos, more problems.
- Scrape.
How was the test drive like?
- Biggest problem is like turbo's jammed.
- Does the burning oil point you in any direction?
- I mean, I know oil and coolant goes to the turbo.
- When you pop the hood,
the clock for three hours starts ticking down.
And if you fix this, then it's yours.
Well are you ready to pop the hood?
- Maybe.
- Nolan, are you ready?
- Ready, James.
- [James] Start the clock.
He's on.
- That's not where grease is supposed to be.
- Grease where it shouldn't be.
- Let's get at it.
Might need a new turbo,
which would be fun 'cause t's boiling hot right now.
But I'm hoping it's not the turbo
'cause that would take the most amount of time to replace.
Smelling both coolant and oil makes me think
it's probably the turbo.
Inner cooler's coming off first.
Everything's kind of underneath it.
Good way for me to see what's going on here.
- [Nolan] Nice.
- All right,
so I'm gonna take a look at the inner cooler
and there's a lot of oil in the intake,
that is indicative of a blown turbo.
Fun stuff.
And I'm hoping it's not the turbo,
'cause that would take the most amount of time to replace.
- I just wanna remind everybody
that he doesn't just have to start the car
and get it to run because this car already ran.
We gotta make boost.
How do you feel about potentially replacing
a turbo on this limited timeline?
- It'll be a challenge.
I should be able to get it out
and back in within time necessary.
- [Nolan] Two hours, 46 minutes.
- So we have a working turbo
that's pulled from this engine,
exhaust gases go through here and spin this turbine.
When you get a bunch of exhaust
that spools up this turbine,
it creates pressure.
So what happens is this waste gate detects a certain
amount of pressure and then opens this hat
to let a certain amount of exhaust bypass
so you don't have this turbo spooling up too much.
If it spins too fast, it'll wear this out.
So what has happened is this hat actually is broken.
So there's no hat inside that turbo at the moment.
And the actual turbine itself is faulty,
which is why there was a zero PSI on the boost gauge.
Are you trying to get what this last bolt
undone from the downpipe?
- Yeah,
it's kinda like underneath and in the back
and it's really hard to get to.
Getting the downpipe off will free up
a lot of room up there.
- All right,
so that downpipe doesn't need to come off.
Up until about this point,
I was on the same wavelength.
I would've been attacking this exactly the same,
but because we have this crazy time crunch,
now he's in like panic mode.
So he is probably not thinking as clear
as Tim would usually think,
which is causing him to do other things
like obsess over something small,
like getting the down pipe off
when he doesn't really need to.
- [Nolan] Oh my God, it's coming out.
- [Tim] It's coming off.
Whoa, turbo's off.
- [James] Turbo's off.
T O O, turbo officially off.
- Two hours, 10 minutes left.
We have a naturally aspirating car.
- [Tim] We got a waste gate that's completely.
- What kind of person would just grind that off?
- Pieces of (beep).
All right I need that turbo and some gaskets.
Oh, brand new, huh?
Okay so there's some parts
that need to get transferred over.
Looks like waste gate's coming off,
all the drain and flanges.
There's no waste gate.
Hopefully with some speed and no hiccups,
and I'll have a car to drive home with.
- You diagnosed it in an hour.
Now you got two hours to fix it.
God speed.
American eagle flies across the screen.
(eagle screeches)
- It's time for the carparts.com pro tip
brought to you by carparts.com.
Carparts.com, get the right parts right now.
And at checkout,
they'll even give you a quote
to have someone install it for you.
I bet that Tim wishes
he had that kind of service right now.
- We're about one third of the way
through today's game,
he's got the old turbo out,
got the new waste gate onto the new turbo.
Now he's gotta put it back in.
Usually taking things off is a lot easier
in my experience than putting the new things
back on correctly.
- This is usually the worst part.
- Yeah and just trying to
remember where everything was.
I don't have any reference.
- One hour 30 remaining.
- One hour 30 remaining, halfway through the game.
- AKA 90 minutes.
- [Nolan] Tim's got the new turbo into the car.
He's got the downpipe attached
and now he's attaching the inner cooler,
making some really great headway.
- This is stressful.
- [Nolan] And what all is in there?
- [Tim] I'm dealing with the hose clamp right now,
stubborn small spots.
- [Jeremiah] Yeah that's annoying.
- [James] Final four bolts?
- [Tim] Final four bolts.
- [Nolan] Coming down.
One hour left Tim, one hour.
One hour remains and you're looking at fuses.
- All right so Tim's making pretty good progress right now.
He's diagnosed what he thinks is the problem.
The turbo he took off the car
was definitely super messed up.
There's oil in places oil isn't supposed to be.
There's coolant in places coolant isn't supposed to be,
but we've all been down that road
where we think we figured it out.
And then we haven't.
Will he be able to make boost?
Only time will tell.
- You know I think most of us can relate.
You spend a lot of time working on one issue.
Maybe it doesn't work out.
And then you're back to square one.
- What are some of the big things
you could have potentially missed?
- Like a giant hole in something?
I'll just do the bumper trick.
(engine revving)
- So is it official?
Making boost?
- Making boost.
- Okay it's your car.
- Yeah.
Well let's take it for a drive.
(upbeat music)
Last night,
I had a dream where I was on this ranch.
There were horses everywhere,
not just regular horses,
big beautiful, sturdy,
buff horses.
That place it's called Buff Horse Ranch.
Now, unfortunately that was just a dream.
But these shirts we made are 100% real
and 100% cotton,
available now at donutmedia.com.
(upbeat music)
Thank you guys so much
for watching this video and everything else on Donut Media.
If you haven't already,
hit that subscribe button so you don't miss anything.
Go to DonutMedia.com.
Get yourself some merch.
Congratulations to Tim.
Thank you to the crew.
I love you.