Also, and I believe this to be a symptom of whatever is causing the above, there's a sudden delay after shifting like everything's in limbo, and then the car lurches forward a split second later. It feels as though the clutch is slipping or there's a more terrible driver behind the wheel than myself. This happens under 0 boost.
And then there are the smells. My sense of smell is terrible, and I'm bad at relating smells to objects. One smell that has been around for months could possibly be similar to burning brakes or ceramic. I could be mistaken. The other smell, which I just started noticing recently, is definitely eggs.
I had a mechanic check the clutch because at first I was afraid of burning it out. He said everything look good. He said he checked the synchro and the master cylinder (I believe he said the slave was very hard to get to and didn't want to get into that without my consent) and whatever else was easy to look at and said everything appeared in good shape.
The car has thrown absolutely no codes. The car drives, to most people, without any issues at all. The mechanic I left it with drove gingerly and didn't detect anything wrong. It wasn't until I drove that he saw what I did.
We finally had some good weather last weekend so I jacked it up and took a look at the intercooler:
Driver's side bottom of intercooler.
- driver's side bottom of intercooler
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Close up. Dunno what those hoses connect to or do but I can blow air through those holes
- close up
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everything on the front of the car is damaged. it rides so low I can't even park over the parking concrete blocks. The car hits absolutely everything thats on the road. I hit a dead rabbit doing 80+ that couldnt have been more than 6" off the ground. I also ran over the tire tread of an 18 wheeler that was in the middle of an I95 on-ramp in philly doing 40mph, and there was no way to avoid it. 3 vehicles in front of me drove over it and didn't need to swerve as they cleared it entirely, so i didn't even know it was there. Well it got stuck under my car and I had to pull over and back up to get it out.
- shit is all fucked up down there (that's what she said?)
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so obviously there's damage to the Intercooler. I don't know if it's damaged anywhere internally or behind it, but a fair amt of fins are bent or damaged from debris. Should I get the holes welded closed and hope nothing else is functionally damaged? I can probably buy a used OEM IC for $100 or less. Is that a better plan?
ALSO- are these holes likely causing all of my issues? I'm going to repair this regardless, but does it sound like something else could also be wrong? I want to methodically repair the car, but want to prepare in case there's a huge repair bill coming.