Itty Bitty Boost

[08wrxej255]

What's up people?
I haven't been on in a while but I need some help figuring out a no boost problem on my friends 02 wrx wagon. Built bottom end..... pistons, rods, crank, bearings.... motor also has TGV deletes, HKS non recirc. BOV, CAI, HKS up pipe, HKS down catless downpipe, HKS full exhaust, stage 2 tune w/ 93 octane. Car will only normally boost to 10 psi. He has rewritten the tune a few different times and nothing helps. I checked vacuum and the needle bounces pretty bad around 15 inHg, which I've always know to be some sort of valve train issue. Some one mentioned ignition but I've never heard of that. He did a compression test of all the cylinders and it tested a solid 150 across the board. Intermittently it will go to full boost for a minute but then right back to 10psi. Also when you have the car
on a lift and stand underneath it, it really sounds like the driver side of the motor is a lot more noisy than the passenger side
. Very loud clacking and ticking. More than normal on a built motor. One more reason I think it may be a valve problem. I told him to pull the motor and just check the valve train but he wants to see if anyone else has any suggestions. Any help or any ideas would be great. Thanks, Rob

[08wrxej255]

Pulled spark plugs, all looked good. I think there may be 2 different problems. I don't think the valve spring problem, if that's what it is, will cause a low boost problem but I'm completely out of ideas. Did compression check again and it was 150 on 2 cylinders and 165 and 175 on the other 2 cylinders. Way different then the first time. I know that 7psi is the allowable difference between cylinders. I know compression range is 148psi to 185psi. Maybe compression test wasn't done right first time. This result has me leaning towards some sort of timing problem. Gonna pull the front cover and check timing belt and maybe reset timing just to be safe. Feels like I'm working in circles