Can you Spot whats missing?

[Voodoo]

Can the other Audi A3 1.8T prefacelift owners please have a ganders at their engine bay and let me know whats missing?

My Car has been suffering the missfire issue, however coilpacks and sparks seem fine, took it to a garage for service, and the guy noticed a big hole in the side of the airbox, he reckons something was supposed to be there, and hence has gaffer taped it up.

Im thinking if there was something there, then perhaps ive been drawing dirty air past the MAF and now the potential faulty MAF is causing the missfire?

Heres a pic of mine

 

[Clach]

Injector amp. mate...about 120 from audi or 70 from GSF..where the hell did it go...?

 

[Voodoo]

Dont think its ever been there, cant say ive ever noticed anything in that area... whats one of those look like
from the sounds of it that would explain the intermittent missfire issue then

 

[Clach]

I am surpised it has ever worked properly without it...if no-one comes up with a pic I will do it tomorow for you....l

 

[Voodoo]

its definately been fine for at least a year, this is only a recent problem thats cropped up. Bit of a ****** really as im looking to sell the car in december due to new job and company car etc... looking to get it all fixed.
Will it be causing any damage by driving without it or just slow performance?

cheers for the help

 

[Clach]

2 secs mate, i will pop outside and take a pic...

 

[Clach]

sorry bud, will be with you soon...

 

[Clach]

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n245/clachnacudden/VolkswagonRally012.jpg

Ok, the inj. amp (which has plenty of other names) was replaced by the progressive coilpacks in late 2000 models, which caused so much trouble..I am stunned that your car works without it....

 

[Voodoo]

ahh hah, yes that would certainly fit nicely in that hole... *** where the hell has that gone, theres no cables hanging about... its either never been there since I bought it or some muppet at the garage has forgotten about it then. grr

ill have a good root round for hanging cables tomorrow, but I doubt theres anything... the guy in the garage has already had a good look around anyway

thanks for your help.. ill look to get it replaced ASAP

 

[Clach]

http://audi-sport.net/vb/showthread.php?t=49762

This is the trouble I had when mine went...the only explanation I can think of [but unlikely] is that your car has been upgraded in some way??? new style coilpacks have the Inj. amp function incorporated into them, which caused big problems as they constantly failed. Pre-facelift had screw in hitachi ones which seem to work better...

Good luck mate

 

[Jimmybuckrogers]

When I bought my A3 it had an induction kit on so the injector amp was fixed to a bracket. Then I decided to put an original airbox on, and the only one I found was from a scrapped golf (1.8 T). When I got the airbox home I noticed the shape of the injector amp stamped onto the side of it, I realised this must be where my injector amp is mounted so cut the hole out to fit it in. I concluded that some cars have the injector amp mounted in the air box and some don't, but they use the same airbox for all cars and cut out pieces where necessary to suit different engines.

Maybe your original airbox got damaged or lost somehow and was replaced with a different one? Or like Clatch says it has been upgraded. If your injector amp is supposed to be there - there should be 2 cables coming out from the black trunking.

 

[Clach]

possibly as lucksta stated, your amp is elsewhere....mmm. see what you find now you know what to look for and let us know...

 

[Prawn]

in the top left of your picture I can see a throttle cable, which would imply that the engine is an AGU.

If it's an AGU then it will have a seperate ignition amplifier. (it's an ignition amp btw guys)

The AGU coilpacks do not have individual amps built in, so a single one is used for all coil packs.

As a result, it gets quite hot, hence the need for an alloy heatsink on the back, which is fitted in the flow of the inlet air to keep it cool.

Somewhere your engine WILL have that igntion amp. It's often removed when fitting nasty induction kits and mounted somewhere else. It can't have gone far though, as there isn't too much length on the wiring!

 

[Clach]

i stand corrected, cheers prawn, an ign. amp...but either way good luck

 

[Voodoo]

Yes it is an AGU with old style coilpacks in, is this little box the thing that sends the signal from the ECU to the coilparks to in turn get the sparks firing?

came accross this in my research before was considering testing it at some point for the missfire?
http://forums.audiworld.com/a4/msgs/1594531.phtml

so its possible this little box is sitting somewhere else but belongs in the airbox if its got a hole cut out?
job for tomorrow me thinks

 

[abdus]

yes, it might be that they mounted it to some other part of the engine bay. as Prawn stated. Not a big job to put back in place once you find it.

BTW regarding the above link about testing it, i've tried it and my module was dead on cylinder 3.

 

[fingermouse]

oh and smile

 

[Clach]

lol, excellent ....my classic good looks!

 

[Voodoo]

Righty ho, had a look around today and followed the wiring loom down... hey presto there it is hanging at the bottom of the loom.... was bit fidely to put back into the airbox with that damn rubber seal, but its all back together and matches the lovely pics above now.

Thanks for all the help with that one... I need to run it about a bit to see if its still missfiring but could it be the MAF at fault now? as ive no doubt had a big hole in the airbox above the filter for a while now, could I have knackered the MAF and hence missfire? I doubt the fact the injector amp not being in place would cause the fault, unless there was a dodgy connection whilst it was haning down, im hoping it was as simple as that though.

Testing required now me thinks

 

[Prawn]

it is possible that the injector amp has gotten too hot and fried itself, causing it to misfire..... I know that often when people fit an induction kit and just leave the amp hanging, it can overheat and fry the insides.....

when I had a chavvy induction kit, I strapped the ign amp with the heatsink against the cold metal pipe of my CAI to keep temps down, and it never got hot!

 

[HTC]

What injector amp?? Injectors fired directly from the ECU.

 

[Voodoo]

Car has been driving perfectly since putting the injector amp back where it belongs... been fine yesterday and today, driven about 50miles with it now... so looks like an intermittent connection on that was causing the issues.

Thanks again for all the help

 

[HTC]

IGNITION AMP!!!!

 

[Voodoo]

whatever

ill just call it the stupid little overpriced box that broke my audi

 

[HTC]

Could be worse, you could have 4 of them going wrong like on later engines.