2.5TDi V6 quattro Sport 180hp Turbochip

[fjtwelve]

Went for a bit of a thrash in the dark last night so the clouds of smoke wouldn't be so embarassing. This being Cornwall thrashing proved to be bit of a problem as space and traffic got in the way but several things became apparent. First at low engine speeds it is running possibly lean as the fuel economy is going skyward. Still get a cloud of smoke as soon as you touch the throttle though. The idle speed shudder is reducing but still present after a 100 miles or so. I did get one drag strip opportunity - I don't have any measuring gear but 0 to 100 looks like being pretty respectable, i didn't notice 60 go by, its just the way the speedo needle keeps swinging past 80 that catches your eye. I was being a little bit cautious as i didn't want it to cut out so didn't do any foot flat on the floor blasts.

I will pass on the info about the boost. We are not measuring cylinder presures. Next time at the dyno i am going with a list of data to be montored instead of just looking for the HP figure

 

[blackwagon]

Cylinder pressures can be measured but is almost only done in high cost development facilities.
The only way you can lower your compression ratio is by installing thicker head gaskets or milling down your pistons a few tenths of a millimeter.

What would be useful and is pretty straightforward to do is measuring your EGT (exhaust gas temp) at the turbocharger exhaust housing. This is a value that can warn you when pushing it too far and should be taken into account when mapping on the dyno.

The air temperature after the IC will probably be too high at 1.9 bar, as the temperature rises the actual mass of the air blown in the engine is reduced. This temperature rises rapidly as pressure increases, at a certain point the extra mass provided by the higher pressure is completely counteracted by the reduction of the air density due to the risen temp. Any higher pressures past this point will actually give you less power and toast your engine.
Where this point lies is largely dependant on your turbocharger, a bigger charger wille generate less heat at high pressures than a smaller one.
But I think it is safe to say you and your engine will benefit from a bigger IC. Have Celtic check the air temp while doing the dyno pulls.

The lumpy idle could be something that can't be mapped away, I'm no expert on this, so don't take my word for it. If the injectors are so big that the fuel metering plunger needs to be adjusted (making the duty cycle on a solenoid valve very short) in a region where it becomes unprecise.

B.R

 

[fjtwelve]

This tune is for a essentially bolt on modification, i don't intend to get into reworking engine components. I'd rather turn the boost down a bit and leave the engine internals alone.
A larger intercooler was a possibility from the start. As you say we need to do some temperature monitoring and then look for something appropriate if we need it.
The pump ECU is supposed to sort itself out on fuelling at idle. The shudder seems to be caused by it massively over fuelling. It did the same thing when we put the PP683s in and after the pump was rebuilt the shudder at idle became steadily less. Its getting a bit better now but is still present.

 

[fjtwelve]

The AKE engine has a fuel cooler already, have a look at vagcat.com.

Er, no , not all of them do, i think this must be an option for hot countries, mine has not got a fuel cooler.

"First at low engine speeds it is running possibly lean as the fuel economy is going skyward. " No i don't think so. The fuel gauge temperature gauges and smoke plume tell me this is not the case. I think the DIS is getting confusing info from the computer due to the changes we've made. Need to get it reset.

Driving it Celtic this morning i was using very light throttle to keep the smoke down. The engine is pulling smartly from very low down, as nippy as our A4 1.9, never been like this before. Letting it accelerate gently in the bottom 3 gears until about 2500-3000 rpm so the turbo was spooled up and the exhaust smoke free, and then able to give it a bit more throttle through 4th and 5th without the smoke, especially if on the flat so not so much load or even up hill , oh i did have some fun. What its going to be like remapped so i can give it full throttle is going to be very interesting.

 

[jwhat]

I really want this to work properly, it sounds like a rocket ship! Keep up the updates:thumbsup:

 

[Hightower]

Very interesting read but i shudder to think what you have spent in total from the start of this posting.

I have been contemplating getting a 2.5 A4 but not sure if this posting is filling me with much confidence on the reliability of the engine

 

[blackwagon]

If it keeps smoking so horribly it may be worth checking the injectors once again for spray pattern and opening pressure.
I once installed new 0.250 nozzles in my 2.5 TDI 5 cylinder and had the same problem, one new nozzle didn't shut entirely and kept leaking till the pressure was below 150 bar. I upped the opening pressure from 215 to 235 bar and replaced the faulty one, that cured it. this is common practice when upgrading to bigger nozzels.
Take in account that increasing the opening pressure also delays the injection timing a tiny bit.

Don't let it smoke too much with those cats still in place, they might get clogged rather quickly.

BTW Is your EGR valve still active ?

I hope the smoking issue gets solved soon so you can really enjoy your car.

B.R

 

[adamss24]

Very interesting read but i shudder to think what you have spent in total from the start of this posting.

I have been contemplating getting a 2.5 A4 but not sure if this posting is filling me with much confidence on the reliability of the engine

They are very reliable but they are expensive to work due to the time it takes the "grease monkey's" to scratch their balls and throw new parts at it attempting to fix it ! I do find it much more reliable than the PD 1.9 Tdi ! Apart from the camshaft wear(wich is a result of Longlife servicing !) and faulty pump's controllers there is not much more that can go wrong with it ! Yes its expensive to fit a cambelt due to the cost of the parts- £ 250 in parts trade prices but you only do that every 60-80K ! Yes, you pay labour costs on that job as the book lists the cambelt as a 4.5 hours job. Find a good independent/freelance mechanic (like myself !) and it would cost you about 400 quid supply and fit. Try and replace a set of injectors on a PD lump with similar milleage ! Mine is at 170k and gets ragged the tits of it every day and no complains yet ! Remember the newer the car, the less reliable it is due to the poorer quality parts used and the complexity of the ECU's inside...

 

[blackwagon]

I think the V6 engine isn't bad at all, apart from the cam issue already mentioned it proves to be a sturdy piece of machinery.
I stumbled upon camshafts of the company 'Campro' who advertise that with their cams for the v6 TDI the problems are history. I read a few reports of people who are running these cams and have checked after 40000 miles that there was no wear whatsoever on the lobes.
This isn't a guarantee, I would like to see how they look after 100Kmiles, but maybe it could be a solution.

I'm so curious what the power figures will turn out to be on fjtwelves engine, I suspect some huge torque figures, 1.9 bar boost and adequate fueling should result in 500+Nm

B.R

 

[adamss24]

^^ second that ! If you look at the way the crank is supported, the block girdle and the 4 bolt holding each bearing on the crank, you dont see that kind of sturdiness unless a highly strung rs4 engine ! I reckon the block will take 500Bhp without much bother ! I have no wear on the cams of me old engine at 170K, i also had no wear on the cams on me previous quattro at 180K+ and i also have no wear on me a6 tdi wich is at 136k... None was on longlife service ! I had however a 99 black a4 wich i replaced the cams at 135k and looking trough the service history it had replacement heads at 65 k(warranty work) due to longlife service ! Use Longlife 507 oil and change every 6-8K and you should have no issues whatsoever...

 

[fjtwelve]

Easy boys lets not get too excited knowing my luck it'll blow up on friday just after i've paid for the latest lot of work. Let the dyno speak.
Hightower - yes very expensive, in 20-20 hindsight i should have not used long life servicing, sold the shell after the first oil pump failure, not chosen Heathrow Engines to rebuild the engine. As far as the development work is concerned, i have spent £1200 so far, the fuel pump will be £580ish and then i have the mechanic remove/replace the pump and filter plus Celtics remapping time. I think its cheaper than going out to buy a remapped 3.0TDI of the same sort of power i'm looking to get
Blackwagon - i'm fairly sure the remap will take care of the smoke. Yes sticking injectors could be a problem, will sort if they become one. I've only done about 150 miles with the smoke so cat should be OK. Yes the EGR is still in place and is clean, it was checked last week
adamss24 - yes like anything else find the right man who knows what he's doing and life gets a lot easier. The reason for this thread is that there is pitifully little info on the web about this engine and hopefully theres a bit more now

 

[blackwagon]

When it is mapped accordingly you will see nice figures on the dyno, I'm convinced of that.

It's always like that, when one would know all the pitfalls in advance one would have been able to avoid them. I had other engines rebuild in the past and can tell you similar horror stories. It's by gathering information and finding the right people you get it to work finally.

I just bought a set of used heads on e**y, like that I can do al little trickery on them like I once did on a XUD7TE (the old little PSA turbodiesel). Only now I have a few extra valves to fiddle with
Like that I can prepare them in advance and slap them on when I replace the timing belt. It is often said that reducing the valve seat width and angling the valves on a turbo engine isn't worth doing, however I have the experience it does have an effect when done right. In diesels we can't change duration and lift without hitting the pistons, also, camshafts would have to be custom made which means big bucks and lots of trial and error.
Not something I am willing to do.
With properly shaped valves you can increase the opening quite some, especially around valve opening and closing point. Has the same effect of having a 'quicker' lobe near those points without having the adverse effects.
Then add some porting and polishing, port matching ...
Top it of with a thicker head gasket and higher grade headbolts and I'm ready to go for a bigger turbocharger, nozzles and remap.

Now I got to find the time to do all this, ohooooh, the wife is already starting to , but I'll overlook that detail for now

B.R

 

[eliasuk98]

Hi mate, any progress on the fuelling issue? remap? im on edge here waiting to know your results

 

[rt05492]

Randomish input.

I put a Chip Express device into my '98 2.5 TDi A4 Quattro Auto. Fitted it myself, just a break out box between the diesel pump and the ECU ? (bumph calls it erogation), no remapping at all. Made significant improvement to roll ons, acceleration etc. etc. just by feel on the throttle. Not cheap @ £400 but worth it !

 

[blackwagon]

Yes, I'm curious too, how is the car going ?

 

[fjtwelve]

Have just driven 100 miles or so to Exeter, the thing flies (unlike my firkin flight which has been delayed). Found myself trying to change up to 7th as i came off the A30 onto the M5. The roll on acceleration is superb, once the engine is spinning over 2000 rpm it is relentless. Putting the power on at any speed 40 60 80 100 it just goes for it. In 6th at 3000rpm is about 100, and it just takes off. Cruising at legal speeds is just a whiff of throttle, and immediate throttle response. At low rpm when loaded it still smokes, still need more work. If you floor it it smokes, and accelerating above 3000rpm we are still getting fuel starvation if I push it too quick, so the best technique at the moment is a smooth acceleration, not stamping on it. I am being very gentle with the throttle generally. I am using the gears to keep it above 2000 rpm generally, it will run at urban low speeds in the higher gears but i have to use very light throttle to avoid the smoke.
The idle shudder is still present but intermittent. After a very wet afternoon in Padstow on Saturday we sat in the car park for 20mins with the aircon full on trying to dry out a bit and it was fine, but pulling up to traffic lights on the way home it shuddered again. This has never been a car for city driving, its an open roads car, these mods have enhanced that but it is livlier at stop start stuff than it ever was before
The DIS display is still all to **** as it has not been reset, last tankfull including all the remapping and frigging around with the fuel system was 25mpg. Watching the fuel gauge at the moment i would guess i'm going to get high 20s this tank. I'm sure if i drove a little more gently i'd do better but thats probably unlikely for a bit.
Off to the plane now, hopefully on the dyno Thursday
The mechanic got into the fuel tank last week and couldn't see anything wrong so unless Celtic can map us out of this i am probably going to have to get a lift pump

 

[blackwagon]

I opened my right valve cover to change my needle lift sensor since it was broken. What did I find to my surprise ??? 1 rocker was missing from te intake valve of Cylinder 1, the hydro was still present but has a hole knocked in it at the top. I didn't expect this, the engine was running perfectly. I suspect someone to have known this, where else did the rocker bits go to if they weren't removed ? The cam lobes are perfect, I can't feel any wear when scratching them with my thumbnail.
The lobe of which the rocker is missing does not have any marks on it at all, so it has certainly been like that quite some time.

From the cars history I know it had the timing belt replaced at 142 Kkm, I suspect they put new cams in at that point, and maybe the rocker was badly positioned leading to the failure. Now, would they tell the owner that they f... up his car or would they just think 23 out of 24 valves would pass without anybody noticing ?

B.R

 

[adamss24]

You will be surprised to hear how many cars i've been working on wich they did not have all the rocker arms/lifters in place. I suspect they did designed the head in such maneer so if the valves touch the pistons, the rocker arms will shatter so the valves dont get dammaged. Also, the valves will stay shut so the cylinder will still work allbeit at reduced eficiency ! The ECU will adjust the fueling by comparing the speed at wich the cylinders turn- thats 1 of the functions of the needle lift sensor-so if one cyl will spin slower than the others it will increase fueling to keep the engine running smooth. You will find the arm/lifter might be inside the oil sump or lodged into one of the heads oil drain channels.

 

[blackwagon]

Hello,

Since it is the valve at the back of the engine, close to the firewall, I might be able to put a strap between the two cams near the gears , removing the brackets that keep the cams down except for the front ones which I will only loosen so the cams can be moved upwards about an inch at the back. Like that I can install a new hydro and rocker without disassembling the whole thing. But if the belt jumps or the cams don't keep together I am in for the complete job including the belt.
Damn, I want all of my 24 valves to work !!! I hope I don't encounter the same problem on the other bank...

B.R

 

[fjtwelve]

Yesterday a small figure emerged from the black smoke billowing from the Alan Jeffreys dyno room, distinguished largely by the grin and the piece of paper he was holding. " I have in my hand a piece of paper that means peace in our time, no no that won't do, er, oh buggrit cop this"

 

[adamss24]

That's impressive ! Now thats monney well spent !

 

[blackwagon]

I take my hat off for those results! Congrats !

How is the smoke, did they succeed to map it to acceptable levels ?
What turbo pressure are you running, still 1.9 bars ?
Oh boy, would I like to see your car stretching it's legs, must be impressive.

Keep us posted on how you are doing

B.R

 

[jwhat]

Wow that's a lot of hp

Is the torque over 450 too?!

I bet it was worth some of the hassle now! Well done.

 

[fjtwelve]

Torque is 455ftlb, or 632Nm.
Remap for less smoke and idle shudder removal next week, will probably take the edge off the peak figures. Not sure what boost is at the moment, i think Celtic came back off the 1.9 bar because the fuel pump couldn't keep up. I still need to research the solution to that one.

 

[quattrojames]

Stunning! Well done - nice result :thumbsup:

 

[blackwagon]

How is the car running at the moment ?
Are all other pieces keeping together when the monster torque tries to spin the world backwards ?
I wondered if the clutch and the dual mass flywheel are keeping up.

B.R

 

[fjtwelve]

Have parted with another £915 for the injection pump repair *(£580), fuel filter, hunt the fuel problem, the labour involved in all of that and the various remapping we've been doing. I don't think i am getting charged all the hours that are going in. Car is in at the moment to get the smoke and idle shudder fixed. Have been researching a fuel pump but no solution yet. Probably an externally mounted pump on the delivery line but i don't know enough about the system yet ie what pressure what flow what sensors and so on.
As i am not caning the **** out of it at the moment (well, mostly) due to smoke there are no clutch issues as far as i can tell. However I m wondering if the misfire sensation when accelerating harder in the higher gears at around 3000rpm ie peak torque is clutch slip rather than fuel starvation. The fuel starvation seems to manifest itself a few seconds after a short blast with a slightly different hesitation sensation.
* In a true Gillette style "i liked the shave so much i bought the company" Diesel Bob has become a Celtic agent after talking to them about my pump.

 

[Inskip75]

I've got my 2.5Tdi quattro squeezed into Seat Cupra forum rolling road next weekend at Awesome Gti so I'll see how it is at the moment and then maybe suspension and Celtic remap - interesting about Diesel Bob as I believe he is in Preston as I am about 6 miles away!

 

[joedredd]

What a fantastic and interesting thread. Just read it from start to finish, talk about a roller coaster ride. You must be really happy with the results now. Is there any advice you can give to a fellow A6 owner, who is itching to get some bits done, by the way my engine is an AFB 150bhp.

 

[fjtwelve]

Check the engine thoroughly before you start, mechanically and electronically ie VAGCOM. Basically you want it running fault free. Brakes, suspension, tyres need to have plenty of life left. New air filter, is that MAF working properly, basic service done, cam covers off to make sure all the cams and lifters are all OK. Your injection pump will be OK to 150K unless its been running on low quality fuel or bio/veg stuff. If its over that i'd get it overhauled. This is a bitch to get off, best combined with a cambelt service, at which point you should also time expire and replace water pump, thermostat and all those other bits that are otherwise inaccessible. Check all the hoses, especially all the littttle vacumn hoses as well as the big manifold hoses. Those little leaks can cause wrong sensor readings, loss of power and so on. Often hard to find, cheap to fix. get inside the manifolds, you'd be surprised how much crud builds up inside them from the EGR valve letting sooty exhaust gas back in.
Once you're happy the engine is in good order find a dyno house, 2wd are much more common than the 4wd. Some 2wd places advertise 4wd capability because they pull the fuse for the haldex (Celtic for instance) - this was no use with my permanent mechanical quattro, hence the trips to Plymouth for the dyno runs. Get a dyno run done to use as a baseline, all dynos are different, keep using the same one to see what effect changes are making. If the dyno house can monitor air fuel ratio (AFR) exhaust gas temperature (EGT) boost pressure, throttle opening so much the better, they are all helpful to the remapper.
Choosing someone to do a remap is fairly personal, based on recommendation of other people with exactly (think about gearboxes, saloon/estate, model year(don't go by reg plate, look at the engine number)) the same car as you, balanced with location, cost and results. Forum research is the best way to do this. If you are planning further mods then consider if they can do the mechanical works as well as the remapping. If you are planning mods then the remapper will need to be more than just a laptop carrying guy who will flash over a new map bought from someone else or is just an agent for the remap company, they will need to be able to understand how the mapping really works, and be able to develop it to respond to different components you add to the engine. If the dyno shop is in a different place from the remapper from the workshop how are you going to get the car from one to another?

What to do? Well remap is easy. Bigger nozzles with a remap should be easy if a little more intricate. Hybrid turbo was a bolt on job plus another remap but has made the big difference. Plenty of places around for turbos, looked at a lot, few websites have tech details on so difficult to compare all the different ones. After that you can start spending lots of money on cams, valves, exhaust manifolds, intercoolers, fuel cooling and pumps. Theres not much available as far as i can tell, i never wanted to go that far so haven't hunted very hard. For whatever reason theres a lot of guys in Finland working on this engine, tdiclub.com is a good source of info and contacts.Be prepared for bits not to fit, discovery of broken bits and everything to take a while. Every mod is likely to affecrt the others so think carefully about your sequence of work or combination of mods. Publish what you are doing on a website, i have had more than a few useful tips from people who have been reading my stuff and gone oh yeah we had that problem try this. Perseverance pays off.
Good luck, let us know if you do anything.

 

[adamss24]

I've got my 2.5Tdi quattro squeezed into Seat Cupra forum rolling road next weekend at Awesome Gti so I'll see how it is at the moment and then maybe suspension and Celtic remap - interesting about Diesel Bob as I believe he is in Preston as I am about 6 miles away!

Is that a v6 tdi quattro or an in-line R5 ? Its a bit of work to fit a v6 in a golf based car but not imposible if you have the drive and money to spend. I hope is a Haldex quattro and not an propper Torsen conversion otherwise i would be really jealous and itching to drive your car !

 

[Inskip75]

Is that a v6 tdi quattro or an in-line R5 ? Its a bit of work to fit a v6 in a golf based car but not imposible if you have the drive and money to spend. I hope is a Haldex quattro and not an propper Torsen conversion otherwise i would be really jealous and itching to drive your car !

Its the car thats squeezed into SeatCupra.net session, not the engine squeezed into another body! - although I can see the confusion the car is a standard V6 Tdi A6 Avant and I just want to see a base for maybe Celtic remap next year.

 

[adamss24]

Sorry mate, miss read your post ! Anyway, good luck with the rolling road session and i can vouch for DieselBob, had a few pumps rebuilt by him, not a problem with them so far.

 

[joedredd]

Check the engine thoroughly before you start, mechanically and electronically ie VAGCOM. Basically you want it running fault free. Brakes, suspension, tyres need to have plenty of life left. New air filter, is that MAF working properly, basic service done, cam covers off to make sure all the cams and lifters are all OK. Your injection pump will be OK to 150K unless its been running on low quality fuel or bio/veg stuff. If its over that i'd get it overhauled. This is a bitch to get off, best combined with a cambelt service, at which point you should also time expire and replace water pump, thermostat and all those other bits that are otherwise inaccessible. Check all the hoses, especially all the littttle vacumn hoses as well as the big manifold hoses. Those little leaks can cause wrong sensor readings, loss of power and so on. Often hard to find, cheap to fix. get inside the manifolds, you'd be surprised how much crud builds up inside them from the EGR valve letting sooty exhaust gas back in.
Once you're happy the engine is in good order find a dyno house, 2wd are much more common than the 4wd. Some 2wd places advertise 4wd capability because they pull the fuse for the haldex (Celtic for instance) - this was no use with my permanent mechanical quattro, hence the trips to Plymouth for the dyno runs. Get a dyno run done to use as a baseline, all dynos are different, keep using the same one to see what effect changes are making. If the dyno house can monitor air fuel ratio (AFR) exhaust gas temperature (EGT) boost pressure, throttle opening so much the better, they are all helpful to the remapper.
Choosing someone to do a remap is fairly personal, based on recommendation of other people with exactly (think about gearboxes, saloon/estate, model year(don't go by reg plate, look at the engine number)) the same car as you, balanced with location, cost and results. Forum research is the best way to do this. If you are planning further mods then consider if they can do the mechanical works as well as the remapping. If you are planning mods then the remapper will need to be more than just a laptop carrying guy who will flash over a new map bought from someone else or is just an agent for the remap company, they will need to be able to understand how the mapping really works, and be able to develop it to respond to different components you add to the engine. If the dyno shop is in a different place from the remapper from the workshop how are you going to get the car from one to another?

What to do? Well remap is easy. Bigger nozzles with a remap should be easy if a little more intricate. Hybrid turbo was a bolt on job plus another remap but has made the big difference. Plenty of places around for turbos, looked at a lot, few websites have tech details on so difficult to compare all the different ones. After that you can start spending lots of money on cams, valves, exhaust manifolds, intercoolers, fuel cooling and pumps. Theres not much available as far as i can tell, i never wanted to go that far so haven't hunted very hard. For whatever reason theres a lot of guys in Finland working on this engine, tdiclub.com is a good source of info and contacts.Be prepared for bits not to fit, discovery of broken bits and everything to take a while. Every mod is likely to affecrt the others so think carefully about your sequence of work or combination of mods. Publish what you are doing on a website, i have had more than a few useful tips from people who have been reading my stuff and gone oh yeah we had that problem try this. Perseverance pays off.
Good luck, let us know if you do anything.

Thanks for all this info, I will be seeing Chris (adamss24) at the weekend and he is doing a couple of jobs for me and will be giving the car a going over so I will see what he reckons will need doing before the modding starts.
Last year I had the cambelt,water pump done so a bit miffed that the injection pump should have been changed (mileage (168K) but I have always used Shell diesel.
Re the remap I was intending to use AMD as just across the river from me, as my ECU needs to be removed and a chip replaced (older model) as oppose to a flash.
Do you think its worth doing mods to a engine with this much mileage?

 

[adamss24]

George, me last a4 had 180K on the clock, and been driven hard every day ! I mean driven hard at speeds over 130Mph ! Me curent one has about 170k and still will embarras petrol fast cars...These cars are the last breed of well engineered german motors with just a few problems(the injector's pump being one of them!) as every other car. If you take it apart and study it in detail, the v6 engine is a masterpiece, they used the best materials available on a budget(stainless manifolds, copper holding nuts), 4 valves per cylinder, centre positioned injector, and reliable Garrett VNT turbo(decent spool from 1500rpm and good response on high revs as well). The Achiles heel is the injector's pump wich gives up the gost at anything between 150k to 250k. Funny, is just the electronic brain that fails, the mechanichal part of it is still good after all that mileage even on low sulphur diesel fuel !

 

[joedredd]

George, me last a4 had 180K on the clock, and been driven hard every day ! I mean driven hard at speeds over 130Mph ! Me curent one has about 170k and still will embarras petrol fast cars...These cars are the last breed of well engineered german motors with just a few problems(the injector's pump being one of them!) as every other car. If you take it apart and study it in detail, the v6 engine is a masterpiece, they used the best materials available on a budget(stainless manifolds, copper holding nuts), 4 valves per cylinder, centre positioned injector, and reliable Garrett VNT turbo(decent spool from 1500rpm and good response on high revs as well). The Achiles heel is the injector's pump wich gives up the gost at anything between 150k to 250k. Funny, is just the electronic brain that fails, the mechanichal part of it is still good after all that mileage even on low sulphur diesel fuel !

Well Chris I have done quite a bit of reading in the last few days and your knowledge and experience is going to be fully used by me (cash permitting )

 

[fjtwelve]

Do you think its worth doing mods to a engine with this much mileage?

My car has 204k miles on it, i hope for another 100k. Compare the cost of doing the mods on a car that you will know inside out when you have finished, with the cost of buying an unknown car with the same performance.

 

[joedredd]

My car has 204k miles on it, i hope for another 100k. Compare the cost of doing the mods on a car that you will know inside out when you have finished, with the cost of buying an unknown car with the same performance.

Never thought of looking at it that way, and guess what..............













your right, will more than likely start my own thread, once things are started.

 

[fjtwelve]

Finally managed a few miles over Christmas. The car failed its MOT due to smoke so is back with Celtic for more work. We had a quick go at the remap after the first MOT, the MOT guy kindly gave me another shot at the emissions test FOC afterwards and we found we had improved things but not enough. With this ECU is you can't remap it on the fly, so its a matter of adjust it, take it out for a drive, report back, adjust it reload it and go out for another drive. The smoke problem is the over fuelling and cloud of smoke when you first floor the accelerator, it then runs clean. Unfortunately for me this floor it until the governor comes in is the MOT emissions test style. Very frustrating as i can drive to Scotland with hardly a whiff of smoke. Anything over 1600-1700 rpm is now clean, its just from idle to there is smoky under load.
As we have been cutting the fuelling back i have noticed a slight reduction in the unstoppable acceleration rush and the almost digital movement of the rev counter when the throttle is blipped, so I expect to see the dyno numbers clipped slightly. It is getting slightly more user friendly to drive in sub 50mph traffic as i am not blowing clouds of black smoke as much as i was. The clutch slipping torque is still there, despite the presence of the marital speed restrictor i managed a few sprints on the journey between Cornwall and Scotland. 100-120 is as quick as 80 -100, just no difference. A bit of cross country stuff showed the 50-70 to be very quick, i'm finding i have to stay bit further behind people before i put the foot down to overtake, after i nearly ran up the back of someone. Keeping the revs between 2 and 3000rpm in 4th 5th 6th is a recipe for huge fun, but if you do it too hard the clutch slips. The car feels a lot better after getting out of back lane pottering and back into its grand tourer homeland for a few days, and i have almost remembered how to drive.
Mostly motorway cruising generally at 80-100, sat nav on the road average just over 70, returned 30-31mpg over about 1200 miles. And another litre of oil, still not solved that one.
Had a narrow squeak with running out of diesel in the Lakes on New Years Eve. All the remapping has played havoc with the DIS settings so i was ignoring them, but when the trusty 9 litres left warning light came on i calculated i had enough to get to Carlisle. Fortunately I was persuaded to stop at Tebay, and it turned out i had under 5 litres left. That would have been a very miserable evening sat on the hard shoulder otherwise. Obviously when the tank pump was out for a check we dislodged something. oops

 

[fjtwelve]

Graham at Celtic has done it again, the smoke has greatly reduced and we passed the emissions test with flying colours. I had to go with a different MOT tester as the original one was booked up and guess what he found different things. He found a cut in the nearside tyre and that there is a fuel leak at the fuel filter so back we go again next week.
There is much less smoke and the car is easier to drive in urban traffic without worrying about smoke every time i pull away from lights/roundabout. It'll still smoke if you provoke it ie try to accelerate up a hill at low revs, or put the foot down hard but this tends to be very short lived. Progress progress. Can feel a dyno coming on soon to see what it looks like after all the tweaking we've been doing.