Lettuce Build Thread, Fast Cars and Fast Women: Stage 2 and Beyond

[Allowencer]

Where you found your screen is where I found mine too. That doesn't sit well with me to just leave it like this. If that screen breaks apart or creases up and gets lodged in an oil galley, I don't need to explain what will happen next...

I'm digging to see what my options are because I'm not putting my engine back together like that.

As long as piston #1 is at TDC, line up the marking link for the crank onto the crank sprocket and then everything will be laid out in front of you as to how the cam sprockets need to go. They both need to be close to 12 o'clock. I think it's more like 11:30'ish for exhaust and 12:30'ish for intake if you really want to get technical

[Allowencer]

Hey lettuce - thanks to van462, him and I were messaging back and forth and he was able to dig up one of his threads that has some info!

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...1#post10888021

This was done under RVU #15D6, ask your dealer that specific question.

Part number is 06H103144J but the screen(06H103081E) and check valve 06H103176G(11mm) or 06H103176F (12mm) can be ordered separately.

[lettuce]

Hey lettuce - thanks to van462, him and I were messaging back and forth and he was able to dig up one of his threads that has some info!

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...1#post10888021

Wow, awesome detective work. I wonder how that's installed, looks like maybe it's pressed in?

And there's no difference as far as the motor is concerned which stroke the crankshaft is on with regards to the cam timing? As in, it could be about to start the intake stroke or the combustion stroke, and it won't mess anything up if I get those two swapped? I would assume not, but I don't like to just assume things like this.

[Allowencer]

Hey man, I never give up lol. I find ways to get what I'm looking for. The question that I'm trying to find out is does that screen crap out because of design just based on it getting pushed via oil pressure over time (to that point, has the screen part been revised?) or is the check ball traveling beyond its limit and hitting the screen which breaks it/damages it? To that point, this 15D6 RVU, I'm trying to see if the cam control bracket has a different part number. I'm still digging.... I did find this on ECS though:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...et/06h103144j/

I know what you're saying, but to ensure I'm on the same page as you, I'll re-word it as the answer . The crank itself does not have any coorelation to the cam timing in regards to which stroke. Meaning, when piston #1 is at TDC, it's "TDC". It's not until the cam(s) timing is linked up does TDC truly mean TDC depending on what stroke. Make sense?

[lettuce]

The question that I'm trying to find out is does that screen crap out because of design just based on it getting pushed via oil pressure over time (to that point, has the screen part been revised?) or is the check ball traveling beyond its limit and hitting the screen which breaks it/damages it? To that point, this 15D6 RVU, I'm trying to see if the cam control bracket has a different part number. I'm still digging.... I did find this on ECS though:

Yeah I saw that on ECS too. I don't think I'm getting another one though. I just threw it back together how I found it and I'm gonna go from there. It's not like it's hard to replace, it's right up under the timing cover and can be swapped out in maybe 30 minutes tops. If I'm feeling particularly generous one day maybe I'll change it but for now I think it's fine. It's probably been running perfectly like this for 50k+ miles. I'd hate to replace it with a brand new, original, non-revised replacement and have that one actually break apart and end up blowing tiny little metal wires from the mesh into my cam journals. At least I know this one's somewhat intact.

I know what you're saying, but to ensure I'm on the same page as you, I'll re-word it as the answer . The crank itself does not have any coorelation to the cam timing in regards to which stroke. Meaning, when piston #1 is at TDC, it's "TDC". It's not until the cam(s) timing is linked up does TDC truly mean TDC depending on what stroke. Make sense?

I gotcha. I've just never worked on a DOHC motor with balance shafts and such a complex system involving multiple chains, tensioners, guides, valve lift, etc. Got everything all buttoned up now, just waiting on the gasket shit to dry before I start it up. I'm figuring I have about an 80% chance of success, a 10% chance I missed something small and need to tweak it a bit, and then a 10% chance of immediate and catastrophic engine failure. I did rotate it around a few times with no interference so I'm feeling pretty good about it but we'll see.

[lettuce]

Everything seems to be in working order. There is a small noise coming from my high pressure fuel pump though that I didn't notice before. Sounds sorta like a faint ticking (and it seems to be going with revs) but more of a 'puff', like pressurized air is escaping. Haven't taken it for a drive yet, just let it idle and gave it a few revs as I still want to wait for the gasket to dry.

Any ideas what that could be?

[19birel]

Congrats on getting it back together! Hopefully that solves you smoking issues as well as the oil consumption! I have no idea what your fuel pump issue could be though, I'd put a few miles on it and see if it persists.

[blbroo]

Can you get a recording of the noise? I'll compare it to mine.

Your water meth hoses are showing.


#pedalresponce

[lettuce]

Congrats on getting it back together! Hopefully that solves you smoking issues as well as the oil consumption! I have no idea what your fuel pump issue could be though, I'd put a few miles on it and see if it persists.

Thanks. Unfortunately it seems I'm not done yet.

Can you get a recording of the noise? I'll compare it to mine.

Your water meth hoses are showing.


#pedalresponce

Well I went out to take a video for you and realized my HPFP is pissing oil out of the rear panel. Don't have any idea why, going to have to look into it tomorrow. Also noticed I don't have any power brakes. Anybody know if these could be related somehow?

Edit: K so it looks like the HPFP bolts into a vacuum pump and it's the vacuum pump that's leaking. Would explain the lack of brakes. Must have borked the install, not lining it up with the notches in the back of the exhaust cam and pushed it out towards the back panel. Could be worse but looks like this ordeal isn't over with just yet.

[Allowencer]

Sorry, I was at hockey last night and got home late - went right to bed.

Sounds like you figured it out. Like you said, the HPFP bolts to the vacuum pump. When you remove the head, there's a bi- or tri- metal gasket that sits between the vacuum pump and the back of the head. The exhaust cam basically powers the vacuum (I believe) and the cam follower for the HPFP rides on that end lobe on the exhaust camshaft which is what compresses the fuel for delivery. Either you have a massive vac leak or the pump isn't functioning properly (not installed correctly) which is why you have little to no vacuum and no brakes.

[lettuce]

Sorry, I was at hockey last night and got home late - went right to bed.

Sounds like you figured it out. Like you said, the HPFP bolts to the vacuum pump. When you remove the head, there's a bi- or tri- metal gasket that sits between the vacuum pump and the back of the head. The exhaust cam basically powers the vacuum (I believe) and the cam follower for the HPFP rides on that end lobe on the exhaust camshaft which is what compresses the fuel for delivery. Either you have a massive vac leak or the pump isn't functioning properly (not installed correctly) which is why you have little to no vacuum and no brakes.

Yeah so the vacuum pump is keyed and basically fits into a groove on the back of the exhaust cam. The groove is centered on the cam, so it's possible to get it to feel like it's in when it's actually 180 degrees the wrong way. The reason there's a right and a wrong way is because there's a smaller pin on one side that fits into a hole to make it unidirectional.

So what I did was installed it the wrong way thinking it was in the right way, and when I torqued it down to the head, the cam pushed the vacuum pump innards out the back of it ever so slightly, bowing the rear plate and causing a massive vacuum and oil leak out the gap.

Kinda feel like an idiot but at least it'll be a quick and easy fix. Even if the new pump and next day shipping put a $300 dent in my pocket. Lesson learned I suppose, and it's still a hell of a lot better than basically anything else that could have gone wrong with this job. Imagine if my timing was off by a link? My car would have been collecting barnacles at the bottom of the Charles by now.

[Allowencer]

Sometimes 'lessons learned' can bite ya but that's what they are! LOL You did well man - nothing to be ashamed about. Bigger man for sharing your experience.

I can honestly say, you can be 3 teeth off and pistons wont hit valves (I would personally know this for a fact ).

[lettuce]

Sometimes 'lessons learned' can bite ya but that's what they are! LOL You did well man - nothing to be ashamed about. Bigger man for sharing your experience.

I can honestly say, you can be 3 teeth off and pistons wont hit valves (I would personally know this for a fact ).

Hah yeah I turned it over a few times to make sure I wasn't going to be blowing anything up, I was more concerned about just having to go back in and take it all apart to reset the timing if I got it wrong. I wasn't doing that shit again.

Although I suppose I still could be a bit off and just not know it yet? I guess I'll find out when I get the pump in tomorrow and take the new seals out for a test drive. I assume I'll be able to feel it if it's off.

Side note: The exhaust cam actually was in the higher-lift position when I took it out. I was able to just click them each over by hand to get them in the lower-lift position for an easier install, but I thought that was weird. I assumed it'd only be in that position under high-load/high-RPM conditions.

[Allowencer]

Yeah I saw that on ECS too. I don't think I'm getting another one though. I just threw it back together how I found it and I'm gonna go from there. It's not like it's hard to replace, it's right up under the timing cover and can be swapped out in maybe 30 minutes tops. If I'm feeling particularly generous one day maybe I'll change it but for now I think it's fine. It's probably been running perfectly like this for 50k+ miles. I'd hate to replace it with a brand new, original, non-revised replacement and have that one actually break apart and end up blowing tiny little metal wires from the mesh into my cam journals. At least I know this one's somewhat intact.

I gotcha. I've just never worked on a DOHC motor with balance shafts and such a complex system involving multiple chains, tensioners, guides, valve lift, etc. Got everything all buttoned up now, just waiting on the gasket shit to dry before I start it up. I'm figuring I have about an 80% chance of success, a 10% chance I missed something small and need to tweak it a bit, and then a 10% chance of immediate and catastrophic engine failure. I did rotate it around a few times with no interference so I'm feeling pretty good about it but we'll see.

I agree pretty straight-forward and easily accessable to change it out. Did you remove the screen though and not leave it loosely in an oil galley/passage?

Also, let me know if there was a 'between the lines' in there; meaning, "I'm gonna wait for Allowencer to identify if there's a newer cam control bracket or not before I actually do anything" [;D]. Am I far off?

A motor is a motor as the base when you're dealing with an inline, V style. Rotarys are a thing of their own let me tell you. However, timing is timing; got to make sure it all lines up properly. When I started to learn the Honda VTEC and then BMW's VVT is when things started to really get neat with variable valve timing.

You checked and double-checked your work - well done.

[Allowencer]

Hah yeah I turned it over a few times to make sure I wasn't going to be blowing anything up, I was more concerned about just having to go back in and take it all apart to reset the timing if I got it wrong. I wasn't doing that shit again.

Although I suppose I still could be a bit off and just not know it yet? I guess I'll find out when I get the pump in tomorrow and take the new seals out for a test drive. I assume I'll be able to feel it if it's off.

Side note: The exhaust cam actually was in the higher-lift position when I took it out. I was able to just click them each over by hand to get them in the lower-lift position for an easier install, but I thought that was weird. I assumed it'd only be in that position under high-load/high-RPM conditions.

Yeah, I hear ya. 2-3 full complete rotations is what I do to ensure timing is correct. I try to turn it over by hand as fast as I can too to ensure the tensioners are good and nothing will 'jump'.

I'm pretty sure the ECU would have flipped on ya if you were off. It knows timing even at idle. The intake cam auto rotates based on magnetic pull (which is what that control system does) and the exhaust cam is hydraulically driven (as you know). On startup if each of those cam sensors and the crank sensor don't provide the correct correlations to the ECU, MIL is tripped. I think you're good to go.

Yeah, I find that interesting too. I'm wondering if its a 'at rest' type thing. I did do more research and was able to verify 2 use cases for those cam pins that I talked about and bought:
1. puts the cam into position to ensure the lower lift lobes are on the valve train
2. puts the cam into position so that the head can be taken off without touching the valve cover (cams and valve cover come off with the head). There are cut outs into the cam so that when you put it into a certain position, you can get a triple square bit down past the cam and to the head bolts lying beneath without marking up the cam.

[lettuce]

I agree pretty straight-forward and easily accessable to change it out. Did you remove the screen though and not leave it loosely in an oil galley/passage?

Also, let me know if there was a 'between the lines' in there; meaning, "I'm gonna wait for Allowencer to identify if there's a newer cam control bracket or not before I actually do anything" [;D]. Am I far off?

A motor is a motor as the base when you're dealing with an inline, V style. Rotarys are a thing of their own let me tell you. However, timing is timing; got to make sure it all lines up properly. When I started to learn the Honda VTEC and then BMW's VVT is when things started to really get neat with variable valve timing.

You checked and double-checked your work - well done.

Yeah I chucked the ripped-out portion of the screen. The check valve is going commando right now. I mulled over the idea of tossing it back in loosely but I decided against it. Playing around with the check valve it didn't seem like there was any realistic chance of it coming loose, especially considering it's been there unprotected for who knows how long without popping out so I'm not worried.

And hah no, no reading between the lines intended. If you do happen to come across some info regarding whether or not the bridge has had a revision I'd certainly be interested, but no worries. I'll probably be swapping it out at some point regardless I just didn't feel like it was a show-stopper for getting this particular job done.

Yeah, I hear ya. 2-3 full complete rotations is what I do to ensure timing is correct. I try to turn it over by hand as fast as I can too to ensure the tensioners are good and nothing will 'jump'.

I'm pretty sure the ECU would have flipped on ya if you were off. It knows timing even at idle. The intake cam auto rotates based on magnetic pull (which is what that control system does) and the exhaust cam is hydraulically driven (as you know). On startup if each of those cam sensors and the crank sensor don't provide the correct correlations to the ECU, MIL is tripped. I think you're good to go.

Yeah, I find that interesting too. I'm wondering if its a 'at rest' type thing. I did do more research and was able to verify 2 use cases for those cam pins that I talked about and bought:
1. puts the cam into position to ensure the lower lift lobes are on the valve train
2. puts the cam into position so that the head can be taken off without touching the valve cover (cams and valve cover come off with the head). There are cut outs into the cam so that when you put it into a certain position, you can get a triple square bit down past the cam and to the head bolts lying beneath without marking up the cam.

Good news on the MIL. And that's a neat design allowing the head to be taken off with the valve cover intact. Now hopefully I'll never have to make use of that information.

[Allowencer]

Yeah I chucked the ripped-out portion of the screen. The check valve is going commando right now. I mulled over the idea of tossing it back in loosely but I decided against it. Playing around with the check valve it didn't seem like there was any realistic chance of it coming loose, especially considering it's been there unprotected for who knows how long without popping out so I'm not worried.

And hah no, no reading between the lines intended. If you do happen to come across some info regarding whether or not the bridge has had a revision I'd certainly be interested, but no worries. I'll probably be swapping it out at some point regardless I just didn't feel like it was a show-stopper for getting this particular job done.

Good news on the MIL. And that's a neat design allowing the head to be taken off with the valve cover intact. Now hopefully I'll never have to make use of that information.

LOL going commando - nice... Yeah, smart idea to not toss it back in. Even if it affects some PSI of oil pressure, it can't be but more than a few pounds if I were to guess. Nothing that is breaking the bank to worry about. If that checkball was moving freely and not sticking, then you should be in good shape.

LOL np, I had to crack a joke there. I'm still digging to see if I can figure something out on that cam control bracket. I really don't want to put my car back together without a 'proper' solution.

Oh come on now, sure you will; you have that other block to work on!

[lettuce]

So, now that this ordeal is finally over with and I can discuss it without wanting to jump off the roof of a parking garage figured I'd post a little write up on how it went. I just finished it all a couple days ago so I don't know if it was effective in solving/reducing my oil consumption or not, but I'll update this post when I get some conclusive results. Overall to sum it up I would say that it was a nightmare and I would sooner sell my car than do it again. That being said, if it does end up solving all my consumption issues then it was the best thing I've done to my car and I wish I'd done it sooner.

First I took a bunch of stuff apart.

Took the upper timing cover off along with the cam bridge/bracket in front and used a screwdriver resting atop my #1 piston to advance it to TDC before removing my valve cover and pulling my cams. Note you need a special tool to remove the control valve assembly that secures the cam bridge onto the intake cam. Something like this (note: i updated that link a few years after I did this job as the tool I purchased and linked originally disappeared. Double check that it's the right one.). Also note that it is reverse-threaded so twist it clockwise to remove it.



I tried to make this job as easy as possible, so since I didn't want to bother removing my lower timing cover I marked off the links on the chain which lined up with the notches on my cam sprockets, and used zip ties to keep tension on the chain. I did this so I wouldn't jump any teeth on the crank sprocket, because as long as I didn't do that, all I'd have to do for reinstallation is line up the markings on the sprockets with the markings I made on the chain and I'd be right back where I started. Unfortunately it didn't work out like that, but at least I tried.



Here is the zip tie situation, but this is after I inevitably ended up jumping teeth on the crank sprocket, so the markings were removed as they were no longer necessary.







Then I pressurized my combustion chambers to around 80psi to avoid my valves from dropping. I did the cylinders in pairs, only working on ones that were at TDC so that just in case they did drop I wouldn't have lost them, but they still need to be propped up tight when reinstalling the springs or else you'll never get the retainers and keepers on. I used air, I've heard of some people who fill their chambers with rope. Whatever works.

Unfortunately this is what led to me losing position with the crank sprocket. When I connected the air hose to pressurize cylinder 3, the bottom end just began rotating immediately and very quickly, swallowing up the chain, snapping my zip ties and basically ruining my life at that moment. Or so I thought.



Here's the new seals. Intake in red, exhaust in blue. I thought the colors would have made sense the other way around but I'm sure it's just due to the different materials that are used in each (polyacrylic for the intakes and viton for the exhausts).





So if you go back to this post you'll see the tools I originally ordered for this job. Waste of money. The keeper remover/installer set was good at removing but useless at installing. They're made to work with single-groove keepers and retainers which sit flush with the top of the valve. The setup on our 2.0t motors has neither of these. So I tried to get creative and that failed miserably. I'm only posting this next part so you can know what NOT to do. Don't try this at home.







The reason why you shouldn't do that is because you'll get it all nice and compressed thinking what a genius you are, you'll place it over your valve, place your retainer on top, and right as you have your keepers in place ready to click them in, the zip ties will snap, causing the spring to send your keepers flying off into a dark abyss where they'll never be found. I must have spent 20 minutes peering through every little valley in my cylinder head to make sure they weren't hiding in there, ready to destroy something the moment I started it up. I did have every valley that emptied down into my block plugged up with shop towels (highly recommend you do this), so it could have been worse, but still.

Anyway after giving up, thinking they must just be lost forever in some hidden nook my engine bay, literally almost a week later when bolting everything back together I decided to give it one last check and found one nestled between a main bolt and a crevice in my head. That would have been a very expensive mistake. So yeah, don't do that. Get one of these instead:



I got the entire thing on Amazon for under $35, and it comes with two sets of valve seal pliers and an air hose for pressurizing your cylinders. So basically everything I bought separately, but better, and less than half the price (the other keeper/installer kit alone was $50). Of course now I had to overnight ship it, so it ended up costing me a lot more than $32.99, but lesson learned. You absolutely need one of these if you're going to be removing your springs with your head on your car. Nothing else will work. Learn from my mistake. This thing made the rest of the job so easy, if I just got it in the first place it would have saved me so much time and aggravation.

The two rearmost exhaust springs couldn't be accessed with the tool mounted normally due to the wheel well and metal lines getting in the way, so I had to get creative and mount it sideways using the bracket as leverage. It worked just fine. The front couple exhaust springs needed the airbox to be removed, and the middle four along with all the intake valves were easy and you had plenty of room to get them out normally.



To reinstall the keepers, lather the inside with your favorite kind of assembly grease to make them sticky. Then do the same to your finger tip. Just compress the spring, poke the edge of the valve with your finger, and decompress. Then with a small flathead or something just compress the spring slightly and rotate the keeper around 180 degrees to the backside of the valve, then repeat the process to get the other keeper on. It's really easy once you have the right tools.



The front cam bridge/bracket has a little screen in it that is probably ripped out and broken on your car as you read this. Apparently it's been revised and you can get a new one here for $100. I believe if you scroll up a few posts, member Allowencer makes mention of the fact that you may be able to purchase just the screen separately and maybe press it in or something. I don't know how that works. I didn't realize this was broken until the day before I was set to finish everything up, and with all the crap I had to go through (the whole process of having to rush order the valve spring compressor and then the vacuum pump (will talk about that in a sec) cost me about 10 days of this car (my daily driver) sitting in my garage with the motor torn apart while I bummed rides to work every day) I was pretty much completely out of patience with this car and decided to reinstall it as-is. So my car currently does not have this screen. So far it's fine. If anything changes, I'll let you know.

Edit: It wasn't fine. I didn't realize this until a couple weeks later, but going over around 75 mph the car would pop an EPC light putting me into soft limp mode until I restarted the car, not letting me rev over 4k RPMs until I did so. There were a couple engine soft codes that didn't tell me a whole lot, but everything I was able to find through Google said that this is an issue pertaining to low oil pressure. So apparently this little tight mesh screen affects oil pressure enough to trip a low pressure reading on the oil pressure sensor which is right next to the cam control assembly just under the oil filter. It was fine around town, even taking it to redline, but one it hit sustained high RPMs in higher gears on the highway it would shut me down every time without fail. So I swapped out this unit for a new one with a fresh new screen and the problem went away instantly. I'm now able to drive really fast again. So don't try to reinstall this without the screen, you'll just end up having to replace it later.

Another Edit: It came back! So it's not the cam bridge that was causing the EPC light. I think it's my broken cam actuator harness clip. Stay tuned for more details.

Broken screen:



Where I found it: (just under and to the right of my exhaust cam sprocket, in the head.



Here are the old valve seals I took out. I was hoping to get them out in decent shape so I could check out the shape they were in in order to confirm if they were in fact total junk, but the process of removing them pretty much completely destroyed them soo so much for that idea.



So now it's time to put everything back together. At this point I wasn't really in 'document everything' mode, as I was pretty fed up with this whole job to begin with. Basically just put everything back in the way you found it.

Since my ziptied chain decided to go off and do it's own thing I now had to reset my timing from scratch. This ended up working out, but was more of a gamble than I would have liked. Ideally you'd have the lower timing cover off as well, and will be able to line up grey links on your chain with the notches on your three sprockets (one crank and two cams). Since I didn't have access to my crank sprocket, I had to more or less guess where it was in relation to my cams. Luckily there's a notch on the crank pulley which lines up with a very faint and sorta convoluted notch on the oil pan next to it when it's at true TDC. Here's what that looks like:



It's impossible to see with your radiator and stuff in the way, so I did the ol' screwdriver in the spark plug hole trick to get it there and then shoved my phone up in there to take those pics, brought it down to look at it, and deemed it to be about as close as I'd be able to muster given how non-descript the marking on the oil pan was. You can see I tried to clean it off with some degreaser which helped a bit.

After that I had a blast scraping all my 125k+ mile baked-on gaskets off my head and valve cover, then lined the inside of the valve cover with some Permatex anaerobic gasket maker which is 1/10 the cost of the Audi-branded stuff they recommend you use while being literally the exact same thing. The manifold has grooves cut into it where the gasket maker goes, so it's easy enough to figure out. Make sure to scrape them all out and fill them all back up otherwise you'll have leaks and have to do this all over again. Which sucks, because your valve cover doubles as your cam bridge holding them down and torqued correctly. There are also no cam bearings (they just sit between the head and valve cover, which are aluminum and apparently good enough), and the valve cover bolts are torque-to-yield so you should replace them when reinstalling it. Clean out and then cover all the cam journals, rockers, springs, cams themselves, etc all in oil before bolting everything back up. They won't be getting oil right away from the motor and you don't want to run this stuff dry. By the way the valve cover bolt torque specs are like 8 ft-lbs and then a 90 degree turn. It's important to get this right since you're essentially torquing down your cam journals.



Also when reinstalling everything there is a vacuum pump on the back of the head that the exhaust cam sits in which drives that pump (which provides vacuum which powers your power brakes) as well the high pressure fuel pump, which bolts into the vacuum pump. Take your time getting this installed correctly. Take the HPFP out of the vacuum pump, fit the vacuum pump over the end of the cam and make sure it's oriented correctly, then bolt that onto the head and then reinstall the HPFP. Don't just eyeball it, jam it on there and torque it down. Because that's what I did. Apparently it wasn't lined up as great as I thought, so I pushed the innards of the pump out the back of itself, bowing the rear plate which caused a massive vacuum and oil leak on startup which rendered my power brakes useless and dumped about a quart of oil onto my transmission and garage floor in the 30 seconds I had it running. Another expensive overnight-shipped rush order, this one to the tune of around $300. But hey at least now I have a nice new vacuum pump ;_;

Here's the old pump with the bowed out rear plate:



And here's the new pump before installing it:



And here's everything all nice and buttoned up. A sight for sore eyes, for sure.

[Elliott]

How many gray hairs has this project given you? Also lol at the ziptie.

[lettuce]

How many gray hairs has this project given you? Also lol at the ziptie.

Enough to almost make me start to consider paying other people to do this kind of shit to my car in the future..

..almost.

[X Y Z]

https://store.snapon.com/Valve-Keepe...r-P645403.aspx

Works wonders...

[lettuce]

https://store.snapon.com/Valve-Keepe...r-P645403.aspx

Works wonders...

Dude, no. Did you read my post?

[19birel]

Glad to hear the pain and suffering is finally over haha Is your car no longer a locomotive with clouds of white smoke trailing it?

[lettuce]

Glad to hear the pain and suffering is finally over haha Is your car no longer a locomotive with clouds of white smoke trailing it?

Initial reports seem to be pointing in that direction, but I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch. Need to see how long it takes to burn through a quart of oil before I come to any conclusions.

[X Y Z]

Dude, no. Did you read my post?

Ha I did read it, but didn't realize you had the same tool, was it Snap-on brand? Never had a problem using one, but i've also never used it on my B8.

[A4 Centaur]

Great write up! and glad to see you finished it up and are back on the road.

I'm sure this will help out another A4 B8 owner in the near future.

[lettuce]

Ha I did read it, but didn't realize you had the same tool, was it Snap-on brand? Never had a problem using one, but i've also never used it on my B8.

It's probably great if you use it to remove and install single-groove keepers, but it won't work on our motors no matter how hard you try. I should have read the Amazon reviews; everyone who has tried them on an Audi said to not waste your money.

Great write up! and glad to see you finished it up and are back on the road.

I'm sure this will help out another A4 B8 owner in the near future.

Yeah it feels great to be driving it again for sure. Maybe I should talk to Lambda about linking to it in the DIY sticky so more people will be able to find it.

[blbroo]

I'm glad you've done this. It makes me safely hesitant about doing my own chain tensioner service.


#pedalresponce

[lettuce]

I'm glad you've done this. It makes me safely hesitant about doing my own chain tensioner service.

Honestly the timing chain would probably be a walk in the park compared to this. Just get the tool kit that includes the cam lockers and you'll never lose your timing. Never have to take the cams out, no keepers to lose in your cylinder head, no vacuum pump to smash out and destroy. A little more setup in terms of getting things out of the way but that's all big easy stuff like crash bars and radiators, not stupid stuff like camshafts and valve springs.

[lettuce]

Okay so I'm still blowing smoke and my catch can is still completely devoid of oil. I do need to drive a while more to see how much oil I'm burning, but going off the MMI gauge for my first 100 miles seems somewhat promising. So now I have a new theory as to what's causing my thick black smoke clouds, and it may be a bit out there so bear with me.

I've always read that oil smoke is supposed to be light, almost blueish in color. My smoke is not and has never been like this. It's dark. Sometimes grey, sometimes darker. Almost even a sludgy brown color. My instincts and experience tell me this is due to running rich, but I've figured how the hell could that be with a functioning MAF and no codes. It's not like I'm running a jetted 750 Edelbrock carb on this thing.

Now when I bought my car I was getting upwards of 30mpg. That went downhill pretty quickly with all the mods I've done, and just attributed the lower MPGs to my increasingly-heavy right foot. Generally my commute these days is pretty stop and go but I'll be lucky to break 16mpg on my 20 minute ride to and from work. I can still get it up to around 24 if I baby the hell out of the gas, but that's in 'ideal' (and honestly unrealistic) driving conditions. aka zero or very light boost, cruising at 45mph in 6th gear and no stoplights. On the highway I'll be lucky to hit 22 never even getting on it. Again, this is way better than anything I've ever driven so I haven't thought anything of it.

SO, getting on with it. I posted in another thread a few weeks ago just casually mentioning that my operating temps almost never get up to the midway mark on the temp gauge. I hadn't thought much of this before since I always ran without a thermostat in my older Chevys, and it just started happening around fall (when it started getting colder out) so again I just attributed it to the new cooler outside temps. It seems to be getting worse though. I can't run my heat now at all or else it'll never even get to the 1/4 mark. Even with the heat off and it being 40 degrees out I'll be lucky if it hits the 3/8 mark (1/2 being where it should be). If I turn the heat on even for a few minutes it drops to almost 1/8. This is telling me something is wrong.

Here's the kicker. I'm searching around the forums for info on stuck thermostats and I'm reading that our ECUs will run very rich if it senses it's not warming up fast enough to try to get it there quicker. BOOM. It hits me. My car never used to smoke. It's been burning oil since I bought the thing, but only started smoking, you guessed it, towards the beginning of fall last year. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose), my car is still throwing zero codes (yes, I've decided that's actually definitely not unfortunate). So I'm not sure what it is, but I'm now operating under the assumption that I'm not blowing oil smoke, I'm blowing rich-as-hell gas smoke.

So in light of this newfound information, a new upstream O2 sensor, water pump, and thermostat are next up on the list of repairs. As well as possibly anything else you guys can think of that would be causing this.

[jcs]

Sorry I didn't have a chance to check all your posts but if you're still running that "DIY" tune, could that have something to do with your temps/smoke problem?

[lettuce]

Sorry I didn't have a chance to check all your posts but if you're still running that "DIY" tune, could that have something to do with your temps/smoke problem?

It's not a DIY tune, it's a Eurodyne base tune, and these problems started happening well after I flashed it. It was at least a few months between flashing it and when I started puffing a little smoke here and there, and it's been a pretty linear increase in how bad it's gotten. It's only very recently that it's gotten bad enough to where my car is a veritable locomotive while I'm driving, and I haven't changed anything with the tune or even done any real performance mods since back around September.

If the tune was a problem I could see it affecting the A/F ratio obviously, but it wouldn't have anything to do with my coolant temps. If I still have this problem after getting my temps in order I'll look further into that as a possibility, but it was running great with no smoke for a while so I'm thinking that's not it.

I keep telling myself I need to get a VAG-COM and that would be really helpful right about now to do some in-depth logging, but for now I'll just keep tossing darts at the board of potential issues.

[jcs]

Ok. And you're right, even one of the $40-60 Chinese cables would do wonders for you right about now... Good luck!

[lettuce]

Ok. And you're right, even one of the $40-60 Chinese cables would do wonders for you right about now... Good luck!

Yeah maybe I should just do that, it'd probably pay for itself in diagnostic work alone. Either way thanks for the help.

[asfastas63]

You're obviously a DIY guy so don't take this the wrong way, but have you considered bringing it somewhere to have it looked at? The motor not heating up sounds pretty serious, I'd be worried about damaging things by continuing to run it at not 100%.

[lettuce]

You're obviously a DIY guy so don't take this the wrong way, but have you considered bringing it somewhere to have it looked at? The motor not heating up sounds pretty serious, I'd be worried about damaging things by continuing to run it at not 100%.

The car is throwing zero codes and the first thing a shop would do when the car is not getting up to temp would be to change the thermostat, as that's what would be causing that to happen 99% of the time. I'm not paying a shop to do something that 1 I can do myself and have done many times in the past, and 2 can be alleviated by taping a piece of cardboard to the front of my radiator.

[Fastbke170]

Okay so I'm still blowing smoke and my catch can is still completely devoid of oil. I do need to drive a while more to see how much oil I'm burning, but going off the MMI gauge for my first 100 miles seems somewhat promising. So now I have a new theory as to what's causing my thick black smoke clouds, and it may be a bit out there so bear with me.

I've always read that oil smoke is supposed to be light, almost blueish in color. My smoke is not and has never been like this. It's dark. Sometimes grey, sometimes darker. Almost even a sludgy brown color. My instincts and experience tell me this is due to running rich, but I've figured how the hell could that be with a functioning MAF and no codes. It's not like I'm running a jetted 750 Edelbrock carb on this thing.

Now when I bought my car I was getting upwards of 30mpg. That went downhill pretty quickly with all the mods I've done, and just attributed the lower MPGs to my increasingly-heavy right foot. Generally my commute these days is pretty stop and go but I'll be lucky to break 16mpg on my 20 minute ride to and from work. I can still get it up to around 24 if I baby the hell out of the gas, but that's in 'ideal' (and honestly unrealistic) driving conditions. aka zero or very light boost, cruising at 45mph in 6th gear and no stoplights. On the highway I'll be lucky to hit 22 never even getting on it. Again, this is way better than anything I've ever driven so I haven't thought anything of it.

SO, getting on with it. I posted in another thread a few weeks ago just casually mentioning that my operating temps almost never get up to the midway mark on the temp gauge. I hadn't thought much of this before since I always ran without a thermostat in my older Chevys, and it just started happening around fall (when it started getting colder out) so again I just attributed it to the new cooler outside temps. It seems to be getting worse though. I can't run my heat now at all or else it'll never even get to the 1/4 mark. Even with the heat off and it being 40 degrees out I'll be lucky if it hits the 3/8 mark (1/2 being where it should be). If I turn the heat on even for a few minutes it drops to almost 1/8. This is telling me something is wrong.

Here's the kicker. I'm searching around the forums for info on stuck thermostats and I'm reading that our ECUs will run very rich if it senses it's not warming up fast enough to try to get it there quicker. BOOM. It hits me. My car never used to smoke. It's been burning oil since I bought the thing, but only started smoking, you guessed it, towards the beginning of fall last year. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose), my car is still throwing zero codes (yes, I've decided that's actually definitely not unfortunate). So I'm not sure what it is, but I'm now operating under the assumption that I'm not blowing oil smoke, I'm blowing rich-as-hell gas smoke.

So in light of this newfound information, a new upstream O2 sensor, water pump, and thermostat are next up on the list of repairs. As well as possibly anything else you guys can think of that would be causing this.

ok try to wrap your head around this as Im no Mechanic but I sell Parts , I can see from your Coolant Tank its obvously topped off. Any Possibility of your Coolant system needing to be Bled of Air in the System? Not sure that would make it run hotter or cooler. Last Summer I upgraded the coolant in my GSXR1000 and Bleeding the air from the System is Supposedly very important. Also I know the Intercooler charger system its normal to have oil expelled from the Turbo, Do you have any Extra Oil in the Charge Piping? I get your Point on the Stat Option, Its like the Car is on Constant Choke Or Fast Idle if you will. Anyway Hope you figure it out.

[Dub_prime]

Does the heat actually get hot? If it doesn't get hot I would bet it's the water pump (or air in the system). If it's getting hot then the thermostat, but it will usually throw a coolant system error cod. The fact it's not throwing a code for that low a coolant temp baffles me, the Vw throw a code for the coolant error in a heart beat, but it's so vague you have to start throwing parts at it to fix it.

[Fastbke170]

a Co-worker of mine suggested if you have one of those Digital Laser Temperature guns(Hey why not ) You could point it at Thermostat housing or CTS, I read there is possibly a 2nd Sensor in Lower Radiator hose. a guy on VW Vortex who had similar issue with his gauge wound up having Both sensors changed and Stat and that Fixed his Problem. http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...erature-sensor

[blbroo]

a Co-worker of mine suggested if you have one of those Digital Laser Temperature guns(Hey why not ) You could point it at Thermostat housing or CTS, I read there is possibly a 2nd Sensor in Lower Radiator hose. a guy on VW Vortex who had similar issue with his gauge wound up having Both sensors changed and Stat and that Fixed his Problem. http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...erature-sensor

Dan,
If you need a temp gun to try this, I have one in the garage and land in Boston around 4:30 Friday. I can bring it to town if you want, not that they are extremely expensive.

Also, it's fun to point them at random things to see how warm they are. (butts)