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The parts I needed for the coolant system came in along with the new drive belt.
Shew! The drive belt was still a PITA to get on there. I’ve spoke with others and watched a few videos and for whatever reason, my car was very difficult. But, it’s on there.
I sealed up the cooling system and began the vacuum testing. No issues found and I easily filled the system with coolant.
So the time came for start up.. my good friend who owns a euro shop allowed me to borrow his diagnostic tool. I removed the fuel pump fuses and hooked the battery up.. and attempted to crank but only got a click. Oops. With everything loosely in there I forgot the chassis ground wasn’t hooked up. I bolted that in and away she cranked. It took a few cycles to begin building pressure but I ended up getting to around 2.5 bar. I replaced the fuel pump fuses and started the engine. HOLY LOUD BANGING. There was a very abnormal noise... and through trouble shooting we found that the passenger side tensioner was installed upside down. The parts catalog says bother tensioners face “UP”... well up to me means the sky, but up to Porsche engineers means the hole on the tensioner faces the tensioner lid... I flipped the tensioner and the horrible noise was gone.
Fortunately I had already sent emails/texts to Sam, Jay, Alex, Ed, and a friend who is a Porsche tech and everyone had the same reaction as I did.
Once the tensioner fiasco was done with I attempted to start the engine but it would die. Not having experience with MAF cars I really didn’t realize how important it would be to have the whole intake system routed. Once the system was routed the car was able to idle on its own but there was a definite misfire. I became very very concerned that due to the tensioner issue my car may have slipped timing..
After much frustration I decided it was time to take a break and I headed home for the night. I spoke with a few more friends and realized now that the car idles I would actually be able to get a reading on the cam deviation before I tear the engine open.
I also had Sam give me a more solid base map rather than just using the COBB OTS. I uploaded the map, started the car, and watching the bank 1 and 2 deviation. Holy. My OCD had finally paid off.
Bank 1 was -3.00 and Bank 2 was -3.02! Incredible. I did something right! Haha
But now that the dme actually had time to read we found misfires in cylinder 4 and 5. Curious if I hooked up the injector wiring wrong I switching the wiring but that didn’t help. Fortunately I have my older coil packs so I am going to give them a try along with new spark plugs.
What I do find really odd though is that bank 1 header gets very warm as it should, but bank 2 remains cool. Really hoping the misfire will end up being coil pack or spark plug. But any other ideas are appreciated! This was a HUGE relief Coil Packs for days
Nice work my dude! Let's see how she is with the coils.
Thanks Sam.. still sorting things. haha
The goose chase continues....
As I mentioned before I have reached out to various forum members for ideas and they have been very helpful, along with Sam, and two local Euro/Porsche Techs. But this one is taking some time..
So, as mentioned in my last post... the misfire was in cylinder 4 and 5.
We swapped the injector wiring and there was no change. We checked the injector wiring itself to the main circular engine harness and found that they were on the correct injectors.
We then switched the 02/wideband sensors from Bank 1 to Bank 2 and vise versa.. of course, no change.
We then put my old coil pack on cylinder 4 and this is where it became interesting... The misfire that was 4 and 5, changed to 4 and 6. But not only was it showing as a misfire it was showing as P0003 Fuel volume regulator control circuit low, P0203 Injection valve, open circuit, and P0303 misfire, cylinder selective (those 3 codes were showing through the cobb). Fortunately I was smart enough to start datalogging and sent the logs to Sam. Sam quickly replied and informed me that it appeared as if my long and short term fuel trims were locked and my ecu was "confused"... bizarre I know. But Sam told me he believed that the other shop that ran into this issue was able to resolve it by uploading the factory map, then reuploading the custom map. I took off the battery cables for 15minutes and then followed the procedure of changing the maps over. I started that car and it still isnt correct but the short term and long term trims were actually moving, so thats one step in the correct direction.
A leak down test was performed on cylinder 4 and 5 due to the possibility that the exhaust cam may be off even though the intake cam was reading perfect... leak down test for each cylinder was in the 2-3% range.
We then removed the MAF on bank 2 and started the car with no change.
Today the Vario cam device that is located between 4/5 coil packs was removed and bench tested with a 12v source. It appears to be functioning as it should...
So the hunt continues. As far as I can tell the electrical sensors that are separate for each bank are as follows: MAF, 02, Wideband, Cam position, Variocam adjuster, vario cam sensor, coil packs, VTG, EGT, fuel injectors...
VTG and EGT are off the table as my turbo does not have them hooked up and I believe Sam disabled them in the map. Coil packs obviously had no change. Injectors are definitely fueling. MAF unplugged did nothing, 02 and wideband were switched and changed nothing. Tomorrow I am planning to swap from bank 2 to 1 the cam position sensor, variocam adjuster, and the variocam sensor.
I apologize about the lack of updates but I believe we are finally on the correct path. After much troubleshooting while the engine was still in the car it was decided to drop the engine and recheck the timing. Even though cam deviation appeared to be correct, the thinking was due to all the symptoms I may have mistimed the engine. The Aux water pump was also making a horrendous noise and there was a coolant leak in that vicinity so the engine needed to be dropped regardless.
Once the engine was dropped and the valve covers were removed this was indeed the case. It was found that the cam timing tools fit into the camshafts at the exact same time... obviously this is incorrect. When re-reading the workshop manual I found that it states line up bank 1 rotate 360 then line up bank 2, then rotate 720 and recheck... I must have skipped over the 360 part the first time and just rotated the engine immediately 720...well.. you know the rest. So, I retimed the engine, changed the aux water pump, and reinstalled the engine. The key was turned and WOOHOO, this engine sounds wayyyy better running on all 6 then it does when just running on 3 haha. Thankfully for me, when I mistimed the engine perfectly so that when the valves were supposed to be closed they were open, and when they were supposed to be open they were closed causing zero long term issues. Unfortunately after the car was idled for a full heat cycle and allowed to cool another coolant leak was found... So we pressure tested the system and found the leak, dropped the engine, fixed the leak, and installed the engine. The engine was idled and zero leaks were found... but there's always a catch, isn't there? After the engine cooled a small puddle of drips was located. I am hoping it is residual but I am thinking that with the hoses expanding and shrinking with heat a leak may have developed somewhere. That was over a week ago and no more noticeable drips have been found, so we will see once I run the car through another heat cycle. The charge piping and intercoolers are currently off as my friend fabricates the new larger intercoolers and y-pipe. Once those are completed we will do another heat cycle and see where we are at.
All in all, I am super thankful for all of the help on the forums/emails/text messages. Although this project is obviously taken longer than expected, it hasn't been terrible.
Here we are almost at the end of 2020 and I hope everyone is having a good holiday season.
My car is finally back in my garage and has all the upgraded parts installed. My good friend fabbed up my custom Y-pipe and Intercoolers. I also finally got my Eibach springs on the car after having them sit around for about a year haha. I took my car for an alignment and found that my front passenger side outer CV boot had ripped.
My boost controller powers on but for some reason does not get an RPM reading (even though its wired). The controller also does not like to switch MAPs while the car is on and reads "valve error." So I will have to sort this.
My car seems to be running well and the tuning phase has started. There was an idle fluctuation that began only once the car was warm. After some sorting, sensors, tune trouble shooting, and boost leak testing it is believed that the issue was caused by a corrupt tune base file. While conducting the boost leak test I noticed that my turbo had coolant leaking from it... this is a water cooled and oil cooled turbo. Now obviously this is concerning. I pulled the turbo charger and plugged the oil ports and pressurized the coolant port and on the turbo was able to hear hissing out of the turbo seals... which the coolant passages arent supposed to touch the seals on the housings in any way. Well, when I unplugged the oil ports I was able to hear the hissing here as well. So I believe that the center cartridge of the turbo must have a hair line crack. I am working with the manufacturer to get a new center cartridge. I am glad I saw the turbo leaking when I did otherwise once the coolant/oil potentially mixed, I may have assumed way way worse.
While the turbo was off I fixed the CV boots. And once the turbo is back on I will do a coolant flush as well as an oil flush to make sure any potential contaminants are out of the system. Although this is another bump in the road, I am obviously not feeling rushed as its not cold here in Maryland. haha
Inner front axle apart Inner front axle together Turbo center cartridge Custom intercooler and y-pipe from @jchutch
Other than getting coolant in my face, CV joint grease is one of my least favorite vehicle emanations.
Really happy you got this sorted (timing). I was so nervous doing this on my car, and to see how easily things could look right but end up wrong only makes me more grateful things turned out OK on the first go around.
Sounds like you have some cool stuff to go on the car, and more importantly the wherewithal to work through issues. Had to fire up the kerosene heater for the first time the other day to do some work on my old UrS6. Weather is definitely a factor around here!
Other than getting coolant in my face, CV joint grease is one of my least favorite vehicle emanations.
Really happy you got this sorted (timing). I was so nervous doing this on my car, and to see how easily things could look right but end up wrong only makes me more grateful things turned out OK on the first go around.
Sounds like you have some cool stuff to go on the car, and more importantly the wherewithal to work through issues. Had to fire up the kerosene heater for the first time the other day to do some work on my old UrS6. Weather is definitely a factor around here!
Good luck with the rest of your tasks!
Ed
yes I am very happy too lol I am basically a pro at dropping the engine with the car just on jack stands now that I’ve done it 3 times...
These forums and the members on them are a true blessing for us DIYers
@jchutch Intercoolers and Tial BOV’s on the end tanks
Yeah I forget who posted it, but that was one of the warnings, something to the effect: "yeah, and it will ooze coolant and oil from everywhere for a while". I put cardboard all around the HF jack to catch all that crap.
The shocker was when I popped the large hose by the transmission without thinking and whoosh, my shoulder was covered in coolant. Thankfully the drain pan wasn't out of reach.
Alright alright alright! Got the new center cartridge of the turbo a few days ago and the car is back together. I flushes the oil/coolant and am going to do so again after this tank of fuel. Filled the tank with new 93 rather than the fuel that’s been in there since may... lol AND I even got the HKS EVC working properly. I originally had the RPM signal coming from a coil signal but for some reason it was causing the controller to have an error. I switched the signal to a one of the cam position sensors and we are good to go. Here’s to hoping the actual tuning can start now
Getting rid of my “sud cannon” for a real foam cannon lol
Just as tuning was starting to make some actual progress snow struck in Maryland. Hoping for a decent rain storm soon and some sunshine to dry everything off. In the meantime I actually ended up getting some deals on various parts... it never ends. haha. I ended up snagging a TPC DSC, Numeric Shifter & Cables, and an RSS 901 roll bar. Although these things were on my wish list over the course of this year, deals popped up and I did not want to miss out.
Comparing the build. Wasn’t too bad to get in with a friends help and a ratchet strap.
Know what you mean, I have some .2 IC's to get on at some point (same deal got them earlier since there was a good opportunity). I really like the look of that shifter. The cables are also on my list of things, but for some reason I think there is some kind of SS kit on the car already (or the stock shift patter is much shorter than my Audi's). I'll have to take a look at it some time, but that will have to wait.
After installing a K-04 turbo in my kids A4, we found a possible head gasket failure or crack in the head (more likely). So once the head gets here, it will be head job for the B6 A4, then the 911 can head over to the "shop" a.k.a., my detached garage to get the IC's on. Still have to decide which pipes, but leaning toward Do88's.
Good luck getting everything together. Looks like you are making great progress now, as well as being a great resource for your buddies!
09-10-2020 | 07:39 PM
