Shatchback - Sedan SLDT - "le merde volant"

[graebob]

So I'm going to start a project thread to help me keep motivation

I bought The Shatchback last September after the BMW 728i I had exploded its coolant all over the floor. Having already replaced the radiator, pump and hoses I decided enough was enough and I needed something simple and efficient to get me around.



She's a two owner car before me, bought by a chap who worked at the dealership and run by him and then his daughter, then sold to a friend who worked at a Jaguar dealership. Mechanically it's one of the nicest cars I've owned - even though there's not a huge amount of service history you can tell it's been looked after. Sadly the same couldn't be said of the interior/exterior.

When I got it, I don't think it'd ever been cleaned inside. The seats were actually sticky to touch, so very, very minging. I borrowed a carpet cleaner and went to work. What came out was... not nice.



I started a new job which will need knowledge of how engine tuning works - so I've decided to modify the Bosch pump in the car and see what kind of HP she gets. So far I've fitted a boost gauge I found in a drawer and that's it.

[Mattcheese31]

nice mate, you're in the right place, any tuning questions have a look in the xud section or ask away if you can't find

[graebob]

Just baselined the car at work. 93hp and 184nm. Not bad for a 19 year old shed

[Mattcheese31]

Just baselined the car at work. 93hp and 184nm. Not bad for a 19 year old shed

nope not bad at all, you'll crack 130bhp with very few mods though . .

[Piggy]

93 is pretty amazing to be fair. Must have had some tlc at some point

[graebob]

I guess it was just well looked after. I was frankly stunned.

[graebob]

Before I start fiddling with the engine, I decided I need to refurb the brakes and sort the fact that it starts badly. New front pads went on yesterday quite easily, although I found the nearside wear indicator wire is broken.

As for cold start, she seems to only start on 3 cylinders. This was annoying so I changed the glow plugs about 3 months ago. That made it better, but not a lot better, and it's started getting worse again. Any tips on other things it could be? She runs fine as soon as she's warmed up.

[Jimbo]

Could be slight ingress of air into fuel syestem so check all connections, especially on filter housing.

[graebob]

I had a look at the fuel filter housing and I couldn't see any obvious fuel leaks. I'm not sure how I would go about checking them though.

I measured the voltage across each plug and with 12.8v at the battery, I got 11.8 at the plug in the middle of the loom (3rd from left), 11.5 at those either side (2nd and 4th from left) and only 11.1 at the other (1st from left, farthest from the point where the loom connects). Could they voltage drop be enough to cause the plug to not work correctly? I'm trying to avoid having the pull the plugs as the one behind the pump is an absolute bastard...

[graebob]

Raided the drawer again at work - acquired a manual boost controller to install

Something to do in the evening's I guess

[graebob]

Threads are always worthless without pics... so here's a couple.

T piece installed


Boost gauge installed

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And another tarty one, because I'm a tart

[Ben]

Looks a good car for a project, and what an impressive power figure considering the book figure is 92bhp!

[graebob]

Some fiddling happened at work

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That was;
- about 20 degrees of clockwise turn on the fuel mixture screw (2 "hours" on a clock face)
- about 30 degrees of clockwise turn on the boost compensator diaphragm
- bleed valve on the wastegate reference line allowing me 1.1 bar of boost as opposed to 0.9 as before

[Mattcheese31]

get it turned up, loads more to come yet

[graebob]

I think so Although it does seem to get a little hot now if I give it a pasting...

I think we need to add more boost compensated fuel and possible slightly less on the mixture. I'm going to look at adjusting the preload too as to my mind the fuel needs to come in a little earlier...

[Mattcheese31]

you could really do with a ground LDA pin to be honest

[RetroPug]

I would like one of these!

[THE_Liam]

Plenty of potential!

[graebob]

Next hurdle is MOT on the 19th!

[Tom]

Boost compensator screw right out, take the lid off if you have to so it sits flush with that. Then whack the max fuel up half a turn if you want to be sensible, then see what happens!

[graebob]

It's all been a bit quiet recently while I wait for my MOT date to come around.

Unfortunately it still starts like a bag of nails Plenty of blue smoke. It seems to misfire until I've given it some throttle for about 5 - 10 seconds (only a tickle, just enough to keep it off idle). It's confusing me lots. I've replaced the glow plugs, checked the voltage across them, replaced the rubber return fuel lines between the injectors and the one to the pump, changed the fuel filter...

I'm at a loss

[strictly_perv]

Look at the fuel filter housing from the front of the car, on the left there should be a round part with a white (probably covered in crap) cross looking thing, it has an O ring inside which can cause air ingress. It took me bloody ages to find the cause of ingress one of my old XUD's.
I just ran an inline filter instead and ditched the stock setup

[Mattcheese31]

blue smoke sounds like oil, valve stem seals or piston rings . . .or turbo seals maybe . .if it's blue . .

[graebob]

On the advice of Toms306 and 306Dan I took the FMIC off last night after my drive home from work and left it off overnight. Tried to start this morning with no FMIC, and still missing and blue smoke.

This seems bad

[306Dan]

It's not too bad, get it through its mot then drop a known good head on it

[martyn92]

Try moving the pump on it's bracket slightly towards the intercooler

[mr_fish]

Lazy/Sticky injector?

Is it just when starting or when idling too?

[graebob]

It only does it when starting from cold, and disappears about 30 seconds, or less if I give it a little throttle beforehand.

It's certainly not as bad as the video Mr Fish posted!

I'm thinking if she goes through the MOT I'll start experimenting with the intake and see if I can find where the oil is coming from. I've noticed that the bleed valve I installed is spraying a fine mist of oil, so I think that points towards the Turbo.

More news on Saturday when she's been to the MOT station!

[graebob]

FAILED!

But, only one item - NSR handbrake little to no effect. Off to GSF to get some replacement cables it is...

[306Dan]

A 306 failed on its handbrake, never