Let the tinkering begin...

[Jaymz]

Hay was just a suggestive suggestion does that even make senseLOL

[mikinoz]

Just for quick comparison I have put these side by side;

[Jaymz]

I'll get the exhaust hacked up next week, and the plan is to just ditch the rear huge pancake muff, and then consider a better flowing muff in the other rear "axle" area.

Hay did you see Larry has deleted the big kenworth rear muff and added twin pipes?

He said it makes about the same noise as stock! Go for it, pull them both and go with the straight pipe

[Greg Roles]

I'm lost as to who the heck Larry is, but yeah, I've read the TDI with no mufflers is quite acceptable. I believe the first muffler around the axle area is a resonator, which is a good idea really....

I will start with the pancake, as it should help 0-100 times with the weight loss alone!

Good work Mik, and remember you were the pioneer here! I still want your battery box.....

[Jaymz]

Here's Larry's GT TDI

Sorry mate thought you guys had met. Larry's car always looks great, but you expect that from someone who has his own detailing business

[Greg Roles]

Oh yeah and guys, if you plan to refit the top shroud over the motor, there will be a little modding required. The larger diameter Modshack housing I used fouls with the lower passenger side of the shroud. Could pretty easily work around it, but I'm not into heat retention for the sake of a pretty engine top.

Just thought I'd let you "pretty engine" types know

[bmwrider]

OK, been slow lately thanks to work going nuts, but the Mod Shack housing is in. Unlike Mik's pioneering example in his thread, I got the larger, shorter TTDA housing only, as the dry Apexi pod I am running draws air around the edge, and is far less long and skinny than the nice thin and pointy K&N one supplied in Mik's example. I must point out that the MAF and inlet is absolutely pristine with no fine dust at all, so the dry filter is doing the job nicely. When I did the swap I was able to tap the filter and get some bugs and a bit of dirt out, so it will be a routine item to pull out and clean, probably with some compressed air from the inside out.

In Mik's pictorial, you can see the problem he faced was length ( steady...) whereas I have a thickness issue.

Seriously, there isn't a ton of room around the Apexi, but I did get the extra thick insulation upgrade. I will say that Steve from Modshack obviously LOVES fabbing up project airboxes, and his e-mails to me were excellent. The quality of the product is great, and I'm very happy. Steve charged me $185USD delivered with a blank front plate, extra insulation, and just a 75mm hole in the rear. All I had to do was drill the Apexi holes ( easy ) and mount the holder bracket ( a little tricky ). I have thus far blanked off about 1/3 of the front in line with the radiator by silastic-ing in a segment of the front end plate. This picture explains it better, as below the inlet is blanked off. If I wasn't planning a full sealed front, I'd block off some of the top as well, like my earlier bucket version ( which is now available Jamie! )



The top of the housing rubs on the bonnet liner, but it's not bad. I was trying to mount it as high as possible to get as much of the width of the stock over radiator inlet into the bucket as possible. Down below you have to watch the radiator fan, and I've mounted mine as close as I could. It has a few mm clearance, and is pretty solid with the temporary upper support bracket. Once I make the front, sealed "lid" it will ensure it doesn't rub. Still working this out, but most likely fibreglass.

Hey Cogdoc
I'm only new to diesels, in your first photo there, that object with the big hex
bolt cover on it , is that the oil filter and whats in side when you undo it.
I want to do my first oil and filter change

Regards Kerry

[Greg Roles]

Hi Kerry,

Oil change is easy. This is the oil filter housing. You need a 32 mm socket from your local car shop to get it off. It's hard plastic, but be careful as you could wreck the nut getting too carried away with it.



Inside is a removable filter unit you can purchase from any VW service dept for about $18. It's a simple swap, and if you're really keen, prewet the new filter with some oil, so on the first start it gets oil flow quicker.

Drain the oil after a drive, wait a good hour or two for it to cool, as you'll remove a lot more dirt than cold. JAck it up to get to the bolt, but once draining, put it back flat to get it all out. Same when you fill it, put the bolt back in jacked up - carefully as it's an alloy sump and easier to strip than metal - and put it back flat to get the oil level right.

Easy job, and something I am doing every 7500k's outside regular warranty services.

Make sure you change the air filter element every so often too, it's common to overlook and lowers performance and raises fuel consumption. Scary at $1.70 plus a litre!

[Greg Roles]

Sorry mate thought you guys had met. Larry's car always looks great, but you expect that from someone who has his own detailing business

Does indeed look the berries doesn't it....

[bmwrider]

Hi Kerry,

Oil change is easy. This is the oil filter housing. You need a 32 mm socket from your local car shop to get it off. It's hard plastic, but be careful as you could wreck the nut getting too carried away with it.



Inside is a removable filter unit you can purchase from any VW service dept for about $18. It's a simple swap, and if you're really keen, prewet the new filter with some oil, so on the first start it gets oil flow quicker.

Drain the oil after a drive, wait a good hour or two for it to cool, as you'll remove a lot more dirt than cold. JAck it up to get to the bolt, but once draining, put it back flat to get it all out. Same when you fill it, put the bolt back in jacked up - carefully as it's an alloy sump and easier to strip than metal - and put it back flat to get the oil level right.

Easy job, and something I am doing every 7500k's outside regular warranty services.

Make sure you change the air filter element every so often too, it's common to overlook and lowers performance and raises fuel consumption. Scary at $1.70 plus a litre!

Hi Greg
Thanks for that info you make it sound fairly easy mines coming up to 7500 kms I'm on holidays so I'v got the time to do it. Thanks again

Kerry

[Greg Roles]

OK back to the tinkering!

I did another read of the 125kw tech bulletin, and noticed that if the EGR throttle flap and valve units lose voltage, they just go to default positions.
The throttle flap goes to full open, and thus doesn't restrict incoming air. I liked the sound of that! The EGR inlet valve at the same point simply stays shut, and you get no exhaust gas recycled. Again, sounds good to me, performance wise. I realise it will raise the NO emissions, and exhaust temps a bit, but I figure if you decided to ditch the EGR in this manner, a chip would make the car run more efficiently, and the net increase in emissions would probably be minor ( happy hippies? )

Seriously, I'm after power, but not at the expense of the lower emission footprint I am now driving!

So I unplugged them both, and drove to work.

First up, you get the error codes, and the flashing glow plug and engine light. Easy to ignore, how much better did it run?

It drove like the winter button was on. Not AS lethargic, bit a noticable drop in performance. I figured the flap somehow works in with the fuel map at lower revs, and perhaps it was now running lean, as perhaps this flap does indeed act more like a petrol throttle. Weird. Anyhow, I pulled over and plugged the throttle flap back in, and she was back to normal. I'm leaving the EGR valve unplugged for now to see what happens. Theoretically I'm now getting a better charge with no exhaust included, and hopefully more stick. EGR's will go up, but I can't see why it would be any more than a chipped car. I need to find an XR6 or S pack to race. EDIT, the EGR flap defaults to not running the cooler, but hot, uncooled exhaust still passes. The flap just lets hot exhaust enter till the water temp goes over 35 degrees, then it switches over so the exhaust goes through the cooler. This aids warmup.

What WAS interesting is that with both unplugged the car had a much more diesel like vibration on shutdown. Still as quick to stop, but a noticable rattle and vibration. I know the throttle flap shuts off at shutdown to stop any run-on. BUT when I plugged the flap back in, and stopped just now, it's still the same!

Weird!

Wonder what else you can unplug......

[Greg Roles]

OK I ended up plugging them both back in and erasing the error codes with the trusty VAG-com cable. With just the EGR valve disconnected, on boost was the same, but off boost response was down. It seemed to take longer to get to the 2000rpm fun range, and really seemed to make the car "on-off" power. I;m going to have to contemplate that, but perhaps with no exhaust gas included, now the car is running rich off boost? EDIT: As there was no cooling of the exhaust gas, I was just adding full temp exhaust.

Perhaps when the engine throws an error it drops the power, or perhaps the engine map is just really tied in to the EGR circuit and exhaust included in combustion. Hmmmmmmm.

Anything that adds heat to the charge air post intercooling has to be hobbled in my opinion!

[Jaymz]

Who knows, but i can say this, if you f**k it then we'll all know what not to unplug!

[Greg Roles]

Definately ran MUCH better with the error code removed. Even plugging everything back in, it still seemd to run as if the vanes weren't really working down low with the error light on.

C'mon you big girls, man up and start unplugging stuff!

[Greg Roles]

Yipee! Scored this for $327 delivered from Germany!



seller was 1000autoteile. I had to use babelfish to communicate, which was a challenge, but it worked out!