Map/Performance tweaking update
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This week:I have had to use the car a lot more than usual this week, clocking up a good 400 miles. Overall the car has been good and I hit a good average of 58mpg according to the car trip computer. The amount of bug splats on the windscreen was quite amusing! The 5.5 Litre tank came in handy as I have used roughly ¼ of the screen wash and still got a good 4litrs left.
During my adventures I especially have noticed is that the smoke levels were pretty bad. The car would smoke worse when poodling around town especially after a long hot run. Lag in the lower gears up to 2.5k was pretty bad also and got worse as the sun was at its hottest. This was quite annoying and embarrassing in town areas! I should have etched into the sooted boot "car map in development"
Today I took a look under the bonnet today and noticed I had a big boost leak where the EGR and H&S pipework joined together. I also found the lower drivers side of the FMIC weeping also. There isn't much I can do about these apart from buy new seals again. With this in mind I cleaned everything up with brake cleaner and WD40 and tighten all the clips as tight as they would go. Hopefully this should reduce the weeping especially around the EGR area.
My Thoughts: Maybe there is too much boost/flow going through the system so its going to weep with the PD150 intercooler until I get another FMIC without those crappy plastic fixing points. Maybe I should get H&S to cut off the plastic parts and weld on the intercooler proper pipe fixing so I can join with silicone.
I decided to go and see Kenny@AmD and he re-assured me that nearly all the diesels he works on including hybrids all suffer from this
problem so not to worry too much about it.
We did some logging today to see what the car is doing. Duty cycle was still a tad high so decided to start tweaking the actuator as the arm was too short and probably causing the grey smoke issues when poodling around. Adjusted the nut 3 turns to lengthen the arm. On the test drive the smoke levels were dramatically improved and the car was much more responsive/smoother lower down too. We done a couple speed runs and the car felt very strong and quick. In fact we smashed the speed a well mapped 1.8T circa 230BHP does on the run.
Now the actuator is properly adjusted it’s just the mapping left to get smoke further down and increase power. I just have to drive the car for a good couple of weeks to see how the smoke levels are with the current map. I am feeling quite positive overall. Car is now heading in the right direction and I can feel that I should have a lovely well rounded map just round the corner waiting for me.
An alarming note is that the metal bracket made by H&S to keep the pipework in place snapped! It was alarming for the first 2 minutes but giving it more thought its better because the pipework was too rigid. Now the bracket is broken part of the pipework can move so shouldn’t pull the pipework out of the plastic fixings when giving the car beans. I will be going back to H&S to talk it through with them and get the bracket smooth off the pipework.