i have no idea whats wrong here!

[staticbrainwash]

recently got a 92 tsi awd AUTO. ran fine for about 2 weeks, then it needed a new water pump. done and done. tonight i was on my way home from the next town over (about half an hour drive) and my car had a bad loss of power. it happens on and off, the best i can figure it's a fuel injector. otherwise everything sparks, and everything gets fuel pressure.


after i got the water pump was fixed my belt still squeaked, my mechanic attributes this to a lose belt. i agree.

but tonight something else arose. no only did i have the fuel injector causing loss of power ( just a little) but i also started to get a really bad rattling/vibration/clicking noise. i couldn't tell where it was comming from, but it sounds as though something is loose. it only happened when i accellerated, then stopped when the gears changed and rpm's dropped. at the same time this all went down i noticed 2 other things.

when i switched out of OD (overdrive) my rmp's jumped like crazy. and also when my boost pressure releases, it doesn't just *fffffsssssst* it sounds like it's blowing straight down my tail pipe. or maybe it's just taking a long time to release. i can't tell.

any insight on ANY of this would be amazing help. and would be extreamly appreciated.

i already took the car to my mechanic (he's a family friend and my neighbor).

anything i could have him specifically check out or look at would be great.

thank you all so much,
~geoff

 

[Maxximillion]

hey, i've done a lot of work to the timming belts in our cars and replaced a few water pumps in some friends as well and i can tell you the main things you have to watch when putting everything back together is to make sure your oil pump is alligned correctly because even though its on the timming marks, the shaft could be at the other end. so what to do is spin the oil pump gear until it wants to hit the timming mark, that means move the arrow on the gear to either side a little bit and let go, if it returns then your good there. if it doesn't return spin it all the way around 360 and try it again. it should want to return to the timming mark position by itself. that could be an answer to any harmonic or any type of vibration comming from the engine

another thing i noticed you really have to watch out for is when your putting the hydraulic tensioner back on (compressed of course) the tip will stick out a little bit so you have to lift the tensioner arm a little bit to get it over tip to place the tensioner on flush with the block. if you dont the arm with hit the side of the tip and will either break the tip or prevent tensioner from doing its job when you torque it down i can't tell you how easy it is to make that mistake. that could be why you lost power being that your belt was loose enough and could have skiiped a tooth. as for the noise i had a talon once have a bolt and large washer that holds the swivel arm of the tensioner on come off and the arm came off a little bit causing the timming belt to be off its track (spinning off to one side of the cam shafts) about a quarter of an inch as well as being a little looser, it made a bad kind of grinding/clicking hollow sound all the time and sqreached when it started cold. but other than that those are just some mistakes i've noticed that can lead to some major problems.
hope this helps.

 

[staticbrainwash]

my mechanic tore apart all the belts, checked all the pullies and thats not the problem. he took it for a test drive, and said he almost instantly knew that it was the FLYWHEEL. he said thats where my boost release problem is comming from, as well as my crazy rev problem.

as for the chug/misfire, he also solidified my belief that yes, i do have a failing fuel injector. so there's my loss of power.

 

[Maxximillion]

cool, thats good he was able to identify the problem without much hassel. although the flywheel becoming loose could be very dangerous. a friend of mine was doing research on his car and he was talking to a guy who had lightened up his flywheel to much and it became loose, cracked and shattered at redline causing a piece of it to shoot through the tranny casing and putting a dent in the hood, a piece embeded in the ground and one shot through the casing, through the fire wall and ended up imbeded in the passenger side head rest. if there were somebody there they would have been killed. sorry my info didn't help ya.

 

[staticbrainwash]

it helped very much, cuz even though nothing was wrong on the TB side, the belts were a bit old, one about to crack. so he replaced those which = no more squeak.

as for the flywheel, no cracks or warping, but it was apparently REALLY REALLY loose. like. . . all 4 bolts about to come off loose.

so thats getting fixed, the belts were changed, and im getting new fuel injectors put in. (misfire in 2nd cyl.) im just really glad he's my neighbor because he's put in about 10 hours trying to make sure everything is ok, and that nothing else is lose or about to go.

cheap labor for me, but it's still going to be quite pricey. luckily im selling a 93 talon NA. so most of the money is comming from that.

 

[oldman]

Nice neighbor you got there.

 

[Maxximillion]

maybe you two (being neighbors and good friends i assume) should take a trip to the north west. i have a heated garage and endless supply of beer!!! take a look at my car because even i am stumped on my problem.

 

[staticbrainwash]

where abouts are you, and what problem are you having?

i havn't been a dsm-er too long, but in the 2 years i've been into them i've learned a lot.

enough to put me into school for my mechanics certification.

 

[Maxximillion]

hey, yeah well i had to do some work to my timing belt initially. what had happened was i saw that my timing belt had become a little looser than it should have been and it was travelling off track about a quarter of an inch!! it was also making this really bad hollow scratchy grinding noise!! so i put the car on jack stand and took my driver side wheel off, the splash guards etc. and had the timing belt exposed in under an hour (quite a feat if you've ever had to work on a 13 year old talon) as soon as i could see the timing belt i knew exactly what had happened. the bold and the large washer that holds the swivel arm of the the tensioner pulley had fallen out. causing the tensioner arm to partially mover off of its swivel peg hence why the belt was a little looser and why it was travelling off track. so great i put a new bolt and washer in, put it all back together, proud of myself for not having to spend some money buying a stupidly expensive part and really proud that i didn't have to take it to a mechanic.

but that proud feeling all went away when after i put everything back together, triple checked my timing, and cranked it over it wouldn't start. the car cranked over just fine, but it didn't want to fire up, not even try to fire up. it sounded as if i wasn't getting fuel or spark or something. so as it was only the timing area i even touched i knew i had to have missed something. back apart she goes and replaced everything the way it should have been, all timing marks on the crank, oil pump and the cam gears checked out. still i put everything back together had a friend watch me to make sure i'm not being an idiot and overlook something and still i get nothing. the car just cranks but this time it backfires really really loud as soon as i started cranking it. not quite the way i thought it would go.

so i checked the basics: spark, fuel and timing. i pulled no 4 plug and grounded it and cranked it. i get lots of spark, i ckeck fuel and nothing!! i checked by first listening by the fuel filler for the fuel pump to initially turn on when the key is put to ON and nothing and when cranking still nothing. i pulled the fuel return line off and cranked it and yup definatly still no fuel to the fuel rail.

i finally cracked open the Haynes, as its been such a help over the past 2 years :thumbdown. and went through the procedure of ruling out possibilities first i checked the fuel pump by using the bypass harness behing the battery and it works just fine. next i checked the MPI relay and i gave the relay 3 tests to make sure it still works good and it passed. i checked the harness and it gets 12 volts to the 10th pin so i'm at a loss now.

there is one more thing. i'm not sure what this means but when i bring the key back to the ON position from cranking the car over, i can hear the fuel pump run for 2 seconds but thats the only time i hear it. there are no codes stored in the ECU as i did have the battery disconnected when i was working on the car. if the problem could still be timing, would there be something that would prevent the fuel pump from running? even though the ECU hasn't stored a code. if its the ECU and my caps have leaked, would it still show a steady heart beat when testing for a trouble code? i have already pulled out my ECU and i dont see ANY corrosion what so ever, although thats not saying much, but as i said this is stumping even me. so thats awsome your getting your ticket, and if you have ANY ideas or thoughts let me know i would greatly appreciate it.

Jason
92.5 TSI AWD

 

[staticbrainwash]

try de-pressurizing the line (if yoh havn't already). pull the line from the rail and from the pump. clean off an end and try blowing down it. maybe something is stuck down the line somewhere. or maybe when you puller apart the TB side, you kinked a line?

im pretty sure my 93 na is set up much the same, i just don't remember if there are any fuel line or components on that side.

best i can think of for ya though is that it's either a loss pr pressure in the line/something clogged. or if it isn't pumping initally. . . dun dun DUUUNNN, somethink scary and electrical.

i doubt that was any help. but hey, i tried.

thanks again for all you help on my problem. ill post again once i find out exactly what he did to fix it all.

 

[Maxximillion]

no it helps when people post back and have no advice on a problem. because they usually suggest something already thought of or tried. and just confirms i haven't really missed a step. umm yeah i'm thinking its more electrical problem than mechanical. its just wierd this problem started at the exact same time that i was working on the timing belt. just seems to random chance EVEN FOR A DSM. geh i have a schematic and i've ruled out mostly everything after much scrutiny except for the ECU so if anybody else has any ideas PLEASE let me know.

a troubled DSM to the north

Jason.