boost monkey

Cheers Haggis Cake and Dox. If the ignition switch was bad, wouldn't the engine stop also? I suddenly realised that after I posted! Old McDonald, I've given all the engine bay earths a good going over. I just need to find the other 7452 that are under and around the dashboard! :-s

So I'm having a weird electrical problem... or maybe the most obvious problem ever? This morning I started the car and let it idle, then cos it was cold I turned on the lights, heater blower and also the rear demister. Ever few mins they would all cut out (well actually, the OS headlight stayed on dipped beam but it's not indicator related). Is my alternator a bit dodgy or battery? Or is it unreasonable to ask all of these to be on at 1000rpm? The engine never cuts out through any of this, just keeps going. It's only the little orange light on the demister switch on the dash that has let me know something is wrong as the light turns off! Also the fans stop too, but I mentioned that. When it happens, I can't get the fog light switch to work either, BUT the hazard switch does work. So indicators and engine are fine - any ideas? Am I just overloading the 22y/o wiring? If I turn the ignition off (stopping engine) and turn the key back round, even to ignition point without starting they all come back on.... but sometimes they do trip back off again relatively soon after... I'm starting to wonder if it's a bad ignition switch also. I tried wiggling the key in the ignition barrel to get it to cut out but it wouldn't.

tbh, the pump is a bit overkill! I think it's quite a lot bigger than anything else on the market judging by the comparison with the sump pan! I thinkit's about 30cm long :-s I'm sure I could scale it down and make it run faster. I think i geared it about 4:1 against the crank, so even 2:1 and then a 50% scale should keep the same performance.

So, I just spent the whole of lunch time putting the rubber hoses in. I hope this helps people to understand how it works. Please forgive my lack of aeroquip and mikalor goodies, I just didn’t have time to insert them into the assemblies so I have just done hoses going between each part. So, from the top: This is the system overall. As you can see there are some decent length of hoses. These can probably be rerouted in a more efficient manner – these ones are purely for visualization. You’d probably want them braided too. Initially, the oil tank supplies the main pump (blue section nearest pulley) at the bottom with oil, which is them pumped out through the top and into the main gallery of the engine (shown by the floating rubber hose!). The main line in I chose to make the main gallery behind the coolant-oil heat exchanger plate. After the oil has worked its way through the engine and returned to the sump, it is picked up in the 3 different banks by each of the scavenge pumps (other 3 blue sections). As before, intake at the bottom and exit at the top, straight into the scavenge channels (green section) which is basically a closed section for 3 different pipes which converge on the top of the centrifuge (end section). The CAOS unit (Centrifugal Air Oil Separator) basically involves a spinning disc which throws the denser oil onto the inside of the CAOS casing which drips down and is pumped out the bottom, back to the tank. The air is pumped out through the center of the disc and goes back up to the swirl pot. The oil tank takes CAOS air in in the swirl pot. This removes the last remaining elements of oil in the mist from the CAOS which is then drip-fed through the bottom of the pot back into the top of the tank. The oil return from the CAOS goes into the side of the main tank part and just replenishes the oil level for re use by the engine. The main pump draws the oil from the bottom of the tank, and everything continues :D ---------- Post added at 02:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:40 PM ---------- Just a couple more for you: Pump assembly - personalised! :lol: I think it's the 80's quattro font, nice and blocky :D Cross-section of pump through one of the 2 gearshafts. You can see some detail such as the CAOS unit, the spacers between sections including oil seals and a brief glimpse of how the scavenge channels work.

Yeah there's plenty of them. PACE deffo do pumps as do a bunch of people in the states. It'd just be nice to have my one made and be able to day "I designed that from scratch". I just checked the BOM (Bill of Materials) on the pump - 94 parts!!!

I actually really want to get it made now! I could throw the models at the local rapid prototyping company - at least for the pan. The pump has about 50 different parts!

Ok phew. Yeah I got VAG clamps, but I think the 2 boxes i put on are just a bit schitty so they don't fit very well. They're not leaking badly, and i'd rather the water came out on the straights than pooling in the boxes themselves.

cheers dox. I just had another look and only the braided earth strap that goes to the coil bracket is earthed at that corner. But there are 2 other wires that are earthed on the coolant flange on the side of the engine. Could one of those be my dash earth? the battery earth and gearbox earth are both good now. Also, the car is up in the air as we speak and the calipers are not seized at all. I can only put it down to pulling up the handbrake too high when the car is parked. It does tend to lock up with a full boot (generally food shopping) so i wonder if something else is going on there? I've soaked both sides in plusgas and will leave to evaporate before using the white lithium grease. IIRC i'm aiming for the area behind the spring plate on the caliper? i think that's where the shaft goes down into the caliper for the HB mech. They were both movable by hand, the same amount (probs half an inch before pads contact disc), and both sets of pads have at least 10mm of material left on either side. the discs themselves aren't cracked but do have circular striping a little bit. None of the pads have any paint on their backing plates - it has all burnt off from the heat! ---------- Post added at 03:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:07 PM ---------- Well I put the wheels back on the golf,and because the exhaust is still loud I couldn't help but just check the 2 clamp sections I replaced a few weeks ago. I started up the car and to my surprise they were both dripping water!!! has anyone else seen this or know why it happens? I foresee 2 rapidly rusting exhaust boxes in my future. Thought: I really hope it isn't coolant........ ---------- Post added at 03:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 PM ---------- After some research it appears that it's water in the fuel and air which condenses from hot exhaust onto cold exhaust piping. Still, the fact it's dripping out means I must have some leaks at the clamps as if water is getting out at the joins then air definitely is getting out.

The rear beams are subtley different. The Corrado one has reinforcing brackets over where the trailing arm meets the main beam. By the time I realised I had a mk2 golf beam i had already prepped and painted it. I talked to seller who said 'oh it might have been a mk2 golf one". Awesome. Cheers matey, I will do all of that today. I've got the day off from work, and have all those bits I mentioned in the boot of the golf. Also the BTS came last night so I'll fit that for peace of mind. If I can free up the calipers for a bit longer that would be great, I've just lost faith that the cables will release the mechs after the brake has been on for so long! Yeah I had the pain of stuck cables in guides before now, it's a PITA. If the pistons are catching then I'm dumping the calipers. I have a set I refurbed myself and also a brand new gold set so one of the pairs will be going on. Ah thanks Dox about the earths! I will check them all today. I think I'll renew the braided earth between the coil bracket and that corner too, IIRC that's the rev counter earth too. I know what you mean about parts people at VW! Always some old boy who knows everything and then on the off day when you go in it's Kevin who cancelled half your order because the parts are in Germany. ARGH!

tony, when did you buy the connectors? It would be good to pick them up as it saves me butchering the current ones. Coolant level flashed again today. I think it's wet as the wire doesn't seem that bad, but knowing the faults some of the other wiring has had I think I'm going to start drawing up colours and lengths of wire needed for a new engine loom. Dox, yes it does. Update from yesterday - handbrake seized up good and proper! I thought pumping it might loosen it off but to no avail. It actually made it worse. I ended up dragging a rear locked wheel along out of a junction. Seems below about 15mph the rear wheels just lock up. It's horrible driving and knowing that something is being damaged. The wheels were so hot and stunk of that burnt metal / solder smell after. I managed to limp it home and they freed up after cooling a little bit. I'm no longer using the handbrake at all (although I did have a little play with it last night and it seemed that if I only use it on a couple of clicks instead of 5+ then it has no problems releasing and still provides enough braking to keep the car steady on small slopes like the driveway). I'm also keeping a brick in the car and use the brick under the front wheel overnight. I was suprised to find that leaving it in gear meant it would still move! I guess that means I have a compression leak somewhere which I don't really want to think about to be honest. Perhaps my head needs doing. And the car's too.... So, I've booked a day off from work this week and I'm going to do rear calipers (without carriers if I can get the old cals apart from the guide pins), pads and handbrake cables. The rear discs look really good and don't even have a lip on the outer edge. Plus I have no issues with the bearings so I'm going to leave these be unless I find that the rear discs have warped from overheating. I'm pinching the parts from the Corrado pile so they're all new bits. The more I pinch from there the more I think the Plum will never get finished :-( I'm quite temped just to steal the whole rear beam as it's a mk2 golf one anyways and has all new stub axles, bearings and discs on already....but then I may as well scrap the Corrado if I do that. Luckily the front subframe is different to the Corrado one, else I might have vultured that lovely Dark Bugundy shell to keep my daily in good order :-/

This thread is epic!!! did you go to moneysupermarket.com? :lol: Seriously though, I have a question about your throttle mapping and DTA management. Could you, if you so choosed, change the pedal-to-TB movement on the fly? I'm just wondering if it's possible to say let the car start from cold with 100% pedal = 50% throttle (perhaps even a rev limiter too?) and then when the engine oil gets to a certain amount it would change to 100% pedal = 100% throttle? I know it's something most of us do anyways, waiting for the MFA to rear a good oil temp before pressing on, but if you could do it automatically then that would be cool. Maybe something even simpler like wiring it into the cold start sensors so that when cold start mode is off, pedal movement = throttle movement?

Yeah, the only thing that is engine specific is the sump pan, which would fit the 12v and 24v engines, including R36 IIRC. I'm playing with getting a prototype done, just so that I can see it in the flesh! The pump and tank would be applicable to any engine, it's just the pan design that has to change. The pump has so many moving parts and a custom gear tooth profile also so not an off the shelf job which means ££££. It would be awesome to fit it to my C though :D

well the dry sump primarily removes the need of the "wet sump" or the nice sloshy bowl of oil most people have bolted to the bottom of their engine. This in turn means that the clearance below the engine itself is increased and therefore the engine can be lowered in the chassis (lowering vehicle centre of gravity which can improve handling) because the dry sump pan can be a lot shallower than the original item. My design is about 50mm deep at the lowest section. You then use pickup points (the 3 holes) to pump the oil back out, through the centrifuge to separate bearing damaging air from the oil and then back into the oil tank to be drawn through the main pump again. My pump therefore has a main pump section (line in from oil tank, line out into main oil gallery behind standard VR heat exchanger plate which can be retained if required), 3 scavenge pumps (line in from each of the 3 pan sections, then all 3 feed out into the top channels on the pump) and the scavenge channels (3 ins from scavenge pumps, and feeds into top of centrifuge). The centrifuge then spins the air-oil mix; the air is pumped out to the swirl pot where the last few drops of oil are recycled into the oil tank, and the main oil is drained out of the bottom of the centrifuge section and returned to the tank on the side connector. by using pumps under the crank and pistons, the "rotating assembly" or "crankcase" is kept in vacuum which is what leads to better performance as there's no air/oil friction to overcome, and also the rings seal better against the bores which leads to less blowby which also increases performance and emissions. Hope that helps?

thanks tony ack I won't bother with the back sensor then - the needle still goes up! I will check the sender on the coolant tank and see what's what. It's only started since the matrix hose went and I replaced so must be something simple. I did in fact bridge the connector on the black sensor with a huge paper clip on friday eve before heading home and nothing on the dash. This was with just ignition on - but could still mean that the wiring is bad I guess! I still think that whole section of wiring is bad. I checked the black sensor connector on friday before i left work, and the car ran crap after that - I thought I must have knocked the BTS wiring! I stopped shortly after and gave the connector a little wiggle again. it's so brittle all around there, no doubt it could snap inside the sheath. I'm thinking of renewing maybe 2ft of that loom section with bullets or perhaps solder and heatshrink. Hell, I might as well renew i properly. Thanks for the help with vac lines, knowing they're available from VAG is good as is your idea for measuring! I have some vernier calipers at home (geek) so i'll give that a go. Yeah I have the motometer dash panel which i've heard isn't quite as good as the VDO one? Maybe you could clarify. I'll keep my eyes peeled :D

early ones are a mk2 golf item which is why they don't have the cutout for the PAS cooler pipe. These part numbers start 191. All early corrados will have this one on IIRC.

That could make sense david, I think my dash clocks are past their best as the rev counter needle is still deciding not to work from time to time. Well I've ordered the ubiquitous blue temp sensor and will order the ECU black one too just so they're done. I'm trying to find out the inner diameter of the vacuum lines too but can't find the information anywhere. If anyone knows please give me a shout! I'll prob just buy a job lot of it. No doubt you can only buy it in spools of about 7 miles anyways....

I'm going with davidwort here (not like that :camp: ) when he says it could be the battery. An alt supplying more volts than the battery is reading across the terminals has always meant a dead battery for me in the past.

I know hooking the PCV back through the intake deffo improves emissions, possibly power too? HC blowby is one of the main contributors to acidic contaminants in engine oil which then attacks the bearings that the oil is supposed to protect :-( Well it was a "design and optimisation" project title so the design was enough, and although we have rapid prototyping at Oxford Brookes I just completely ran out of time. Mainly through lack of motivation and also changing designs!

So, to anyone who remembers me harping on about dry sumps et al, well I finally finished my design of the pump (including centrifuge) the sump pan and the oil tank. All that's "needed" are the lines inbetween, and some mounting brackets for tank and pump....oh and the bolt holes in the sump pan :lol: I'm happy to explain how the system works to anyone who doesn't want to read through my 100 page project! No plans to develop it really, I don't think I could make the pump for less than you could buy one from PACE or another dealer. It's more the concept of it, how it's been made from scratch and been tested (all theoretically). The pump has a HUGE gear on it so that it will only spin at ~1900rpm at the VR6 redline. Combined with my choice of bearing use and no contacting parts it should last a very long time in the field. Pan is divided so that it will create vacuum under each pair of "opposing" cylinders (I know i know 15deg only!) and that is where the good stuff happens. In short, creating vacuum below the pistons and around the crank reduces friction between rings and cylinder and can increase power by up to 10% as proven in Formula 1 and BTCC from a very very reliable source (Mr. Geoff Goddard) The tank has a swirl pot which feeds back into the tank and a filler on top, oil return halfway down the body and oil out at the bottom of course. Here are some pretty renders! mmm carboney.... Happy to answer any questions. It's purely a design project, but welcome any criticism etc etc! Jon.

a grand for everything seems a decent price :D good luck with sale.

no probs, I hope someone keeps another DBP on the road! Ours seem to be getting quite rare...but then i'm biased.

Sounds like a breaker to me. I mean, if it was Full of Ham, and not just in Fulham then I would have been round there in a shot.

Well it was pretty hard the first time ChrisCADMonkey, but then I pretty much only checked ebay! Checking VW sites would probably be a better bet. my coolant light was doing the song and dace this morning. The problem with being 6ft2 and having the seat where I do is that I can't actually see the guage as it's obscured by the top of the steering wheel! :lol: I checked each time it happened and the header tank was still full and the hoses and rad were all warm. I think what has probably happened is the "branch" of the wiring loom which does the 2 temp senders at the front of the head, and also the oil sensors down below is just starting to give up. Either that or the black(?) temp sensor has given up the ghost. I did think whether maybe there is a tiny air bubble trapped below the back sensor which is making the dash gauge go crazy. I guess it's possible...? tbh, I just think the engine bay needs rewiring. It's just a shame there aren't any junctions that can be changed as a module before the fusebox. I'm looking to do this on the plum anyways, so i might as well get some practice in.

Fair play HayWick, I think you're right that a long stroke would be a more lazy torque turner. ITBs enclosed sound like a good idea. I love the noise but they can be a bit pikey if they open to the elements. I wonder if we could get a group buy going including a custom enclosure? :D :D :D With the airbox on t'other side, I guess custom manifold would be one of the only options? Obviously this is met by the use of a turbo, unless you fancy keeping the stock inlet!

Would you be able to cut out part of the nearside chassis rail for me so I can have a replacement battery tray that's in the right colour?? Cheers :D