Project Black Golfball-plans for 2007 Options

[black92_tsi_awd]

Decided to take the Talon to work today since the weather was so nice and cool this morning. Took her out on the backroads on the way to work and had some fun! Ran great, 18 psi on pump with no knock to speak of. Pulled good, well as good as the little 14b can...

Got to town and noticed some chirping on right hand turns, once in a while on left. Chirping seemed to come from the passenger side. So tonight I checked all the wheel bearings by doing the "wiggle test" with each wheel up in the air and grabbing the wheel at 12 and 6 or 3 and 9. Couldn't really detect much if any movement and no clunking sounds, drivers side rear has some "noise" but seemed minimal and the noise comes from the passenger side.

I was thinking the chirping might be from the new poly bushings, but I lubed the hell out of them and the noise only comes during turns. No noise over bumps.

Any other suggestions? Should I just watch the bearing and see if they get worse?

I found a link that show how to replace the front wheel bearings, but are the rear easily servicable?

[awd4kicks]

I would just keep your ear trained for it and see if it gets any worse. Poly bushings are known for being noisy. If the lube wore off at all they could make noise.

It's hard to say, just one of those things you'll track down.

BTW - I know your car has to feel crazy fast. In fact if you took a ride in mine, you would probably be shocked and bored with all the lag compared to yours.

[black92_tsi_awd]

I don't know, I'll trade some lag for some 11 sec slips!

I like the way the car feels, it gets to 90 before you think it should be. And with the stiff now non floating suspension it has the elusion of being faster. The only "car" people to ride in it and offer opinions Darryl and NCgalant. Everything is slow for Darryl when compared to his car and I think I may have scared Nathan with my runs on the off ramps during tuning sessions. He said something about not getting him killed

Wouldn't mind a ride in yours sometime, and your welcome to drive my heap

[black92_tsi_awd]

Well tonight's racing didn't go as planned.

The intial autopsy looks like I had an injector going bad and caused a cylinder to go lean and eat the electrode off a sparkplug. I swapped some new plugs and ran her a little, pulled the same plug and she was clean as new and no smell of gas which led us to beleive the injector wasn't firing. Next plug was white/brown so it was burning.

So looks like I'm in the market for either another 550 or a good set of 650's.

I'll tear into it Sunday and verify what going on but if you got anything let me know.

[black92_tsi_awd]

Further investigation of the dead cylinder is not good.

I swapped injectors....still dead cylinder
I swapped the injector resistor pack...still dead cylinder
Screw driver stethascope on injector body...seems to be ticking

Compression test 135-122-0-130. Hmmm I guess I found the problem!
I forgot to have the wife hold the throttle blades open so the numbers are a little low. Of course zero is still zero.

I going to do a leak down test this week to determine whether I burnt a valve or if it the rings/piston.

Hopefully I can get away with a quick hone and throw another piston (have to find one) in there to finish out the year. Hopefully I can at least get it running to hit the bracket finals at the end of the month.

[turbohcar]

YIKES

[awd4kicks]

I was afraid of that Chris... Been there done that. Still sucks.

On a positive note you have made an incredible amount of races with out any serious breakage and the 14b at it's limit.

[black92_tsi_awd]

Yeah, I've been pretty lucky and the 14b probably has gone as far as she's going to go. I feel like I should be pissed, but strangely I'm not. I've haven't figured that one out.

I just want to get her back together, and finish the year's races I had planned. Then this winter, I will take a good hard look at what direction I want to take her.

[awd4kicks]

I may have some old stock pistons if you are wanting to go that route. I only burned up one per set.

[black92_tsi_awd]

Yeah, I might need them. I figure I either messed up a piston or burnt a valve. I'll give you a call once I get it apart this week. Thanks.

[black92_tsi_awd]

Darryl came over last night and we did a leak down test. Cylinder #3 has 30% leakage and the air is coming out the intake so it looks like I burnt an intake valve. The other cylinder <6% so they should be fine.

Head comes off Sat...guess I'll call Kalina and get a estimate on fixing the head.

One side note, I emailed FIC Sunday asking if they would sell a single injector or reman the one I have. Got the below email Tues morning:
"
Hi Chris
I am so sorry to hear that you're having trouble with the injectors.
We can clean and flow the injector you are having trouble with to see if we
can get it to work 100% or we can sell you a new injector. That's up to you.
Make sure you test to see that the injector behaves the same even if you
switch it to another plug. (You may already have done that...)
The single injector cost is $55 for a 125-0550L + $5 freight and the "Clean
& Flow" is $20 per injector + freight back to you.
If we determine that the injector failed prematurely and will be replaced
under warranty, there will be no cost to you.

Let me know what you want to do.

Regards, Jens.

Jens von Holten
info@fuelinjectorclinic.com
(561) 427-0082


Pretty fast response (with the holiday) and the offer of the possible warrenty replacement is a bonus.

I will be probably sending the questionable injector back in case is was the cause of a lean condition that caused the broken plug/burnt valve.

[black92_tsi_awd]

A little further diagnosis

Did another compression test with the throttle open:
142-130-0-140

With some oil in the cylinders:
155-145-0-150

According to the VFAQ the Standard for a 1g turbo is 164 and the service limit is 121.

She's a little worn but should be good enough to last to the winter after I fix the head. But I think it'll probably need to come out for a freshening.

[black92_tsi_awd]

Carnage photos.....

I beleive this is my problem


I can't find the rest of the valve....it's not in the exhaust, intake and it wasn't in the turbine housing. I can't beleive is was burned away...is that possible??

The rest of the valves look like this, do these look normal? Especially the exhaust ports:


I hoping the guide is OK since the stem has a groove worn in in in the exhaust port.

Good news is that all the cylinder bores look good, no grooves.and nice and smooth.

[awd4kicks]

Oh boy! You did it up right Chris.

You will probably find that most if not all of the valves are warped and the guides are probably ok. If you want to play it cheap, Make sure they ONLY check the valves in that cylinder.

The way your exhaust valves look is pretty typical. They usually get a white coating on them from my experiences.

[ncgalant]

pretty ugly stuff. 150-160 compression tells me you've still got quite a bit of life left. I decided to rebuild mine when they were more like 135-125-115-130 and even that motor was running pretty well.

[black92_tsi_awd]

Yeah, that's way the way I roll... Crack crank in two...burn finger size hole in valve...next who knows?!!?

Kicks, thanks for the tip on the shop just checking the one cylinder. Has anyone taken their head to Kalina in Peoria? Should I run down some valves or just let them do it?

I need to finish stripping down the head. I know I need remove the cams...I don't need to bring the cam caps to the shop do I?

I also assume I need to pull the lifters, do they need to go back in the same bores?

[awd4kicks]

I've used Kalina on about 90% of my cylinder head repairs/rebuilds.

You shouldn't need to send your cam caps. I always have but not for any reason. Definitely pull your lifters. It's always a good conservative idea to put used parts back where they came from.

Kalina can get nearly as good of a deal as anyone except on the specialized parts. I've accepted paying a little more from them for parts to help keep a local business going. When I wen to my last set of valves...half the price a Ferrea, i had to get them through Winner's Circle but if you are doing stock valves there is no problem.

[SCCA Stang]

didn't spy have a race head up for sale a while back??? maybe time for an upgrade!!!!

[awd4kicks]

He already sold it.

[black92_tsi_awd]

I think that head would be out of my price range...if I'm thinking of the right one.

I guess I'm going to send all the injectors back to FIC to have them checked ($10 a piece) just in case I have another one possibly going bad.

Kicks, I don't mind supporting the local shops either. Unfortunality I got back too late from Iowa today to get the head torn down. Looks like it won't get to the shop until Weds.