Nothing much to report since last time we were here (over a year ago!!!).
20,000km under the belt now, and all has been going swimmingly... until last week.
Normal day... sun was shining so I did some errands and went for a run.
Everything has been pretty normal recently, in fact i'd only commented in the morning how well it was running.
Then it all went wrong.
Driving hard up a very steep hill (Holme Moss if you want to google it), lost boost and power.
It was the first time since I fitted the TDI that i'd had a boost pipe come off. Odd.
So i did what anyone would do, put it back on and continued.
Half an hour later, similar happened but this time with a lot of smoke and a lot of noise.
That wasn't going to be fixed with a screwdriver and an oily rag.
I have no way of knowing what caused it. I suspect that the failure of the turbo is related to the boost pipe suddenly popping off under load.
One things for sure, the chargecooler full of buts of turbo and engine oil wasn't what I was hoping for.
So... where does that leave me. Broken down for starters.
However, theres a silver lining to every cloud of dense, black, oily exhaust smoke.
I'd known from day one that running a VNT on the original manifold from the JX wasn't ideal as the oil drain was very shallow. I have no idea how much this contributed to the death of the VNT.
So, I now had the opportunity to do it right, and hopefully make it more reliable in the process.
We have a turbo now (LINK), specifically for this application. Its a Wastegate turbo using a housing that bolts direct to the original (JX) manifold. Internals and wastegate setup are custom to give it boost characteristics similar to an AHU/1Z and at the same time, its assembled to allow it to be sat low down like the original setup on the JX so shallow oil drain will be no more of an issue than it was on the original KKK K14 fitted to the JX.
Its pretty much a bolt on swap as far as the turbo goes. And the bonus is that it uses original JX Oil Feed and return pipes with a spacer to lower the turbo down a little it means that everything including the exhaust lines up perfectly.
As mentioned, its a wastegate turbo, so needs the N75 valve to match, so thats been swapped. Ive also swapped to a 68pin AHU ecu (and had the immobiliser turned off at the same time). All wiring is the same.
Results... to begin with there was a worrying amount of smoke. I put this down to oil still in the system and sure enough after 15-20 miles its cleared up.
Low down torque is slightly reduced, which is to be expected, but mid and top end it actually feels quicker than with the VNT.
Throttle is more sensitive, This is likely down to differences in the ECU.
Really pleased with the way it drives so far, and the puff of smoke at startup is also gone.
