Help - what's that ticking sound?!

[BuckeyeMan71]

Just for ****s and giggles why didn’t you just check your exhaust? You said you wanted to wait until TB change. Well my friend you spent the money tore everything down and it could have well just been exhaust manifold gasket or cracked manifold and it had to of taken more time to do what you did than it would’ve to use a mirror and and a flashlight to check out the exhaust first. Always go with your first idea because it’s usually the right one.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Just for ****s and giggles why didn’t you just check your exhaust? You said you wanted to wait until TB change. Well my friend you spent the money tore everything down and it could have well just been exhaust manifold gasket or cracked manifold and it had to of taken more time to do what you did than it would’ve to use a mirror and and a flashlight to check out the exhaust first. Always go with your first idea because it’s usually the right one.

I did check the exhaust... it was easy to rule out the manifold and gasket once I unbolted it from the head.

I only said I didn't want to pull the valve cover before my next timing belt change, obviously the exhaust manifold isn't really part of that equation. Lol

 

[ToddA1]

Any noticeable change when driving?

Btw, what did you do about the valve springs?

-Todd

 

[thechoochlyman]

Any noticeable change when driving?

Btw, what did you do about the valve springs?

-Todd

It seems to be running smoother overall with a little more low-end torque, but I got so used to driving the V6 it's honestly kind of hard to tell. Lol Definitely quieter running, I know my injectors were probably noisy too. I'm wanting to give it a good thousand miles to break in before I really romp on it too much.

I just reused the old springs. They appeared to be in good shape, and I've never really heard of springs failing on these engines before.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Drove my car back to work for the first time in a month this morning and all seems well. I can really tell it's running and idling much more smoothly than it did before. ALSO, according to my Scangauge I averaged 58 MPG on the trip, up from the typical 48 or so. I'm sure it needs some recalibrating after the new nozzles and adjustments, but hopefully I'll be seeing some sort of MPG boost.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Been about 4 months since I've done all this work and put 8,000 miles on the car. All is well. I do seem to be getting slightly lower MPG than I did previously, and I'm trying to figure out how I can tune it out. It hazes a bit of grey smoke at idle which is telling me it's too rich. Will the IQ have an effect on that? I previously had it set to about 2.0, I think it's at 3.0 right now. I know it's common to run it higher, around 5 or even 6, but it seems like free power. I'm no expert on these by any means though. I'll probably set it around 5 over the weekend just to see what kind of a difference it makes, both in power and MPG.

The new Wuzetem 502s seem to run cleaner than my stock nozzles with better power throughout. When I talked to Frank on the phone he advised me to adjust the IQ by timing my distance between two points. Admittedly I never did it, I've been too busy just driving the thing. lol

 

[garciapiano]

3.0 is definitely high. I run 6 on bigger .216 injectors. Lower IQ number is actually more fuel.

Try going to 6-7 and see if it improves.

 

[burpod]

the tuner should be able to tell you (nearly) exactly where your IQ should be for your setup. of course variations in nozzle calibration/pump health can change this a small amount and you would thus hammer mod or use IQ adaptation to change it a hair. but a healthy 1.9tdi with sane timing needs ~4mg to hot idle @ 903rpm, so a proper tune would have you sitting right around there, but that's assuming the tune is using IQ values that are real, which your tune doesn't do. 30mg != 30mg actual fuel. if you happen to be at 4mg for hot idle, that doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be good for your particular setup. so where exactly it should be is basically a wild guess unless you know the timing/boost maps of the tune.. the tuner should tell you where you need to be, else you have to expirement with taking logs and see how well boost/torque/etc is, pay close attention to consumption values (harder to do since IQ isn't real) while driving in repeatable conditions and/or track mpg. it's very time consuming!

by raising IQ you're going to effectively advance the timing. now whether that actually translates to increased efficiency at cruising completely depends on the timing/fueling/boost maps and how much IQ has "shifted" and where that puts you in the timing maps. if IQ is at 3mg, 15mg might have an injection duration of 9deg. if you raise IQ to 5mg, 15mg now would have a duration of say 8deg. but the spec timing for 15mg is still what's in the map of the tune. for example, the stock timing maps have "humps" in the map where timing is advanced, one of them right around 18-20mg and 2500rpm-2750rpm. but between 20mg and 24mg timing drastically retards. if you raised IQ by a couple mg on such a tune, you'd completely change the timing for that area. when you change the timing, you're also affecting the boost control because combustion efficiency and window is changing. so it gets kinda hairy.

given what i know about your tune.... its doubtful you ultimately won't really gain anything by changing "IQ" as you will always lose something, 99.9% guaranteed. if you raise IQ, you're going to lose torque on the top end and perhaps pick up a hair of efficiency at cruising. the tune is already over-advanced through a large portion of the midrange.... if you raise IQ to something like 6-7, for pretty much all maps i've seen, that leaves you with an incredibly tiny area of fueling where the tune isn't just asking for nearly the max advance across the whole upper half of the fueling range....

you can play with IQ and timing adaptation, but it would take a good bit of effort and time tracking mpg to come to any sort of conclusions. and generally, those linear shifting of fueling/timing can't fix the shape of the maps and other issues that you may be trying to solve, so you almost always come out losing in one area if you pick up a win in another.

 

[thechoochlyman]

I think I'm just gonna set it to 6 and see how it does after a couple tanks of fuel. I usually run my static timing slightly advanced anyway, so maybe I should bring it closer to the middle of the graph?

 

[burpod]

I think I'm just gonna set it to 6 and see how it does after a couple tanks of fuel. I usually run my static timing slightly advanced anyway, so maybe I should bring it closer to the middle of the graph?

don't believe that's the way it works. if you change your pump timing in basic settings with pulley adjustment it's not going to do anything with your setup. quite sure all that's going to do is change the *available* timing window, but it's still going to get the timing from the tune.... actual timing values in 004 are actualy, as it's comparing needle lift with crank sensor...

try IQ @ 6 and i'm betting you will just have less torque from the midrange and up... just too much advance IMO.

 

[garciapiano]

I think I'm just gonna set it to 6 and see how it does after a couple tanks of fuel. I usually run my static timing slightly advanced anyway, so maybe I should bring it closer to the middle of the graph?

The guidance I received from DBW LLC for my .216s indicated the timing should be set to the very top of the range at IQ of 6. The car runs well, but it’s all dependent on your tune. The stock AHU/1Z pumps only allow for so much timing advance, so you basically have to advance the timing to get a good burn on the fuel.

interestingly I’ve spoken with specialists that say that the IQ is not meant to be adjusted at all. It is set from the factory using a special Bosch fixture and requires the same fixture to return it to the factory setting. Either way, that’s just the “factory setting” which needs alteration once you’ve changed other variables like timing, nozzle size etc.

I’d look at other threads where people had similar setups as yours. Every car usually needs a little bit of adjustment to get it to where it’s happy.

 

[burpod]

The guidance I received from DBW LLC for my .216s indicated the timing should be set to the very top of the range at IQ of 6. The car runs well, but it’s all dependent on your tune. The stock AHU/1Z pumps only allow for so much timing advance, so you basically have to advance the timing to get a good burn on the fuel.

interestingly I’ve spoken with specialists that say that the IQ is not meant to be adjusted at all. It is set from the factory using a special Bosch fixture and requires the same fixture to return it to the factory setting. Either way, that’s just the “factory setting” which needs alteration once you’ve changed other variables like timing, nozzle size etc.

I’d look at other threads where people had similar setups as yours. Every car usually needs a little bit of adjustment to get it to where it’s happy.

*sigh* DBW likely doesn't know what the tune is doing unless he happens to have your exact tune in front of him., which i doubt.

the specialists you've talked to also likely don't know anything about the details of the tune. but they are kinda correct.... if you're talking about factory tunes.

changing the physical pump timing really isn't the issue here. bumping that up is just going to help ensure the car can get enough advance during start conditions for larger and larger nozzles, because of how the pump internals work. after that, it's really just dependent on the tune being right for the pump/nozzles as far as fueling/timing goes.

for a truly proper tune, IQ would be the same or extremely close to what IQ is on a stock tdi - ~4mg (and when you see 40mg in your vcds measuring blocks, that would mean 40mg fuel, which none of these tunes 99% people have do - kerma, malone, rocketchip, stevenson, mrtuning...). regardless of your pump/nozzles/turbo, a 1.9 tdi still needs virtually the same amount of fuel to maintain 903 hot idle. this can vary a little bit tho. you can idle a tdi more efficiently, for example, with a little more advanced timing over stock + vanes wide open (in case of vnt). factory tune, on wifes BEW, for example, idles hot 903 @ 4.2-4.5mg on an average 65F day. with some tweaks, mine now idles ~3.8mg. i haven't changed the factory calibrated fueling maps on this for anything <40mg. so that should be pretty accurate. health of pump/nozzles/engine etc of course can come into play as well. and the air temps or altitude... it could vary naturally depending on conditions and not necessarily be a fault of the tune. even if the coolant is at 87C, but air temps are -10C, your IQ might read a bit differently than when its 25C outside. that may not necessarily mean the tune is wrong, but it's just how it's working when air is that cold. so there's definitely wiggle room as to what is correct, as many have said, 3.5-4.5 is a pretty good number - at least for a factory/well-calibrated tune.

it really the responsibility of the tuner to tell you what "IQ" should be at within +/-.5mg and if it's not running as well as hoped, either the tune isn't good, or you have some hardware problem.

 

[garciapiano]

I went back to my tuner (Malone) and just asked what the timing and IQ settings were for my tune. Seems like a pretty wide range (or not a really important or specific setting)

IQ 4-6mg timing in the upper half of the timing chart

 

[burpod]

I went back to my tuner (Malone) and just asked what the timing and IQ settings were for my tune. Seems like a pretty wide range (or not a really important or specific setting)

IQ 4-6mg timing in the upper half of the timing chart

that's not surprising that he doesn't give a definite answer, as his tunes all use the same pump/timing maps regardless of nozzles and 10 or 11mm pump (or at least with incredibly tiny variation). so you're just kinda left up to figure it out. but hammer modding/shifting IQ can never be to compensate the correct amount of change (and where) across the range of things... if you had gotten a size bigger nozzles, you would have almost certainly gotten the same tune you have now. or if you had an 11mm. same tune. i've read in enough i can say this with 99% certainty. i have seen some tiny variations, but nothing close enough to make up for the difference in fueling. fwiw.

 

[garciapiano]

that's not surprising that he doesn't give a definite answer, as his tunes all use the same pump/timing maps regardless of nozzles and 10 or 11mm pump (or at least with incredibly tiny variation). so you're just kinda left up to figure it out. but hammer modding/shifting IQ can never be to compensate the correct amount of change (and where) across the range of things... if you had gotten a size bigger nozzles, you would have almost certainly gotten the same tune you have now. or if you had an 11mm. same tune. i've read in enough i can say this with 99% certainty. i have seen some tiny variations, but nothing close enough to make up for the difference in fueling. fwiw.

I am not particularly surprised by this, mostly because there are realistically too many variables to write a remote tune for a specific car. The only way to do it right would be to put the car on the dyno… and also have one of the newer ECUs.

I’m happy with my chip tune but I’ve always wondered what getting a custom dyno TDI tune would uncover. There is no resource for that here in California. No diesel VW enthusiast scene to be found… not even a reputable shop.

 

[burpod]

it's not at all unrealistic. you just have to make pump/timing maps for each fueling combination. there really aren't *all* that many that it's not do-able. at least for what 98% of people run. you have 10mm + 11mm. for the most part its ~.170 (stock manual), .185s, .195s, .205s, .215s, .230s, .260s. thats 14 basic combinations (of course there are other sizes people make, .210s, .220s, .240s....). you already have decently filled in factory maps for 11mm/.138 automatic, 10mm/.170s manual, AHH for 11mm/.158, AFN with 10mm + .205s, a transporter uses 11mm/.215s.. etc. while it's not *easy* by any means, you have some good starting low points + some mid points from which to work your way up, and then fill in the middle ones. i mean, if you've got a known good maps for 11mm/.158s, 11mm/.215s, you can make a pretty decent guess at 11mm/.230s if you know what you're doing (user robnitro made one and posted it up years ago). and then test it. now with those 3, it's relatively "easy" to make the maps for .210s, .215s, .220s...

but now you have a good base, then you can make better boost maps for real IQ values with actual AFR calculations etc. you can then also better compare timing values between them, because everything's "real" (or at least as close as one can get without bosch lab equipment). now of course there are still many other details to fill in, but at least you're working in reality, and things actually become easier to make sense out of and test. expirement with different amounts of boost vs timing, for example. it's very time consuming to get perfection, and without a dyno and a solid 100% perfect healthy tdi you can swap pump/nozzles around and test, it can be nerve-wracking. so i'm not trying to get the impression its easy. but it's very doable.

back when i had tunes by the pros, i felt they were decent. always had huge boost spikes tho when mashing the pedal. wasted a lot of time messing around with boost valves... but i remember at first, i was blown away. i was under the impression for a long time they did a lot more with the tuning than they actually do.... i was also rather naive then...

also, you don't necessarily need to have a dyno or a "specialist" nearby.. things can be done remotely....

 

[thechoochlyman]

I bumped up my IQ today from 3.2 to 6. Butt Dyno registers no loss in power, but a decrease in smoke and EGTs at WOT. Timing graph is right between the middle and upper lines. Looking forward to seeing my fuel mileage results this week.

 

[Abacus]

I need to do this as well since my B4 smokes a lot now due to living at 5,000' elevation when the tune was set for sea level. But, I can't just hammer mod it because it's stuck, which means a pump reseal due to the seals being old. Not a big deal, just a pain and I don't feel like messing with it currently.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Just noticed while driving home yesterday that my boost pressure is "seeking" quite a bit - if I steadily accelerate it will alternate about 5 psi every couple of seconds. See video below. Not sure if this just started happening or if I just happened to notice it, but I'm going to start by dropping my IQ back down to 5 and see if it goes away.

boost gauge

youtube.com

 

[burpod]

well... if you logged it you could see what's actually going on, or just keep guessing and fiddle with IQ... ??

 

[thechoochlyman]

well... if you logged it you could see what's actually going on, or just keep guessing and fiddle with IQ... ??

I'm gonna do that too. Compare requested to actual. But since it's the last thing I changed, it stands to reason to start with IQ and work backwards.

 

[garciapiano]

IQ has nothing to do with boost

 

[thechoochlyman]

IQ has nothing to do with boost

I understand that's the theory, but when combining multiple factors at once the difference in fueling and timing could potentially cause weird things to happen in the ECU. Either way, I'm about to go do some logging and see what happens.

 

[burpod]

IQ has nothing to do with boost

well, it does. but for the amounts normally changed with shifting "IQ" around, it doesn't have a huge affect, but various things do add up. how much it has an affect depends on the tunes fueling maps. on one tune, shifting IQ from 4 to 5 might have a very large difference, on another tune, it might not have as big affect. but if the fueling is less/more than expected, the target boost map isn't as ideal (assuming it even is for some certain "IQ"), and the n75 map isn't going to be quite right. and when you shift "IQ" around that effectively changes timing a bit. so depends how the errors add up, but its really only going to shift problems around given the nature of your tune. and of course any little hardware issues would confuse things more...

 

[thechoochlyman]

I went ahead and bumped it to 4.0 with plenty of adjustment to go higher through adaptation. It seems to be back to normal for now. I might try going to 4.6, then 5 later on.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Bumping this thread for more input. I'm still having the wavering boost pressure issue, as well as a recurring 00575 code - intake manifold control difference, intermittent. It's done this on two sets of chips, and I've checked all my hoses. The ECU boost hose has been replaced. The only thing I haven't tried is a different N75.

 

[Steve Addy]

Bumping this thread for more input. I'm still having the wavering boost pressure issue, as well as a recurring 00575 code - intake manifold control difference, intermittent. It's done this on two sets of chips, and I've checked all my hoses. The ECU boost hose has been replaced. The only thing I haven't tried is a different N75.

Is the N75 you have installed now clicking like it should? You can hear it?

Have you cleaned it out with a little chemical spray?

Steve

 

[burpod]

once the tune is right, i highly doubt this will be any problem. what i sent you before i already knew wasn't quite right in part due to the mix-up on the exact nozzle size and other details 99% positive this has everything to do with fueling being correctly calibrated right and timing good

 

[thechoochlyman]

Just wanted to give a quick update for everyone. I managed to find some old threads where fluctuating boost was an issue and cleaning out the wastegate solved it. This was apparently my problem all along. I checked the wastegate arm and it mooved smooth and freely, but the wastegate itself had a bunch of oil buildup. The nipple was just big enough for a plastic spray tube, and I filled it up with brake cleaner three times and blew it out with compressed air in between. Burpod is still helping me out with a custom tune because the Malone Stg 3 isn't mapped very well, but thankfully the overboost code seems to be tied strictly to a dirty wastegate actuator.

 

[Windex]

Just wanted to give a quick update for everyone. I managed to find some old threads where fluctuating boost was an issue and cleaning out the wastegate solved it. This was apparently my problem all along. I checked the wastegate arm and it mooved smooth and freely, but the wastegate itself had a bunch of oil buildup. The nipple was just big enough for a plastic spray tube, and I filled it up with brake cleaner three times and blew it out with compressed air in between. Burpod is still helping me out with a custom tune because the Malone Stg 3 isn't mapped very well, but thankfully the overboost code seems to be tied strictly to a dirty wastegate actuator.

Glad you were able to get it fixed. I think I first figured out the oil-in-WG-actuator issue back in 2011... took several other acts before I went looking for that. I don't recall if I ever had to do it over again. I suppose you could put a drip-leg of sorts into the line so that any oil seepage would not make its way to the actuator. Now that I am B4-less, the cavuum operated VNT on my B5 doesn't have the same issue - just several others... :-(