Hi,

First post here. 🙂

I need some ideas please, as I'm reluctant to believe it's the turbo which has failed because it seems unlikely to have failed spontaneously as I changed the clutch/flywheel.

So, after I changed the clutch and converted to single mass flywheel,  I've had some weird issues that I'm really reluctant to believe is the turbo due to it working fine before I started unplugging hoses and wires everywhere. This was my first attempt at this job, and it was very.... Amateurish, so basically I could have broken anything, to me that seems more likely.

Symptom. Accelerates fine with no notable loss in power in any gear and no smoke, until you pop it in 6th above 60mph to cruise, at this point if you push the throttle it will have nothing.  It will bog down like you have zero fuel, and eventually smoke whilst it bogs. You can only cruise in 6th at indicated 63mph, and this is absolutely fine, in fact I have done about 2000 miles like this crawling along the motorway.

Using Ford software, there are no error codes, but an intermittent pending "low boost" which I cannot for the life of me find the leak for. For me the symptoms are far too severe for it not to pull a "low boost" error code were this the fault, but it is possible. I'm reluctant to pay for another smoke test or buy the tool. 

As there's no error codes, I'm inclined to thing whatever it is is mechanical, but I need some help with potential suggestions...

So far I've checked;

• Visually checked all hoses and connections.
• Smoke test performed by garage - replaced intercooler.
• Smoke pellet set off by me in the airbox - no leak (but obviously this isn't a great test!).
• EGR blanked off - no effect.
• MAF sensor removed - same fault on default fueling map
• Turbo electronic actuator arm confirmed to be moving at start up (approximately 10mm movement).
• No excessive oil consumption
• No excessive fuel consumption (55mpg)
• Slow off the mark (they all do that don't they?) but otherwise turbo seems to pull fine everywhere, this is only a problem when trying to cruise on the motorway

I would welcome any suggestions as this is doing my nut in as I do a lot of motorway miles.

Thank you all very much.
 

Just a bump in case anyone can help.

Ran Fordscan again. No codes at all now. 

Checked the fuelling at 2000rpm, and the "cylinderbalance" is approximately 1.0 on each cylinder. I think this means the injectors are ok. 

Can't cruise above 63mph without bogging down with smoke.  Can accelerate hard all the way through the gears however.

Does sound a little noisy but with 177K on it that could be anything.

Fuel pump? I can see the trend on fuel rail pressure on the app and it follows the revs, but not sure if this is maintained under load. Perhaps that's the next thing to check.
 

Will it cruise in 5th at 70mph?

It's been a while since I've checked, if I recall it is a little rough, but it can sit at 70 in 5th.



 

37 minutes ago, Prof Prolapse said:

It's been a while since I've checked, if I recall it is a little rough, but it can sit at 70 in 5th.

Do you know where the crank sensor is on this engine?  Is the pickup on the flywheel?

Honestly not sure. 

But a crank sensor failure would throw a code, and if it was misaligned, would make the car hard to start would it not?

 

1 minute ago, Prof Prolapse said:

Honestly not sure. 

But a crank sensor failure would throw a code, and if it was misaligned, would make the car hard to start would it not?

I'm wondering if the ring on the DMF is very slightly different to the original.  The difference noted by the PCM may be exacerbated by 6th being a very long ratio.  I agree, I would expect a cam/crank sync fault code if that was the case.  Just seems very odd that you'd get a boost fault after changing the clutch and DMF.

Have you tried any live diags on Forscan?  I'd be interested to see a graph of measured boost, turbo actuator position, RPM and road speed if you could do that.

No more low boost code. 

Replaced it with a single mass. 

I ran a live check in the driveway last week but the battery is knackered in the laptop.

Not sure turbo actuator position was an option?

One thing I noticed was cylinder 3 seemed inverter at lower rpm and was reading 1.3 vs 0.8 in other cylinders. At 2000rpm everything read 1.0 so I took this to be an anomaly.

Fuel Rail Pressure tracked with injector flow but not sure if absolute pressure is ok (again, assumed no code = fine).

MAF vs MAP tracked together so assumed boost was fine.

i really need to run again when it’s doing the fault.

 

On 7/13/2023 at 2:06 PM, TomsFocus said:

I'm wondering if the ring on the DMF is very slightly different to the original.  The difference noted by the PCM may be exacerbated by 6th being a very long ratio.  I agree, I would expect a cam/crank sync fault code if that was the case.  Just seems very odd that you'd get a boost fault after changing the clutch and DMF.

Have you tried any live diags on Forscan?  I'd be interested to see a graph of measured boost, turbo actuator position, RPM and road speed if you could do that.

I’ll see if I can get it to do it with the laptop running… It is my only next step!

Oh!  I missed the fact it was a SMF conversion.  Would put money on that being the issue now.  

Just got this old thing through it’s MOT…

Still have this issue though. It actually seems a little better, but perhaps noisier. Worse fuelling?

If it is the crank sensor not liking the SMF, is there any way of adjusting the sensor?

 

ETA: Found the below for a 1.8 TDCI variant… gap + 1.2mm, which would be fine but that is for a DMF and I’ve no clue what it should be now… 

wiggle a little and hope it doesn't get smashed to pieces I guess?

The SMF will make it generally worse to drive.  A lot of noise & vibration at idle.  Then a lot of vibration if you labour the engine (trying to accelerate in 6th for example).

The purpose of the DMF is to reduce vibrations to protect the engine & hearbox and allow the driver to be a little more 'careless' with a torquey engine.

I wouldn't have done the conversion personally.  But I'm not going to suggest that you refit a DMF now. 

The crank sensor can't really be adjusted, it's designed to fit perfectly with a very small air gap between itself and the flywheel.  (Edit - I stand corrected on that lol.)

Hi. Did you ever get to the bottom of this. I have exactly the same issue and also put a single clutch / flywheel on a 1.8tdci.