Feel Your 1.4 Tdci Is Slow? Solution

[m1tch]

Hi all,

This is a quite FYI for anyone out there who has a 1.4 TDCi and feels that its a bit slow or sluggish when accelerating or indeed lacks throttle response, if the car is running as it should be and is well serviced and is still a bit slow read on. At this point I would also suggest to give the MAF a quick clean if you do this mod to keep the sensor in good condition.

I have had my mk6 for a couple of months now and having read some reviews about how the car can be a bit slow to accelerate and overtake I was looking at the 1.6 TDCi instead but went with the 1.4 TDCi as I know not all DV6 engines are like Lenny's. Anyway, I have been doing a few mods to the airbox to see what difference it made, I found that removing the intake snorkel did help a bit, as did removing some of the baffles inside of the airbox but I still felt that the throttle response was slightly laggy and not ideal.

I had a feeling that the airbox itself was badly designed and I was right, the bottom of the airbox is quite large but all of the air has to go via a tiny slot in the lid of the airbox before going into the MAF then the turbo. Removing the airbox and fitting a filter directly to the MAF removed all the restriction - I was hoping to be able to fit a carbon canister air filter on top of the engine but there is very limited space.

I believe that the airbox was a compromise for engine packaging reasons (as its fitted into various cars) meaning that the airbox is kinda of a last thought after they designed the engine so it was just made to fit the space, the space on that side is limited by the huge fuel filter. Fitting a higher flow panel filter won't do a huge amount owing to the fact that the OEM airfilter is rather large, its the actual slot in the lid that restrict the airflow rather than other parts.

Here is the stock airbox, air is drawn in underneath, through the air filter, then into the lid, through a small slot, then down into a 60mm opening to the MAF

Here is the small slot in the lid that the whole boosted engine has to draw air through:

Over the weekend I nipped out and completely removed the airbox and fitted a small air filter - these are about £4 and are usually fitted on bikes but its just a test to see if it made any difference. I had to go with such a small filter as there are no off the shelf 35mm to 60mm hose adaptors for me to bolt directly onto the turbo although I am still tempted to go MAFless - but this would mean added complexity to sort out an oil breather.

After changing to this smaller air filter the pickup is now really really good and it pulls well as the turbo spools up much better owing to the engine not being choked, I have also unplugged the 'doser valve' which is the butterfly in the inlet (just on the left of the TDCI badge). Removing this means that the intake is always open rather than being closed off to increase EGR exhaust flow. The performance does increase with the 'doser valve' still plugged in but improves further if this is unplugged (no code will show). I haven't yet blocked off the EGR but its on my to do list and will be amazed in how much extra it could improve the already good performance.

To do this mod all you need is:

• 1 x 60mm air filter - £4
• Declaration of intake mods on insurance - varies but I think mine was something like +£6 for the year
• Torx bits to remove the airbox and the MAF from the airbox
• 10mm socket to remove the boost sensor from the airbox
• Crosshead screwdriver to remove screws holding on intake snorkel
• 15 minutes

Although my setup looks a bit odd, its just an initial test but I am actually quite happy with it as this mod means that the stock intake pipe is retains meaning no additional pipework is needed, just a filter onto the MAF. I cannot stress how much of a difference this has made to the car, its so much more lively and pulls well through the gears rather than having a bit of a lag/spongy throttle response.

Quick note: This won't make the car into a 'TDCi-ST' but it will give a noticeable increase in throttle response, smoother power delivery and make it more fun to drive. This engine can have good gains once remapped, but even without a remap and this mod should give a good 'bang for your buck' considering the total cost to me for this mod was around £10.

Here is my project thread if anyone is interested, will be posted up various mods and tweaks:

http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/76674-m1tchs-fiesta-mk6-14-tdci-daily-project/

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi,

If anyone needs any help with insurance at all for this type of conversion then please feel free to drop me a line.

Regards,

Dan.

[m1tch]

Hi,

If anyone needs any help with insurance at all for this type of conversion then please feel free to drop me a line.

Regards,

Dan.

Thanks Dan, I wanted to make it as clear as I could that making any mod to the car means that it needs to be declared on the insurance, for me I always add on exhaust and intake mod declarations to my policy as then I can tweak things as I like.

[Tiko Dza]

On 12/29/2015 at 7:13 PM, m1tch said:

I have also unplugged the 'doser valve' which is the butterfly in the inlet (just on the left of the TDCI badge).

Hi mate, I really cannot understand which part is the  'doser valve'. Could you please show this in a picture or explain little bit more. 

Thanks for the awesome post!

Regards,

Tigran

[m1tch]

6 hours ago, Tiko Dza said:

Hi mate, I really cannot understand which part is the  'doser valve'. Could you please show this in a picture or explain little bit more. 

Thanks for the awesome post!

Regards,

Tigran

I will try and take a photo of it tomorrow, basically if you look to the left of the 'TDCI' part of the pipe on the front there is a black box with a electrical connector on it - this is the doser valve. I actually just unbolted the unit and unscrewed the butterfly plate (2 screws) - its spring loaded though and will remain open as stock.

With my cone filter in place (I have moved on from that smaller cone and seem to have set it up exactly the same as the Ken and Norm setup, the throttle response is so much better, lots of extra usable torque down load and never feels lacking. Its only at higher RPMs where the tiny turbo runs out of puff but its well worth swapping out the stock airbox.

I am actually going to be doing another test with the stock airbox but simply adding a filter to the large inlet pipe to the airbox and run the box with no internal filter (as it will be filtered before it enters the box) - might be an option for those who want to retain the stock box. Only downside so far to my setup is the engine fault code due to the massive amount of extra air the MAF is now getting. MPG is also way up and the car is so much better to drive.

[InsideByte]

Please could you upload the picture to Dropbox of somewhere where i don't have to pay a site to see them please :)

[Luke4efc]

On 10/4/2017 at 11:45 PM, InsideByte said:

Please could you upload the picture to Dropbox of somewhere where i don't have to pay a site to see them please :)

Through some chrome trickery I've managed to re-upload them here

[InsideByte]

2 hours ago, Luke4efc said:

Through some chrome trickery I've managed to re-upload them here

Thank you :) also he said when he used the airbox he got rid of the air snorkel but then how does the air get to the back of the engine where the hole in the back of the airbox is?

[m1tch]

The intake for the airbox goes under the fuel filter - basically the air box opening is now drawing air from under the fuel filter/back of the engine rather than next to the exhaust.

[InsideByte]

On 01/11/2017 at 1:06 PM, m1tch said:

The intake for the airbox goes under the fuel filter - basically the air box opening is now drawing air from under the fuel filter/back of the engine rather than next to the exhaust.

Okay thank's,I passed my test 5 weeks ago and I have a 56plate 1.4 tdci and I have been trying to get as much out of the car, I have a green panel filter instead of doing what you have done because of insurance reasons but apart from that I use Wynn's gold diesel formula and the gold formula for oil and it has made a massive difference, wanted to get a remap but again insurance reasons :( 

 

 

 

[m1tch]

12 hours ago, InsideByte said:

Okay thank's,I passed my test 5 weeks ago and I have a 56plate 1.4 tdci and I have been trying to get as much out of the car, I have a green panel filter instead of doing what you have done because of insurance reasons but apart from that I use Wynn's gold diesel formula and the gold formula for oil and it has made a massive difference, wanted to get a remap but again insurance reasons :( 

 

 

 

Look into the EGR blocking kits so you don't get muck chucked into your intake - also with regards to the injector cleaners, run the cleaner through neat by unplugging from the fuel filter, I use diesel purge on mine.

[InsideByte]

16 hours ago, m1tch said:

Look into the EGR blocking kits so you don't get muck chucked into your intake - also with regards to the injector cleaners, run the cleaner through neat by unplugging from the fuel filter, I use diesel purge on mine.

Well i have a EGR blanking plate and just before I did it I rang my insurance company and asked them if it would affect my insurance and they said it would so sadly i cannot do that even tho I would love to, and with regards to the fuel filter which pipe would i ran the cleaner through?