Hi, I recently joined this forum so I'm not a 100% sure if this exact question has been answered before, I could atleast not find it by googling around.
A couple of months ago I bought myself a Leon 1M which had been through some upgrades by some tuning garage in Sweden (Dahlback Racing).
What the previous owner told me had been done to the car was a bigger turbo, BOV, cone air filter, FMIC, new intake manifold (with possibly higher capacity injectors, they don't look OEM) and a new map (which only lets the car run on 98 gasoline and not 95/98 as is stock).
The boost gauge inside the car is showing 1.8 bar (~26PSI) at max boost, which I think sounds like a lot judging by what I've read about increasing boost on the 1.8/ARY engines, but I'm no mechanic so what do I know? The previous owner claimed that these mods would give the car around 300HP. The engine in the car is a 1.8T 20V ARY/AJQ.
During the months I've had it I've had some "boost-hesitation" from time to another when putting it into third and giving it full throttle, almost as if it would suddenly lose power when creeping up to 1.8 bar and then either jump back up on the boost or sometimes even go into limp mode. So I bought one of those eBay VAGCOM USB-cables and read the codes off of the car using VCDS-lite the first time it went into limp. It then said something about over-boost from a sensor of some description (sadly I didn't take a picture of the code at the time), but I suspected that this might have been from a frozen sensor or valve because I'd driven it too hard before it got warm (been down to -20 in the mornings here in Norway), so I deleted the code to see if it would come back. It never did, so I assumed the problem was indeed that I had not let the motor get warm enough before boosting, but the boost-cut was still there from time to another.
I've also had fault code P0011, which has to do with camshaft-positioning (obd-codes.com/p0011), pop up sometimes after doing long trips (+100km). I've now changed the camshaft position sensor as some people told me that could be what was throwing the code.
So, to the problem; I was recently out for a drive and then stopped along the road for a bit(so the engine was warm), I then drove out on the road again and went full throttle from second gear. Upon approaching ~4k RPM in third gear I suddenly lost all power from the engine and an atomic mushroom of white smoke came pouring out from the exhaust. I immediately pushed in the clutch and continued rolling down the hill I was currently on untill I got to a bus stop to pull out onto, I noticed the engine was still idling fine at 500RPM before I shut it off. There was a strong scent of burnt oil and some smoke coming from the engine bay, and also large amounts of oil dripping from the rear of the engine, although I could not locate exactly where from as I was stood in alot of snow and had no light with me.
Got the car towed into town and didn't start the engine after. Heard around with a bunch of mechanics and almost all of them agreed on that it was a blown head gasket. Yesterday the gaskets I needed finally arrived and I got the engine screwed back together with the correct torque on the new head bolts and everything to spec. Filled it with coolant and the recommended 4.3L of quality oil. Turned the key and it instantly fired up, no CEL or fault codes and engine was idling fine, even gave it a little tap on the throttle and the boost jumped up on the gauge. Only thing was the ticking-noise of the engine being a tad louder than before, but I thought this was just the motor not being properly lubricated yet after having being opened. Looked in the mirror to find that the exhaust was still pouring out smoke, but I left it idling for about a minute as I thought it might have just been leftovers from coolant and/or oil being blown into the exhaust from when the head gasket blew. The smoke didn't go away so I stopped the engine and checked the oil-level, the dip-stick was completely dry after being nearly at max just a minute ago. Checked under the car and no oil leaks under the engine, however nearly the entire length of the exhaust system was dripping with what both looked, felt and smelled like oil (defo not dirty water and old soot), however it was completely black and not brown as the new oil I just put in the engine.
So I've spent most of today googling around to find out what it might be, and the two main explenations I've come across are either blown piston rings or blown turbo seals. Going to check the turbo for shaft play tomorrow as per tipped from many of the forum posts I've come across with similar issues.
So for now my question is really if anyone has come across this before and can tell me with a high likelihood if it's one or the other (or maybe even something else)?
The whole thing was a huge letdown as I've had to wait nearly 3 weeks because they didn't have the gaskets locally and they spent a long time shipping them, only to find out I've been "fixing" the wrong thing all along.
I'm sorry for the terribly detailed description, but I just want to include any information that might be relevant to help me find out what's wrong. Is there anything else I should check but for shaft play that may help diagnose the problem?
Cheers in advance
A couple of months ago I bought myself a Leon 1M which had been through some upgrades by some tuning garage in Sweden (Dahlback Racing).
What the previous owner told me had been done to the car was a bigger turbo, BOV, cone air filter, FMIC, new intake manifold (with possibly higher capacity injectors, they don't look OEM) and a new map (which only lets the car run on 98 gasoline and not 95/98 as is stock).
The boost gauge inside the car is showing 1.8 bar (~26PSI) at max boost, which I think sounds like a lot judging by what I've read about increasing boost on the 1.8/ARY engines, but I'm no mechanic so what do I know? The previous owner claimed that these mods would give the car around 300HP. The engine in the car is a 1.8T 20V ARY/AJQ.
During the months I've had it I've had some "boost-hesitation" from time to another when putting it into third and giving it full throttle, almost as if it would suddenly lose power when creeping up to 1.8 bar and then either jump back up on the boost or sometimes even go into limp mode. So I bought one of those eBay VAGCOM USB-cables and read the codes off of the car using VCDS-lite the first time it went into limp. It then said something about over-boost from a sensor of some description (sadly I didn't take a picture of the code at the time), but I suspected that this might have been from a frozen sensor or valve because I'd driven it too hard before it got warm (been down to -20 in the mornings here in Norway), so I deleted the code to see if it would come back. It never did, so I assumed the problem was indeed that I had not let the motor get warm enough before boosting, but the boost-cut was still there from time to another.
I've also had fault code P0011, which has to do with camshaft-positioning (obd-codes.com/p0011), pop up sometimes after doing long trips (+100km). I've now changed the camshaft position sensor as some people told me that could be what was throwing the code.
So, to the problem; I was recently out for a drive and then stopped along the road for a bit(so the engine was warm), I then drove out on the road again and went full throttle from second gear. Upon approaching ~4k RPM in third gear I suddenly lost all power from the engine and an atomic mushroom of white smoke came pouring out from the exhaust. I immediately pushed in the clutch and continued rolling down the hill I was currently on untill I got to a bus stop to pull out onto, I noticed the engine was still idling fine at 500RPM before I shut it off. There was a strong scent of burnt oil and some smoke coming from the engine bay, and also large amounts of oil dripping from the rear of the engine, although I could not locate exactly where from as I was stood in alot of snow and had no light with me.
Got the car towed into town and didn't start the engine after. Heard around with a bunch of mechanics and almost all of them agreed on that it was a blown head gasket. Yesterday the gaskets I needed finally arrived and I got the engine screwed back together with the correct torque on the new head bolts and everything to spec. Filled it with coolant and the recommended 4.3L of quality oil. Turned the key and it instantly fired up, no CEL or fault codes and engine was idling fine, even gave it a little tap on the throttle and the boost jumped up on the gauge. Only thing was the ticking-noise of the engine being a tad louder than before, but I thought this was just the motor not being properly lubricated yet after having being opened. Looked in the mirror to find that the exhaust was still pouring out smoke, but I left it idling for about a minute as I thought it might have just been leftovers from coolant and/or oil being blown into the exhaust from when the head gasket blew. The smoke didn't go away so I stopped the engine and checked the oil-level, the dip-stick was completely dry after being nearly at max just a minute ago. Checked under the car and no oil leaks under the engine, however nearly the entire length of the exhaust system was dripping with what both looked, felt and smelled like oil (defo not dirty water and old soot), however it was completely black and not brown as the new oil I just put in the engine.
So I've spent most of today googling around to find out what it might be, and the two main explenations I've come across are either blown piston rings or blown turbo seals. Going to check the turbo for shaft play tomorrow as per tipped from many of the forum posts I've come across with similar issues.
So for now my question is really if anyone has come across this before and can tell me with a high likelihood if it's one or the other (or maybe even something else)?
The whole thing was a huge letdown as I've had to wait nearly 3 weeks because they didn't have the gaskets locally and they spent a long time shipping them, only to find out I've been "fixing" the wrong thing all along.
I'm sorry for the terribly detailed description, but I just want to include any information that might be relevant to help me find out what's wrong. Is there anything else I should check but for shaft play that may help diagnose the problem?
Cheers in advance
