Arragonis' Fabia Mod Thread

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Helga is staying for another 12 months as I have just paid road tax for her for that period.

Woohoo! Putting that emotional parting off for a year

[Arragonis]

And she is booked for her summer service - I don't do enough miles to do it more often.

Camera is useless, so ordered a new one from Amazon. Its basically the same as the one I have already but in a different case, mine has died due to lack of use so the battery is not working.

EDIT - Plus Mrs A's Octavia is getting a service. We had hoped to hold off until the Prius arrives but its been delayed by the problems in Japan.

EDIT2 - Mrs A Octavia is NOT being serviced, she has decided not to.

[Arragonis]

A small update.

- Intake temps. They seem to rise and fall more than they did before and are overall much lower. They do increase with load quite a lot so I suspect either i) the sensor is down channel from the turbo so extra load = higher temp, or ii) some warm air is still being drawn into the sealed off top section. Once this tank is out of the way I will take off the grill block for a tank and see what happens to prove i) is some use of "the google" does not answer that beforehand.

- Helga's service, my tame spanner people almost refused to do it as she is not due - but I prefer a 6 month interval, I have only done 4k miles since the last one in December and the official interval is 10K - or so they said. Did I mention I don't drive very far They did an oil and filter change anyway and checked her over. New front disks will be needed soon but I may go elsewhere as they fitted the last ones which juddered a lot for quite a while after gently bedding in.

I know I should do these myself but I have a major work project which is eating weekends and evenings at the moment.

- The mods seem service friendly, in fact they asked what I was getting - I am currently getting more miles than the guy who works there who has a 1.4 TDI 3cyl, so I tols him about the 80mpg EXOXANTIA has reported (see earlier posts) - he was amazed.

- I have un-modified Helga slightly by refitted the spare wheel and jack. I did this for a vital and serious reason - the thin bit of plywood Skoda fit as a spare wheel cover didn't have any support under it and so kept collapsing. Not noticed any difference since refitting TBH.

- All trips have had an AVG reading of >60 each including short local hops to run people back and forth.

- A sidelight bulb has gone *(pads over to the annoyances thread tp compose post about how ss car designers are when bulbs need replacing).

- Mrs A's Octavia (2.0 TDI 140PD 80K miles) has just put in its best tank I've ever measured at 54.8 (imp), which given the accelerator is used like a switch is not bad. I think it knows its going as the DMF has the dreaded 'cold shudder' which coud indicate failure is due.

It did stall today when Mrs A thought it was out of gear and I'm pretty sure it was too. Only a few weeks to last though.

- And on Mrs A she has mentioned Helga's age which is an issue as she is not liking older cars for kid transport. I have said sell the Octavia and keep Helga, she says trade them both in but its a bit of guilt as she is getting a nice, new, shiny car. So we are in "discussion", again.

[Arragonis]

Inlet temps.

They have been high even with the hole mod. So I decided to investigate. I thought I would run without the block for a while to check if temps drop. I also looked down the intake and, er, its open.



Here are my own pinkys pushed through the front of the intake.



So it looks like although the front is now open then engine is still able to drawn in air from the engine bay - this is just above the REAR of the radiator, where the fans sit.

Its also not damage, the plastic is all in one piece, this is designed in.

Hmmm.

[Piwoslaw]

My guess is that when your turbo is sucking up less air than is being rammed into the intake, the excess goes into the engine bay. Do you plan to plug that and see what happens?

Hmm, why does this look familiar?

Right after the intake in my 1.6HDi there is a small box.

The manual calls it an 'Air Filter Box', which is funny, because there is no filter in there (this is where the 2.0HDi's filter is located, though), the air filter is behind the engine.
In fact, it's not really a box. When you open the cover you can see that it is only one wall, the rest is open to the engine bay.

Why? My guess it that when the variable-pitch turbo suddenly needs more air than the intake nozzle can easily give, then the rest is pulled from the engine bay. During normal operation air is rammed through the nozzle into the air box, so that most of what is fed to the turbo is fresh, not engine, air. Also, this air box may help to reduce the amount of dust and water droplets that continue on to the air filter proper.

I am thinking about totally re-doing my pre-turbo intake with something more straight forward, sealed up, and thermally insulated.

[Arragonis]

Sort of the same idea. The intake seems to feed straight into the engine bay, with the intake for the engine being effectively a scoop at the top of the pipe. I assume since the grill was totally blocked actually most of the air going in came from in front of the lower radiator and went upwards. Since I blocked this the air is being drawn in from behind with some coming through the hole.

I have the block removed just now, I noticed the car was noisier than before - so the block must have helped with wind noise somewhere. However the inlet temps are showing no difference. I suspect therefore the temp sensor is actually downwind of the turbo as load seems to increase it and it doesn't go down with airflow at speed which I would expect to have a cooling effect.

Also noticed increased smoke with no grill block.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

I suspect therefore the temp sensor is actually downwind of the turbo as load seems to increase it and it doesn't go down with airflow at speed which I would expect to have a cooling effect.

That's where is should be! Mine is before the turbo, so the engine/ECU has no idea how the turbo increased, and how much the intercooler decreased, intake air temperature. Good thing that PSA's injuneers didn't also put the boost pressure sensor before the turbo

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Also noticed increased smoke with no grill block.

Helga smokes? Only when you floor it, or is she a regular? Filterless, or does she have a DPF?

[Arragonis]

[QUOTE=Piwoslaw;245229]That's where is should be! Mine is before the turbo, so the engine/ECU has no idea how the turbo increased, and how much the intercooler decreased, intake air temperature. Good thing that PSA's injuneers didn't also put the boost pressure sensor before the turbo[QUOTE=Piwoslaw;245229]

Yep, but I wish I knew that beforehand

PSA Ingeniousneurs always amazed me when I had a 205/206 - some bits were amazingly clever and some you just wondered if they could be bothered that day - probably that short working week

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

Helga smokes? Only when you floor it, or is she a regular? Filterless, or does she have a DPF?

She aways does on startup - I thought Turbo or HGF at first but that was 45K miles ago and everything is still fine and she uses no oil between changes.

Otherwise full welly gets some smoke. I noticed some of the joints (press only) on the turbo boost pipe were loose a while ago and taped them up - still solid. So maybe something else like a dirty injector. I'm going to try some cleaning additive on the next tank and see what happens.

[Arragonis]

Worse than I thought.



A is where the air comes in from behind the grill (and now my hole). C is where it goes into the engine bay.

B is the opening to the inlet - note that it faces away from the flow. D is air actually entering the engine. From this no adaption of the intake will increase flow as it depends on extracting what is needed from the flow of air to under the bonnet, not from that flow being assisted from airflow to the front of the car. Of course I blocked A so anything into my engine went from C - and still does maybe.

I have no idea how those people who have PD160 intakes ever expect to see a gain but I think I can see how the Autospeed Roomster didn't see a gain - unless I missed something in those articles.

On a happier note - this looks a good tank, maybe an EM catching one

[Arragonis]

Slightly down on this tank compared to the last one, which is annoying as I felt it was better. One factor in this one is that I haven't done any trips apart from to/from work so thats ~48 US (~55 Imp) on 90% urban driving in a car rated on 40 (Imp) for the official Urban cycle.

I'm trying to keep the glass half full, but I think I have hit a plateau.