PD150 - Project clean air!

[dgjdrummer]

Ok, so most of the exterior mods have been done to my car now, I have my 312mm brakes to go on and will be looking to put on a rear arb in the future ready for when I get my car remapped. What I'm hoping to do in the meantime is create the cleanest intake possible for my engine.

For info, my current set up:

PD150
Standard airbox w/paper filter
3" custom cold air feed
Cleaned EGR (with plugged vac line, soon to be vag-com'd to minimum)
New upper and lower intercooler-intake hoses with new clips.

Now I notice the intake manifold is caked in the same crud as my EGR was so hoping to get this off and cleaned up at some point. I'm interested in what people think of catch cans, best intake filter set ups and the best way to clean out the intercooler & boost hoses as mine seem pretty oiled up from when I've messed around with them.

Also, is it worth doing the EGR delete or am I better to keep it clean, set it to minimum and retain the ASV? I've heard these are rarely a problem when removed from VAG engines but I'm still unsure.

Cheers

 

[DarrenJ]

I didn't bother with the EGR delete just turned it down to min function on VAG com and then when I got her mapped I got him to turn it off completely and map out the fault code.

My EGR was completely caked up by 63k miles and my intake manifold the same. I havn't taken the mani off yet but I do plan to do it and I would say it would help clean up the smoke on start up a lot.

The delete kits are surplus to requirements in my own opinion as once the valve is turned down or off no further probs should occur and you retain the ASV.

It's good to sort the egr before a map though and the intercooler pipes so you're on the ball there!

 

[dgjdrummer]

Cheers mate, yeah I'm hopin to get the EGR turned down to minimum at UD at the weekend and will get it mapped out when I eventually remap the car. At the mo it's blocked off at the vac pipe bu getin the stupid EML.

I've swapped the boost pipes as the clips had gone and these are the weak points of the IC system from what I've read. Was just wondering if a catch can would be of any use in supplying just clean air to the engine or anything else that keeps inlet air clean and exjaust gas going straight out of the exhaust?

 

[DarrenJ]

I made up my own catch can and it works well. Judging by how much it collects it's a good addition and definitely is cleaning up the system. If you want to see how I made mine just check my car's thread. In total it costs less than a fiver to make the can.

 

[dgjdrummer]

Looks good mate, where did you get the bottle from? and how do you remove it to empty the oil out?

May have a look at doing this myself when I have some more time.

 

[dgjdrummer]

Ok so update, I have cleaned out my intake as below, copied from my RR:

So after a brief bright spell on Saturday I decided to clean out the intake manifold as it was pretty caked with crud. It took me just over an hour and a half to remove the manifold, another hour to clean it and then around 45mins to put back on as I now knew where everything went.

This is the manifold removed:

Now I'm not a physicist or engineer by any means, but I found that when jest-washing inside the manifold the branch on the far right was pi55 poor at getting any water flowing through it, it seems like a pretty poor design but I suppose under high boost it must work ok

This was the inside before cleaning, having done 81k miles:

I gave it a scrape as far as a long screwdriver would let me, knocked the crud out that I'd loosened, jet blasted it a bit and then gave it 4 rounds of foam de-greaser and Mr Muscle oven cleaner (the de-greaser kept clogging). After an hour's work and some time to dry it looked a little more like this:

Much wider inlet and smoother airflow, I have noticed that the power is smoother, more consistent and doesn't feel so choked or wheezy near the top end (3.5k+). Definitely worth doing and not that difficult, even for a non-mechanic like me!

The space is tight so not really suitable if you have hands bigger than a baby's or wrists wider than a toilet roll tube! This is the space where the manifold comes out from:

I followed this guide HERE as recommended by Muttley, but I would make a few points:

1. The TIP doesn't "need" to be removed, you can work around it and move it out of your way to a certain extent and still access everything.

2. I would remove the TIP, it's a pain in the deriere working around it!

3. The EGR cooler doesn't need to be removed either - simply push it back and let it rest on the exhaust manifold as above, the coolant pipes then don't need clamping and it saves some time.

4. Remember to re-fit the gaskets from the EGR cooler to the EGR!!! I forgot one and ended up hitting limp mode the next day while I was 40 miles from home on a day out with my girlfriend! Needless to say it was pretty annoying/worrying. It had started raining when I was refitting stuff so I was in a rush to refit everything

Apart from that it's a simple if time consuming job and it's and it's working well now, except for the boost gauge rattle that has come as a result

As said above, car feels smoother on pick up and definitely breathes better above 3.5krpm. I'll be looking at a catch can in the near future, and then I'd like to clean the oil out of the intercooler and intake hoses. Anybody done this and got any tips? Or is it a case of just run the car hard to force some of the oil out? I'd rather not take the intercooler off if possible but it looks like it won't be possible to flush it out as both the inlet and outlet are at the bottom....

Any help would be greatly appreciated!