Thread: Why is my 300tdi not going so well?..

Ok that seems the best place to start I think.
I'm living away for work at the moment but I'll have a good look on the weekend and report back on what I find.

Thanks for the ideas everyone

Checked valve clearances?

When I first got my old 300 Tdi, it smashed one of the lash caps that sits on top of the valve. When I replaced that it made quite a noticeable difference to power

So the injectors and pump haven't been touched in 400,000km, apart from a tweak?

finally somebody has mentioned valve clearances

i have taught you well, grasshopper jock...


jc

Yes valve clearances have been checked twice since the rebuild and have been pretty spot on both times.

No they haven't been touched ever to my knowledge, I bought it with 365k and going from the very limited service history I got with it the only thing that has been done was the injector pump tune at 193k......

Hi all,

So here is bit of an update on my 300tdi.....

It still isn't going any better, if anything it's worse to be honest!
To give you an idea I have checked almost everything I can think of, I pulled the air system apart, replaced the boost line from the turbo to IP, checked valve clearances again, replaced the fuel filter and cleaned the water trap, checked all throttle linkage, checked for air leaks in the intercooling system and replaced the injectors.
New injectors made it run maybe a little bit smoother but didn't do anything power wise.

So short of something wrong with the IP I think the only possible and more likely thing is the turbo...?

I'm almost convinced it's the turbo now after I got to drive Dads Tdi again a few weeks ago, comparing the two my Def has heaps of turbo lag, you don't feel any "power" till about 12-13 psi where as you'll be able to notice the boost right down from about 4-5 psi in Dads.
Could this be a weak wastegate actuator spring problem? Even at full boost it feels flat.

What do you think?

Do you have a egt guage? if the wastegate actuator spring has gone soft you will run very high egt and blow lots of smoke with no power, just befor xmas i had this happen to me, my turbo boosts to 22psi but it would only reach 14psi with egt of 750+ and lots of smoke and no power[the pump is tuned to the intercooler and turbo so when a link breaks in the chain.....], another wastegate actuator fixed the problem