[drendar]

Hi All,

New forum member here - I'm Dash and I live in South Wales.

I'm the owner of an '03 Mk4 1.9 Golf PD TDi Match and love it.

I'm here to get some info on use of Vag-Com, as I had my timing belt done a while back and ever since I've been having issues with my Fuel economy.

I used to get 50MPG if I was driving like a nutter or commuting, and over 65MPG on long motorway journeys. I'm now lucky to hit 45MPG even on long journeys pretending to drive Miss Daisy around.

I suspect it is the CAM timing, possibly the MAF, so I've got myself a cable and just need some guidance on getting the timing just right with Vag-Com.

I believe I only need to view block 4 so don't need the full Vag-Com version.


Once I've got the car running sweet I'll be looking at getting an ECU remap done to give myself some more Oooompf!


See you around!

Dash

 

[Seatman]

welcometomyturbodies

You'll probably need to provide the engine code for help bud, it's normally on top of the timing belt cover.

 

[chittychittybangbang]

Welcome! If you have any VCDS specific questions, please post them in the vag com (VCDS) section in the general forum.

 

[drendar]

Help getting PD cam timing right.

You'll probably need to provide the engine code for help bud, it's normally on top of the timing belt cover.

Hi Seatman, thanks for the welcome

My engine code is ATD and has red 'i' in TDi

I've had the laptop connected up to the car today trying to look at the torsion value (In column 4 of group 4 under measuring blocks) and it's reading 6.6, which if it's the right block is obviouly too high. However it doesn't say torsion in the field header, and the units aren't reading kw as they do in the cam timing tutorial! LOL

My laptop battery is dead now so I can't see what the exact name of the field was and I've had enough for evening now

Does anyone know good values for the MkIV golf?
Should I be aiming for a zero value or slightly elevated?

Many thanks in Advance

Dash

 

[drendar]

Welcome! If you have any VCDS specific questions, please post them in the vag com (VCDS) section in the general forum.

Hi Chittychittybangbang

Thanks, I'll do that tomorrow, I think I'm ok with VCDS in general... got it up and working with the cheapo cable and into the right section fine... I'm an IT network consultant so quite familiar setting up serial ports and stuff

I'll ensure any future posts go in the right forums

Dash

 

[Growler]

Hi Seatman, thanks for the welcome

My engine code is ATD and has red 'i' in TDi

I've had the laptop connected up to the car today trying to look at the torsion value (In column 4 of group 4 under measuring blocks) and it's reading 6.6, which if it's the right block is obviouly too high. However it doesn't say torsion in the field header, and the units aren't reading kw as they do in the cam timing tutorial! LOL

My laptop battery is dead now so I can't see what the exact name of the field was and I've had enough for evening now

Does anyone know good values for the MkIV golf?
Should I be aiming for a zero value or slightly elevated?

Many thanks in Advance

Dash

Dash,

group 4 field 4 is where you want to be looking so you are in the right place.

if its reading 6.6 it definitely needs reduced (rotate center of cam pulley counter clockwise)

you will want to loosen the 3 13mm bolts on the cam pulley, put an 18mm box wrench (spanner?) on the center cam nut and GENTLY rotate the cam indepentantly of the timing belt by pushing on the end of the wrench toward the firewall (assuming this motor is mounted side to side like they are here in the USA and not front to back). it will be hard to move at first then all of a sudden it will start moving and move a bunch, so be careful.

a little bit goes a long way, so move the end of the approximately 1 foot long wrench about 6mm and you will probably be close to where you want it to be.

resnug up the 3 13mm bolts, and start the car. check group 4 field 4 again and repeat this until you get it in the 0.0-+0.5 range with the engine warm.

after the initial 6mm movement, (since you are so far out of range) the rest of the movements will need to be MUCH smaller.. to move from 1.0 to 0.0 usually requires less than 0.5mm of movemment or so on the end of the wrench.

if you find you have overshot the mark and gone into the negative numbers, of course you need to pull on the top of the wrench to advance the number with the same finesse as before.

sometimes it can take 3-4 tries to get it in the proper range. once you get it there, you will find that your mileage should return back to normal, if not better than ever.

Aaron

 

[drendar]

Hi Growler,

That's great info, thanks muchly

I'm about to do a 2hr drive then I'm off to my pit, so I'll have a crack at that either tomorrow or Friday, and I'll report back how I get on.

Thanks to all!

Dash

 

[Seatman]

Lol when I read you're off to your pit I thought "they don't mine in Wales anymore" then my brain kicked in

 

[drendar]

Hi All,

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you.

I eventually got round to doing the cam timing, but I had some weird issues.

First off - the label on Block4 Column 4 was "Synchro Angle" which I realise isn't that big a deal as it's just a label, however the strange thing was that when retarding the engine (Rotating Anti-Clockwise) the value of this block was actually going UP, which I think is the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do - in any event I managed to get the value down to 0.0

It really was incredible just how tiny movements were required to make adjustments, and it was extremely difficult to tell even if it HAD moved, but I found a great way to tell....

Around the top of the cam there are little 'hooks' (for want of a better term) that move round with the cam, so I got my dad to hold a piece of paper with a line drawn on it up against one of these, which made it really easy to see when, and how far it was moving. (see attached image)

I then found that in order to move the cam by such tiny amounts, the best way was to get my socket over the nut, and then use a hammer to gently tap the end of the ratchet in the direction I wanted to go.

I was finding that moving the cam round by literally the width of a pen line drawn on a piece of paper was enough to alter the value by 0.5-1.0


What I didn't mention in my previous post was that I'd taken it to my local VAG specialist and they had taken the timing belt cover off for me, and slightly retarded the engine in order to try to get my MPGs back to where they were before. This change did certainly improve my fuel economy, but at the expense of power - the car would stop pulling at around 3000 revs, and was generally not as much fun to drive. It was after this work that the VCDS reading was showing 6.6.

Anyway, so my car is now showing a value of 0.0, however I'm still not getting the same MPG as I was getting before The car is definitely running better, and I have more power available (it pulls hard all the way through the Rev range) but that Fuel Economy is really doing my head in.

Can anyone suggest anything else I can try?


I have on 2 occasions this year gone into limp mode, and I found the following fault "17964 - Charge Pressure Control: Negative Deviation"

Could this have anything to do with the economy drop, or is it a different issue altogether?

Sorry for the long post!!

Cheers,

Dash

 

[chittychittybangbang]

Great! No idea about the fuel mpg. Perhaps you changed fuel stations? New tires? Thicker engine oil? All these can change mpg. Check all the vacuum lines, perhaps you have a leak.