I had a link fitted in my car last week. The car was mapped and all was well.

The other day I was stopped at a junction and there was steam coming out of my engine. I pulled over but couldnt see anything and just parked the car at home. The following day I left for work, drove down to the petrol station and the steam appeared again. I could see water dripping underneath the car.

I drove the car to the garage round the corner and left it with them. It later developed that the clip holding a water pipe behind the throttle somewhere had come off, so the garage put it back on.

I drove the car home, had my tea and then went back out in it. I only got round the corner when is suddenly wouldn go above 0 psi on the boost gauge.

The car has been like this since, although I have not been driving it just incase. I can only assume the car has gone into "limp home mode". Can the link do this ? I thought this was part of the standard ECU, does the Link have this feature ?

The problem I really have is that I can't take the car to a dealer to get them to read the fault from the select monitor as I assume it will not work with my car now I have a different ECU ? I have been told I can't do an ECU reset with the Link as I might damage it ? Is this true ?

What could have caused this to happen ? It was only a water pipe which was loose.

Any ideas on how I can get the car running again would be great

ta

 

the other thing is that the "Check Engine" light on the dash has not come on.

the engine management light is on, but this has always been on because of the link being fitted

 

Link does not have any kind of Limp Home mode nor does it operate the CEL.

Does the car drive OK (apart from no boost)?

If so I would suspect there is problem with a boost hose somewhere.

Andrew...

 

thanks for the quick reply

I didnt think it was limp home mode as I am pretty sure it revs above 4k although my rev counter is not working so I don't know for sure.

the car seems to drive ok although I didnt drive it for long to be honest.

it boosts up to 0 easily but just stops going any further then.

how can I tell if my turbo (td05) is broken ? could this be a symptom ?

thanks

 

First of all check all the hoses, not going above atmospheric pressure implies that boost is not reaching the inlet manifold.

TD05s are fairly robust so I wouldn't immediately expect a failure there.

Are you sure your boost gauge is OK?

Andrew...

 

Did you have boost after the Link was fitted?
Check the hoses into and out of the intercooler. It sounds like the loose water pipe may have been the one that heats the throttle body - putting this back may have involved taking off the intercooler or at least moving it to one side and disturbing the hoses.
As Andrews says, not getting above zero boost means you've turned your engine into a Sports model.

Nick

 

I had boost yeah, the car was mapped up to about 16psi no probs and I have driven it for the past week or so with boost.

I will check the hoses later today and let you know.

thanks

 

If you are still using the std plastic y-piece and TMIC to throttlebody hose they are both prone to splitting if running more than std boost.

I thought everyone disconnected the coolant flow through the throttlebody anyway

Andrew...

 

I have Samco Hoses all round

Anyway running a hybrid FMIC at the moment so I dont have the pipe your refering to

I am going to have a word with the garage across the road as tbh I don't really know what I am looking for.

hopefully he can check it

is it safe to drive the car with no boost ?

ta

 

has the actuater rod come off, just a surclip had come off. it happened once my old rs turbo, would get to about 5000rpm and i would get some boost

mike

 

Had a look and the only pipe I can see which has come off is the one which goes from the bottom of the boost solenoid into the air intake.

Could this be causing loss of boost ?

I am sure it has been off before and it didnt make any difference ?

also lets say 'hypothetically' I got a bit of plastic into my td05

could this damage it. By 'a bit' I mean about 1cmx0.2cmx1m

thanks

 

Debris hitting the compressor vanes rotating in excess of 80K RPM is likely to damage them.

Cheers