P38A P38 2.5 dse engine noise?

BDC said:

Hi fellas has been a while since I posted here. P38 still isn’t finished.

Today I did a compression test just out of curiosity because the engine has been rebuilt a while back. And since the head wasn’t exactly flat I wanted to see how a test like this would work out.

Now I only did a dry test and these are the results.

1: 390 psi
2: 360 psi
3: 390 psi
4: 390 psi
5: 390 psi
6: 390 psi

The measurements have been performed using a glow plug insert with the exception for cylinder 2 where I used injector insert because the fip is in the way to use glow plug method.

What do guys think about these numbers? And what about the difference for cylinder2? Could the difference be attributed to the difference in the way it was measured?

Anyways unfortunately a glow plug wire shorted out while measuring and screwed up the glow plug fuse. Does anybody now if the fuse can be replaced without changing the entire unit (relay and fuse)?

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Mark Piercy said:

Did you do the same with a drop of oil in each cylinder or just a dry test?

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BDC said:

Only dry test, I had to cut short the testing because the weather changed and I didn’t fancy doing this in the rain

I looked it up in rave compression test should yield results bigger than 20bar. It did not specify what the compression looks like when new.
Google search and other forum say it is 400psi or 30 bar when new but not sure if this is accurate.

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Datatek said:

So your pressures are as good as you could expect.

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BDC said:

Hi fellas has been a while since I posted here. P38 still isn’t finished.

Today I did a compression test just out of curiosity because the engine has been rebuilt a while back. And since the head wasn’t exactly flat I wanted to see how a test like this would work out.

Now I only did a dry test and these are the results.

1: 390 psi
2: 360 psi
3: 390 psi
4: 390 psi
5: 390 psi
6: 390 psi

The measurements have been performed using a glow plug insert with the exception for cylinder 2 where I used injector insert because the fip is in the way to use glow plug method.

What do guys think about these numbers? And what about the difference for cylinder2? Could the difference be attributed to the difference in the way it was measured?

Anyways unfortunately a glow plug wire shorted out while measuring and screwed up the glow plug fuse. Does anybody now if the fuse can be replaced without changing the entire unit (relay and fuse)?

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BDC said:

Hi guys

The car is off to the welder hopefully it comes back without extra issues. The headliner is out and replaced nrv for rear window wash as well.

Yet I have another question about timing modulation. I have set the modulation as per the method I got from datatek. I’ve set it to 50 +-5% with the engine temp at 95 degrees Celsius.
However how much may it vary from this value say for example in morning when starting up from cold. Should it still be within that 5% window or can it be entirely different.
In my case I find modulation values as low as 10% when cold and reaching 55% when hot. Is that normal behaviour? If not what could be the cause of this?

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Datatek said:

The modulation varies widely with engine temperature which is why the 95C is important when setting, did I not give you an example chart showing the variation? If not, I'll post one up again.

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Datatek said:

The modulation varies widely with engine temperature which is why the 95C is important when setting, did I not give you an example chart showing the variation? If not, I'll post one up again.

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BDC said:

I might have overlooked it, let me check that again.

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BDC said:

Here I am again with another question. I’ve been trying to find the answer to a problem I’m having since quite a while withe the p38.

The car starts and runs fine, pulls really good and doesn’t seem to have a lack of power. It has an END tuning chip installed and if you put the pedal to the metal it smokes a bit black which is to be expected.

When I start the car in the morning there is a bit of smoke from condensation when cold that’s totally fine. However the first km there is a more dense smoke developing which goes away fairly quick when the engine has more temperature. It’s really in the first metres.

I’ve been chasing this for a while thinking it came from the fip so I’ve been changing the rotation of it a few times but modulation is 50 @95C. I also moved the top lid so the mg/stroke reads somewhere between 5-6 mg/stroke on the nanocom. Doing this helped reducing smoke at idle when cold.

I measured the dry compression for each cylinder and that turned out to be ok as well. The crankcase doesn’t get pressurised and coolant remains at the same level. I also replaced the MAP sensor. With the intake manifold off looking at the intake valves they are dry so no oil seeping down.

The injectors have all been tested and nozzles are new as is injector 4.

Next step would be looking at the turbo and waste gate.

Any other ideas what might cause this to happen? Leaking injectors?

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Datatek said:

Probably down to the remap. Does your car have a MAF sensor? I doubt it's anything to do with the turbo if the manifold is not full of oil.

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BDC said:

Here I am again with another question. I’ve been trying to find the answer to a problem I’m having since quite a while withe the p38.

The car starts and runs fine, pulls really good and doesn’t seem to have a lack of power. It has an END tuning chip installed and if you put the pedal to the metal it smokes a bit black which is to be expected.

When I start the car in the morning there is a bit of smoke from condensation when cold that’s totally fine. However the first km there is a more dense smoke developing which goes away fairly quick when the engine has more temperature. It’s really in the first metres.

I’ve been chasing this for a while thinking it came from the fip so I’ve been changing the rotation of it a few times but modulation is 50 @95C. I also moved the top lid so the mg/stroke reads somewhere between 5-6 mg/stroke on the nanocom. Doing this helped reducing smoke at idle when cold.

I measured the dry compression for each cylinder and that turned out to be ok as well. The crankcase doesn’t get pressurised and coolant remains at the same level. I also replaced the MAP sensor. With the intake manifold off looking at the intake valves they are dry so no oil seeping down.

The injectors have all been tested and nozzles are new as is injector 4.

Next step would be looking at the turbo and waste gate.

Any other ideas what might cause this to happen? Leaking injectors?

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Grrrrrr said:

Mainly short journeys?


Grill in top of cam-cover all cleaned out and the filter on the side?

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BDC said:

Yes filter came out and has been cleaned. The external filter on the side I haven’t didn’t think it’s serviceable.

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