Hi Bernie, Are you enjoying everson's cam belt saga? I'm feeling a bit nervous that he's going to manage this? wish one of us was somewhere nearby because he sounds so enthusiastic, just lacking experience I think?

Anyway, regarding the VCDS (or VAG-COM, as it was called when I bought it originally). The main VCDS program is a "reverse engineered" version of the VW tool developed by Ross tech in the states and works on all the VW group vehicles (apparently I could "talk" to a Bentley with it if anyone was foolish enough to let me get that close to one). In their wisdom they also included a generic OBD reader free as part of the deal - it comes up as a selectable option on the first screen when you wake the program up. I've tried it on a number of non VW group vehicles and it's worked just fine. I use it regularly on my boy's Astra for instance. However when I try to connect to our Panda (and I've only tried the once) the poor old girl gets a real "knee trembler" on. The program won't connect properly so you can't interrogate anything and the EPS "growls" alarmingly and sets fault codes. (you don't know about the fault codes until you go in with MES and look for them - luckily MES let me clear them all and she's fine. Don't think I'll be trying it again though!

The whole reason behind this is that I've had a bit of a "wierd" thing going on with the Panda ever since we've owned her. When driving on small throttle openings she's absolutely fine and a dream to drive. On large throttle openings, she doesn't pull cleanly. It's not a missfire, just a "reluctance" to pull strongly. It's as if the mixture isn't quite richening up enough? So far the only really concrete "strange" result I'm aware of is that the post cat O2 sensor is stuck up at .9v However the pre cat one is cycling as it should and at a good speed. The car also passes emissions at it's yearly test. I think this sensor may be a bit of a red herring though as it's the pre cat (upstream) one that really contributes to fuelling. I haven't done any checking of the MAP yet and I suspect this may be at the root of it (just been far to busy with all the other family cars to look at our own). As regards the downstream O2 sensor, could it just fail with a permanent high reading? I doubt it but I just don't know?

Regards, as always
Jock

Hi Jock,

I do actually enjoy thie thread , the kind of one that revives good meories ! Regarding the O2 sensors, I would expect the post-cat one to fluctuate a bit as well, gonna have to do some search about that and will comment on this later. Unless one of the very valuables members jumps-in to show his O2 knowledge ...

All the best, Bernard

Bernievarian said:

Regarding the O2 sensors, I would expect the post-cat one to fluctuate a bit as wel

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If the cat is doing it's job correctly would you not expect to see the downstream sensor more or less flat lining at around 0.5v. Well, Ok, as nothing works perfectly maybe there would be a slight fluctuation seen in sympathy with the mixture variation introduced by the upstream sensor, but very much smaller than the "big" swing you see on the upstream one?
regards from a "puzzled" Jock.

Heat-shield idea (mentioned earlier) testing.
Scrap aluminium sheet (with cut-outs, slotted holes), about 0,5 mm thick (more than that, will be hard to form and install).
Size 24x42 cm (too big, it sticks out too much at the bottom). Recommended: 20x40 cm.

Is it better now? I don't know. It is not worst, yet.
Potential problem is a "draft" (like in a chimney) pulling more hot air up - and even melting the air filter box. Will see... Stay tuned.

Small mirror is helpful during assembly (to align the holes). And a bit longer bolts.

Omg, you did it?? Great! I thought about this many times! I think overal engine setups are better when exhaust is behind engine and intake from front side. Here the exhaust is very close to engine block, water pipe which goes to water pump and oil sump. Everything is heated up from ehaust manifold and Cat, oil is also heating up through oil sump area and is getting hotter instead of being cooled (because oil acts also as "coolant" solution for pistons from bottom side. And once air fan spins, temperature of engine block increases instead of decreasing.
Thats what I noticed when I had that ticking noise, which was depending on small increases of heat. Once fan starts to blow, ticking appeared too And when fan stops, after some time engine cooled a little bit and ticking was away
I also found some plastic part near coolant radiator which is blocking outside air to go directly to engine area. But to access its bolts I must dismount whole front bumper and maybe other parts... But I believe that Fiat engineers knows what to do and why it's there
Regarding your solution and that "chimney" effect...you are probably right and hot air will go up to filter box. Maybe. And maybe not and whole air will go down when car is moving...hard to tell...
Maybe good solution could be some heat shield of water pipe which goes horisontaly to water pump plus shield between exhaust and oil pan...But there are no holes on engine block to mount something like this properly... Maybe to mount it on exhaust itself by...I dont know...some thick copper wires? But rhis solution will block outside air to cool down this area Tricky