The cause of my recent engine damage- a shocking realisation :-(

[Ben B]

When my engine lost compression a couple of months back, and needed the head repaired due to stuck valves, (£465 ) the cause was suspected to be the engine running rich without me realising it.

The only cause for this we could see was a tiny pipe that connects along the top row of the rocker cover (1.6 engine by the way) being snapped, due to the rubber being old and perrished.

I'd never noticed particularly terrible fuel economy, I seem to get about 30-33mpg all the time whenever I've worked it out, so this seemed weird.

The other day I had a thought- a couple of years ago, some dutch guy came on the forum no-one had heard of, selling uprated ecu chips for mk1 1.6's. A few of us went and bought them, myself included.

On fitting them, those who did were shocked that the car actually even started again, let alone ran, but it seemed (though it was hard to tell) that the car seemed a bit nippier. To be perfectly honest it wasn't the biggest difference in the world, it may have just seemed that way, as I was flooring it more!

Anyway, could this have been the cause of the engine running rich? Was what I installed just a more complex version of the ebay 20p resistor trick?

Yesterday I openned my ecu box and replaced the dodgy dutch chip with the standard one again! Low and behold it drives exactly the same! certainly no less nippy!

Just a thought- if anyone here fitted one of those chips back then, I urge you to stick the standard one back before your engine has serious problems!

Ben B

 

[beeson100]

SH*TE. good thing i kept the old 1! lol. it did seem alot more nippy at first. i am getting below average fuel ecomomy tho so thats probably y! i'll change it later. cheers for sharing that, it could be saving me a lot of cash!

John

 

[Ben B]

I may well be wrong, but it's better to be safe than sorry! Certainly wasn't mind-blowingly faster, but when you change it back I swear you won't notice the difference anyway!!

Ben B

 

[beeson100]

well the job is already underway! just what i need on a nice cold morning ...oo afternoon now. you could be an absolute life saver if you're right ben! how many miles do u do a year roughly would u say by the way??

John

 

[Ben B]

12,000 maybe. Can't actually remember when it was we fitted them though

Ben B

 

[Sven]

Think it was about this time last year.

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[beeson100]

it was roughly just under a year ago i think wasnt it? i forgot how much fun getting the ecu out was! only just managed to get the cover bit off cos it was so cold! lovely amount of smoke pouring out the back when i restarted it. i'm hoping my fuel consumption will be a bit better. what do u reckon we should do with the chips then.....ebay??? lol

John

 

[Tom]

Would be interesting to see if they were all the same program.

But certainly having a broken pipe on the engine and hence having an air leak will have made it run lean. And running lean burns valves.

 

[Ash]

I doubt it was the chip that would have done it ben . running rich would just coke up the engine.

its more likely the vacume pipe! when mine come off the car wouldnt even idle or run right. having the chip probarbly counteracted the pipe being disconnected and made it idle kind of ok, meaning you wouldnt have noticed anything and thats y ur engine went wrong.

like tom said burnt valves are caused by the engine running too lean. the lack of fuel and extra air causes hotter combustion which in turn burns the valves on exit.

if there is to much fuel then it just wont burn it and chucks it out through the exhaust eventually causing your cat to bugar up.

Im Driven to Earn, and I Earn to Drive......

 

[Ben B]

That's OK then, if it wasn't the chips fault then I havent got to feel guilty about messing up the car through cheap modding!

Still gonna leave the chip out, after noticing how it made no difference to the running, I don't trust it any more!

Ben B

 

[beeson100]

well my car feels alot slower now the chip is out! it just seems to lack a bit of punching power in the lower revs. i might just leave it out over winter though and save a few quid on petrol!

John

 

[Ben B]

Sorry dude! If I was panicking over nothing! Why the hell does mine drive the same then?? Was my chip a dud?!?! You can understand though, that a £20 chip being installed then the engine dying, it seemed a bit dubious!

Oh well!

Ben B

 

[beeson100]

no worries m8. i'd been thinking about taking it out anyway due to the extra cost in fuel. not sure y urs doesn't seem different but mine definately is. it seems more of a normal every day town car without the chip, it's hard to explain. i'll leave it a week or two and see what the mpg is like.

while i've got your attention...has there been any progress with the white dials yet atall?

John

 

[Ben B]

My brother's company have got the vinyl cutting equipment, but they've just moved offices, and I'm not sure they've even got it set up, as they're thinking of selling it all! (If anyone want's to buy £10K worth of vinyl cutting kit...!)

I'll mention it again, but he doesn't seem too keen on doing it again (it was for a favour last time.) I'll see what I can do...

Ben B

 

[beeson100]

cheers that would be awesome if you could. if you can get 1 could u email me, ([email protected]), or just post on here.

ta!

John

btw its a mk1 1.6 that i've got

 

[James]

well if ne one wants to sell one of these chips i may be interested but how do they work r they the same as the resistors u can buy on ebay?