MOT Day!

[MatthewL]

Great news! My Turbo has an MOT at long last.

Less great news. This is how I got home

[Jeff Turbo]

Blimey what's happened to it now. One bit of good news though as it passed

[MatthewL]

It’s a great question Jeff. Drove the car there and I was blown away with it. It’s never driven so well. Engine was smooth, pokey, pulled in high gears from low revs. I was utterly thrilled with it. Then on collecting the car all was well, until it started losing power and kangerooing. When the car was home it drove up my driveway ok as though it had fixed itself. So I’m puzzled. What I have seen though is that there is a fabulous car …. Just needing some last fault finding.

[Jeff Turbo]

Try blanking off the vent pipe from the carb as you're getting air into the system. Two inch fuel pipe with a bolt in it. If it ticks over ok and does that under boost, that's your issue

[MatthewL]

Hi Jeff. I’ve crawled all over the car today. Could see nothing wrong. No air leaks, no fuel blockage. Started it, ran beautifully. Going to go out tonight with a pal following with a tow rope, see if it happens again

[Jeff Turbo]

Hi Jeff. I’ve crawled all over the car today. Could see nothing wrong. No air leaks, no fuel blockage. Started it, ran beautifully. Going to go out tonight with a pal following with a tow rope, see if it happens again

It's probably the vent valve playing up, if it does it again block it off as per my last post

[MatthewL]

Hi Jeff - I checked the vent pipe and solenoid - thankfully working as it should.

I took the car for a run last night. Positives: managed about 8 miles running incredibly smoothly, tractable and my support car - a friends 300hp electric Skoda - he said he had to “give it some” to keep up when I put my foot down. Downside. I stopped for a minute and then restarted the car when hot, it started fine, but then the kangerooing started and it was undrivable. Stopped the car and left it 5 minutes to cool. It then started and ran but in high gears at moderate throttle I could feel the kangarooing.

I’m now suspecting general fuel vaporisation but I don’t know if this is common on these cars? - I’d have thought the asbestos heat shield would have been enough. Do you know of any turbo owners who get this issue when the car is fully warm?

[Jeff Turbo]

All points to the vent valve staying open when warm/hot or the balance pipe might have a small crack. Make a small pipe up and change it over next time it happens while warm , should take less than a minute to swap it, then you'll know if it's the vent pipe or not.

[MatthewL]

Excellent- thank you Jeff. I was starting to doubt my vaporisation theory as the car wasn’t all that hot and it was a cool evening. I don’t want to spend more on things which won’t help! I’ll try that and report back.

[MatthewL]

Jeff - you were spot on. Thank you. Blocked off the carb breather, hot started probably slightly slower but all the power was there - no kangarooing. Must have been that valve sticking open letting air into the float chamber rather than fuel. My friend followed me on the run, told me it smelled a lot better also, so I think…. Think… I may now have a working car.

[Jeff Turbo]

No worries and happy to help, hopefully you can now enjoy the car. It might make hot starting a little difficult sometimes but hopefully all's good now. You might want to put a little lube down it, WD-40 etc and test it a few times . Ignition on and it should be closed so you can't blow down it, ignition off it should be open so you can. A few on offs might just get it moving again as it's probably sticking through lack of use. If you think you've done enough then connect it back up again and go from there