Hi guys, been a long time since I have been on the forum and I come with tidings of woe. I recently had the stage 1 s/c upgrade done on my car at TDI and after having done less than 1000 miles have had catastrophic engine failure. Whilst cruising down the motorway I have had a rod snap and now have a slightly larger than a golf ball size hole in my engine. Suffice to say that my engine is dead. I just spent in the region of 5.5k for this upgrade and I am devestated.

***** man i'm sorry.

Was it down to the upgrade or lack of oil/upkeep? (no offence ment btw)

Quite worrying considering i'm looking into this.
What mileage was the car?

Stav

Dude!

I'm sorry to hear that!

Thats awful

The car had only been serviced about 700 miles earlier it had 71k on the clock, Im going to have an independent assessor have a look and see what he thinks. At this time I have spoke to TDI and they dont believe it is down to them. I did have problems with the idling and engine management light was permenantly on shortly after collecting the car. Also the trac contol light was flashing on and off. I informed TDI of this but I was told there was nothing to worry about

That doesn't seem right to me?

What do you mean by stage one upgrade?
Just a pully or pulley/injectors/ and ecu?

Sounds to my humble opinion like if it had an ecu map it wasnt right to have the lights on?

Stav

Was it your car parked at tdi when we had the RR day?

I had the stage 1 pulley, katana manifold, katana intercooler, larger injectors, FCon V-pro, Camcon, closed loop feedback system, LCP

what boost ?

Yes it was, I was supposed to collect it that day but there was a major delay with the injectors and TDI did not provide a courtesy car untill the following week

I'm not sure what boost it was running but it should have been about .5 bar

Here is how she looks now!

Another

I have a spare std engine 2 1g-gte engines and a 1g-fe with steel rods/forged pistons which may help.

Steve has the 1g-fe and a 1g-gte @ charlesworth and if you want I can sort something out for you.

Drop me a PM if you want will do my best for you

You will need the code from Tdi for the FCON as I'd not be happy using the current map so would take it to another pwoerwriter to get a decent map done

did you not specify or be told what boost ? I ask,in some amazement, as its common knowledge .5/.55 bar is the limit with normal rods

I may be interested in the 1G-FE with forged internals, the thing is I am totally broke at the moment. I appreciate it very much though. Will drop you a pm. I thought that TDI would have kept the boost well within safe limits so never asked them!!

Man that sucks big time. Can i ask what power and torque the car was running before she popped ??? Just ask as mine and yemgi's are running quite high and if this is on the cards i'll be turning down the boost on mine. Both me and yemgi have done quite a few thousand miles on ours though so this could be down do a faulty rod or maybe something else maybe with the install we wont know untill the assement comes back.

Again sorry to see this mate hope you can get it sorted with TDi

.5 is the general boost you'd expect from a larger pully.
A boost gauge may well be a good investment next time

But i wouldnt be happy with all the lights on the dash. It does sound to me like a dodgy map, but i'm no professional.

I have a recollection of TDi putting up a power graph of a car with Camcon on WIM recently, was that yours?
stav

I'd ask for the full read out from when it was mapped.

This will give AFR - temp etc - this will enable/help an engineer to determine if the map was a cause or contributed to the failure. Will also say what boost its running at

All of this data is available from the dyno Tdi-plc use

oh my *** well gutted for you m8, with spending 5.5k thats serious money and hope you can place the blame where it belongs an get full compensation, good luck... keep us posted

Yes that was mine I dont have the power graph with me but I think she was putting out roughly 195 BHP at the wheels and 178 lb of torque

Don't mean to make you feel worse but Lee_icemans made 188 bhp at the wheels at the TDI-PLC rolling road and its a bog standard TTE supercharged car............

But that would be in the region of 235 at the fly surely that cant be right?

Pictures of the dyno print out are on here somewhere. Lee's seems to give good power. Was done at Tdi at the dyno day. yemgi's (same as yours less bigger pully) was 194 I believe both done on same dyno by same operator within an hour of each other

That is right about lee's i assure you.

You really need the AFR data from the power graph to see if it was running lean or anything.

I guess that's just another kick in the nuts then...

By the way stav the car looks great

Did not mean to do that ..............really winds me up that people are being sold stuff with the promise of big power gains when the reality is the TTE supercharger will not give more than 250 bhp period.

For what you paid TDI-PLC for these mods..........you could have had my turbo kit fitted with 255 bhp and shed loads of torque............and the rods would have been kept inside the block.

Lee's dyno chart from the dyno day at TDI is on here matey it came up at 188.8 and Moffets came up at 187.4,
dyno day charts?

Sorry to hear whats happend to your lex mate i'd be very p'd off so good luck with getting it sorted out

sorry to hear, http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/ind...ost&p=24197

sorry about this fella.

hope TDi sort it out for you as it seems it was no fault of your own.

Dave should be able to sort that engine for you.

Keep us posted what happens mate.

All the best

Rob

Ouch, that doesn't look good at all!

Hope it gets sorted asap!

I guess I will wait and see what the independent inspection reveals. It may have nothing to do with TDI so I just want to keep things neutral for now guys, I really appreciate your comments and support.

This is how she should be looking soon I hope!

Wise words.

Important to get data from the mapping runs as that will tell the engineers if the parameters the engine was running to were correct.

Your household insurance may be able to help you (mine did in a similair situation) as well.

Finally get it remapped ASAP when you get the engine rebuilt there are many HKS power writers who can do this for you www.hks-europe.com has them listed for you.

Abbey are the daddies IMHO.

Hope you get it all sorted and back on the road at no/minimal cost

no member here has the qualifications or ability to assess what damage has occured and even less ability to assess why it has occured
i would suggest that we all wait for the suitably qualified assessment to be carried out, and leave guesswork and the witch hunts out of this topic



commiserations Cho, lets hope for a good outcome of this disaster

sorry for your troubles Cho hope it all works out, but i agree with Bazza, speculation at this early stage may hinder a successful outcome.... wait for the engineers report and then see what Tdi will do for you, they have always come across as a fair company... give them a chance just my two cents

Sorry to hear that, that is one of the reason why I am hesitating to go for the stage 1 pulley.


Mine does it aswell, the idle should be solved by the closed loop feedback system. The engine light is because of the catalyst removal. The flashing TRC appears when you get near the rev limiter. There is no risk involved in it as far as I know, my car has done about 15k miles since all fitted and it is still running

I am running 0.45 with the standard pulley. When the stage 1 was first fitted, it produced 0.65 with the Katana intercooler

And yes, Lee's produces nearly as much power as ours with an almost standard TTE supercharger

so am i to believe that a flashing TRC and engine mgt light on-is regarded as ok?thats ridiculous and i dont buy it,can you tell me why when you stick a diagnostic machine in the car-it comes up with a list of faults?

Sorry to here this cho, feel for you mate. Hope you get it all sorted soon.

If i can be of any help ? just ask

Mine is running just over 0.5 boost, and all is well at the min

Ps. Yemgi, do you have boost gauge fitted standard TTE should only be 0.3 or just over.

even if it was found to be a fault of the installer ( and im not saying it was) dont people have to sign a disclaimer to say if anything goes wrong then they are not liable???

i only have one question.........



Cruising......

or spirited driving

Mat I had 2 passengers and a car full to the brim with luggage. I was going at speed but I have hit faster speeds without the supercharger!

Raj, when your car was fitted with this stuff, your light came on for a reason if you remember
It was not mapped correct, was putting shed loads of fuel into your engine and the 02 sensors/cat working overtime to cope with the extra fuel.

Morning Cho,

Devastated to read this - saw the topic title and was gutted

I do hope you manage to resolve things as quickly and as smoothly as possible - and that yo're back on the road in that gorgeous IS of yours as soon as possible!

One way or another, all will be sorted

All the best chap,
Jamie

Why

Don't forget Chris Shipleys lost a rod whilst cruising down the motorway and his was bog standard

Thanks mate, the whole thing has really dented my confidence in the tuning scene but I only hope that I can afford to get her back on the road.

Sorry to hear the news mate. not good.

There has been a lot of debate on here regarding "safe" levels of boost for the 1G-FE. IMHO there is no such thing.

When engine components are designed the stresses are calculated and the minimum size for the component is worked out to take the design stress. A "margin of safety" is added to allow for inconsistent material quality, manufacturing tolerences and possible errors in the design calculations etc. This ensures that all manufactured, in this case con-rods, will meet the minimum strength required for the engine. Given all the variances in manufacture not all con-rods will be the same strength, some will be at the low end, most in the middle and some at the high end but all capable of taking the design stress. The distribution will be as a Standard Deviation curve.

When you tune an engine you are "eating into" that margin of safety so if you happen to have one of the 0.1% of con-rods that are at the low strength end of the scale but capable of taking 150 Bhp and then add 33% more stress to it, it will break. No ones fault just a case of bad luck.

p.s not ment to be preaching and I do hope that you get sorted.

Looks like a change of engine to sort

Tuned or un-tuned it doesn't matter at the end of the day mate Don't feel pressured to fill the hole in the bay with a tuned block. Just get your car sorted

All the best mate,
Jamie

Very sorry to hear about this Cho. I hope you get you car back on the road with the minimum of cost.
The car looked fantastic @ the TDi meet.
It does sound like the £££'s/Horsepower ratio is very poor for this upgrade,considering what Lee's car puts out.
I hope the inspection is not in anyway inconclusive, & totally clears up what happend & why.


Sounds to me like a very easy cop out though Rob. This would allow anybody to really mess up your car with no possibility of recompense.


After reading this I am a bit worried now, as mine has an HKS boost Gauge fitted,
it goes to about 0.35 boost accelerating, but peaks at just over 0.5 when the Auto box changes.
(there is a peak recall button)
The only mods on my car compared to the standard TTE set up are
Denso Iridium Plugs (IK22's)
K&N panel filter
& the Pro-Lex stainless manifold.