Anybody else still working on their car to get ready for QDM?
04-30-2008, 09:34 PM
#1
AudiWorld Super User
Thread Starter
Anybody else still working on their car to get ready for QDM?
I was planning today to be a quick troubleshooting and wax and polish day.... Let me start by saying, please don't put down my filthy "brilliant" black roadster tomorrow : (
I was supposed to have M-W off. Got sucked in to a full day at work Monday, so scheduled repair work got pushed to Tuesday. Got called in a few hours yesterday, so I started installing new ECS rotors and pads last night. Had to finish at 1/2 done around 10 PM. Buttoned the brakes up this morning, and got called in again... When I got home, I swapped wheels to summer rubber, replaced drivers side wheel well liner that was damaged at Streets of Willow (pulling OUT of the damn parking lot on the way home!). Then I decided to clean the throttle body. That went so well, I though I would also clean the engine bay before starting my coil pack troubleshooting. Spent an hour cleaning the engine. Started it up, and the battery/alternator light was on!
Found I didn't have a socket to do the plugs with the coilpacks, so I decided to head to AutoZone to let them diagnose if I needed a battery or alternator, and to get the plug socket.
So the tech hooks up to my car, and every time it puts a load on, my voltage goes lower. It dropped from 12.2 to 11.6 getting to the store, and after his testing it was down to 8.something. He says it's clearly a dead cell in the battery and not the alternator... I liked that answer, but it didn't sound right to me - I never got up to 12 volts with the car running... Oh well, he's the pro, right? So he helped me put in the battery, I grabbed the tools I needed, and I was off - almost... Battery/alternator light was still on! And somehow the guy was "on lunch" when I came back in. So I ask to buy an alternator, "just in case"... They don't have any in stock. I have them call another store, they have one (~10 miles away, starting to get dusky). By the time I got to that store, my new battery was down to 11.5 volts. Had to stop and get dinner (wife's orders) on the way home. Down to 10.9 volts when I get home, and I am driving in the "near dark" with no lights to reserve power... Needless to day, it took a few hours to change the alternator, and now everything is fine. Could have saved a few hours and $100 just trusting my own troubleshooting skills.
SO, with that done (at midnight), I finally can start troubleshooting my coilpack issue. After an hour I have it buttoned back up. I think the issue was too big a spark plug gap (one close to 0.040"). Got them all down to 0.032" (or there 'bouts). Took a test drive, and it feels VERY strong. I hope it stays this way at least over the weekend!
Still have to put on my new belly pan in the morning (in a few hours...), and pack clothes, tools, buy beer exchange , find new coilpacks to pack, pack "goodies", and some other stuff.
I'm gonna be tired tomorrow!!!
</rant>
I was supposed to have M-W off. Got sucked in to a full day at work Monday, so scheduled repair work got pushed to Tuesday. Got called in a few hours yesterday, so I started installing new ECS rotors and pads last night. Had to finish at 1/2 done around 10 PM. Buttoned the brakes up this morning, and got called in again... When I got home, I swapped wheels to summer rubber, replaced drivers side wheel well liner that was damaged at Streets of Willow (pulling OUT of the damn parking lot on the way home!). Then I decided to clean the throttle body. That went so well, I though I would also clean the engine bay before starting my coil pack troubleshooting. Spent an hour cleaning the engine. Started it up, and the battery/alternator light was on!
Found I didn't have a socket to do the plugs with the coilpacks, so I decided to head to AutoZone to let them diagnose if I needed a battery or alternator, and to get the plug socket.
So the tech hooks up to my car, and every time it puts a load on, my voltage goes lower. It dropped from 12.2 to 11.6 getting to the store, and after his testing it was down to 8.something. He says it's clearly a dead cell in the battery and not the alternator... I liked that answer, but it didn't sound right to me - I never got up to 12 volts with the car running... Oh well, he's the pro, right? So he helped me put in the battery, I grabbed the tools I needed, and I was off - almost... Battery/alternator light was still on! And somehow the guy was "on lunch" when I came back in. So I ask to buy an alternator, "just in case"... They don't have any in stock. I have them call another store, they have one (~10 miles away, starting to get dusky). By the time I got to that store, my new battery was down to 11.5 volts. Had to stop and get dinner (wife's orders) on the way home. Down to 10.9 volts when I get home, and I am driving in the "near dark" with no lights to reserve power... Needless to day, it took a few hours to change the alternator, and now everything is fine. Could have saved a few hours and $100 just trusting my own troubleshooting skills.
SO, with that done (at midnight), I finally can start troubleshooting my coilpack issue. After an hour I have it buttoned back up. I think the issue was too big a spark plug gap (one close to 0.040"). Got them all down to 0.032" (or there 'bouts). Took a test drive, and it feels VERY strong. I hope it stays this way at least over the weekend!
Still have to put on my new belly pan in the morning (in a few hours...), and pack clothes, tools, buy beer exchange , find new coilpacks to pack, pack "goodies", and some other stuff.
I'm gonna be tired tomorrow!!!
</rant>
05-01-2008, 04:31 AM
#4
wow, sounds like some of my "adventures"
i had an older friend growing up who called it "planning for disaster." Funny... I was 18 or so then.... 14 years later, not much has changed.
Example.... every year I go on a camping / fishing / boating trip with some buddies-- the evil influences in my life that caused me to finally get a boat of my own about a year ago-- I'm now on my 3rd boat, what a bastage...anyway, I digress. Last year a week before the trip I found a really nice hull and decided to move my outboard (90HP Mercury 3-cylinder-- now sold and I have a different boat with an I/O...anyway) to it as it was a better fishing platform. I button up the motor swap over that following week with a few days to go. Then I decide to re-wire the entire boat as it was pretty scary. So all new wiring. Then I decide the steering is stiff... find a kink in the cable. So I swap steering from my old boat. I had to custom design a new dash panel to mount the steering rack. I'm now one day late for the 5 day trip and as it's 5PM or so, I decide head out. It's only a 2 hour drive this year. Get there just after dusk... meet one of my buds at the boat ramp and he insists on pulling my boat around to the campsite as he knows the lake and there's a lot of hazards. I drive the truck back.... and proceed to wait on him for an hour at the campsite dock.... no sign (should have taken him 5 mins tops). Finally we call the cops, who call the DNR... well... he has beached my boat on one of those hazards he warned me about.... put a nice golf ball sized hole in the keel.
End of my fishing trip.
Hope you have more fun than I did! (you'd be hard pressed to have a worse time - that's the good news!)
Example.... every year I go on a camping / fishing / boating trip with some buddies-- the evil influences in my life that caused me to finally get a boat of my own about a year ago-- I'm now on my 3rd boat, what a bastage...anyway, I digress. Last year a week before the trip I found a really nice hull and decided to move my outboard (90HP Mercury 3-cylinder-- now sold and I have a different boat with an I/O...anyway) to it as it was a better fishing platform. I button up the motor swap over that following week with a few days to go. Then I decide to re-wire the entire boat as it was pretty scary. So all new wiring. Then I decide the steering is stiff... find a kink in the cable. So I swap steering from my old boat. I had to custom design a new dash panel to mount the steering rack. I'm now one day late for the 5 day trip and as it's 5PM or so, I decide head out. It's only a 2 hour drive this year. Get there just after dusk... meet one of my buds at the boat ramp and he insists on pulling my boat around to the campsite as he knows the lake and there's a lot of hazards. I drive the truck back.... and proceed to wait on him for an hour at the campsite dock.... no sign (should have taken him 5 mins tops). Finally we call the cops, who call the DNR... well... he has beached my boat on one of those hazards he warned me about.... put a nice golf ball sized hole in the keel.
End of my fishing trip.
Hope you have more fun than I did! (you'd be hard pressed to have a worse time - that's the good news!)
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05-01-2008, 08:04 AM
#8
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You running stock heat range plugs? If you are running one heat range cooler, gap at .028
.032 is too big for cooler plugs. I switched to one heat range cooler and the smaller gap just recently and it's helped with the occasional timing pull I was getting.