Red-line Weekly To Clean Your Head...

[Jeff115]

Picked up on this @Honest John following diesel run-in...

"After that, no limit, but make sure you continue to hit 4,500rpm through the gears several times a week. The benefit of this is it helps to self clean the injectors, it blows any accumulated soot out of the exhaust system and it helps to free off the piston rings, making the engine more efficient and less likely to use engine oil." :lol:

 

Used to drive bikes and liked to redline however seems 'cruel' to a tdi... :lol:

 

Anybody practise this?

 

J

[Ivor_E_Tower]

I saw that too and have been tempted, but my mechanical sympathy gets the better of me and I tend to stop at about 4000rpm (I use a motorway sliproad where I join the M3 to use the revs a bit, but only once a week).

[Guest SA Intruder]

As previously reported, to "baby" the engine is NOT a good thing with the pumper diesels.

 

I would not advocate taking the engine to the redline...but about 4000rpm is certainly a good idea. What is more important is:

 

floor the pedal in a gear that allows the engine to work hard for some time but keep between 3000-4000rpm (as in uphill), where possible. Avoid low engine speeds and full throttle. Do this frequently. It is good practice to drive "spiritedly" from time to time.

 

Keep oil and filter changes regular

 

Don't allow the engine to idle for too long...difficult in traffic, but this is a major contributor to the inlet manifold gumming up.

[rwtomkins]

Great advice as always. For those of us who fail to follow it, is it a practical proposition just to have your inlet manifold un-gummed from time to time? What's involved and is it a DIY job or an expensive visit to the dealer?

[Sher]

As Mr Intruder has hinted before with his postings about Vag-com, it seems the simplest and best solution to prevent the fouling problem is to reduce the activity of the exhaust gas recirculation valve. This of course needs access to software and connectors of the correct kind.

Whether the dealers at Ford garages would flag this up when it was serviced I do not know.

I doubt they do more than set the values to preprogrammed ones if they do change them, but that will have to be answered by someone who knows.

The ignorance of some service personnel is quite staggering.

Mind you when you've taught (sorry I mean tried to teach) some (and I do mean some) teenagers Physics and Electronics then I suppose that I should not expect any difference.

[rwtomkins]

That's all fine and dandy but don't you risk murdering your fellow countrymen with your newly enhanced output of noxious fumes? I'm sure there's some would not be missed but you can't exactly pick and choose

[Guest ANDY FITZGERALD]

:lol: CHANCE WOULD BE A FINE THING IN A 90BHP TDi... !!

[Sher]

There is an awful lot of propaganda talked about pollution.

I doubt that many people who talk about it have done serious research into the matter. Homes produce far greater pollution effects; where is the legislation on that.

Government employees respond by saying:- Ah! but the growth of road transport energy use is greater (as an excuse for increasing Tax on Fuel I have the letter somewhere but no Email from a Treasury Employee). Notice they do not say pollution from transport is growing.

Then we enter the argument about WHAT IS POLLUTION?

To a Green plant, that horrible nasty stuff responsible for GLOBAL WARMING, called Carbon Dioxide is Mannah from the Air. Too much Oxygen they struggle.

 

Exhaust gas recirculation, correct me if I am wrong, is primarily designed to reduce the NOx emissions from engines. The worlds manufacturers of fertilizers go to great expense to get the Nitrogen and Oxygen present in the air to combine in this way so they can produce nitrate fertilisers.

These NOx gases are very soluble and are readily absorbed in water when it rains. (It rains a lot in the Pennines !!) I did see a suggestion that upto 10% of the nitrates falling on our farmland came from vehicle some years ago. It may or may not be true. I am not too sure of the actual figures. All I know is that extra energy is now used to make the Nitrates I once provided for free.

Diesels also produce very little or no Carbon Monoxide (CO). Petrol 1 -3% without a Catalytic convertor( Now that burns fuel)

5 miles to warm up before it functions fully (hence the awful smell). Since the average UK journey is just 5 miles .i.e. switch off when it starts to work!! More pollution as a result.

Cat standards were set (at German insistance?) for the American Market where the average journey is 15 Miles hence 10 miles of reduced pollution, 5 of more.

 

Why so much propaganda against Diesels?

What I do know is that the oil companies have a vested interest in keeping Fuel Consumption up. They make about the same per gallon/litre if its petrol or diesel.

If all cars etc sold from tomorrow were diesel then their profits would plummet (20% reduction in Fuel usage?).

Yes I know that diesel is only one fraction of the output from refineries, but the balance can be changed is favour of Diesel if required. (as it was in the past to favour petrol)

I became suspicious of the fuel companies when they sold the government of the UK at that time, the story that they would not be able to produce anything other than 95 Octane when we went unleaded. This caused higher fuel consumption on all cars as compared to 98 Octane (Estimates I have seen say1-3%).

I knew that was nonsence all the unleaded in France was 98 Octane to begin with because of a French Political decision.

Some/many French politicians/civil servants have a more technical educational background, not like our UK types.

Why do you think France now Manufactures more than us.

More added value on petroleum products than us and they don't have reserves.

Exports as much Electricity in value as we do North Sea Oil.

 

Typical 'Enviromentalists' use emotive terms.:- Murdering??????Read/watch and learn your 'Yes Minister' about the substance Meta Dioxin to give you some insight as to how our Politicians react to media, ill informed pressure groups etc.

Absorbing misinformation from all directions.

Study the scientific research before getting carried away.

Its just like the NIMBY environmentalists jumping up and down about Wind Turbines.

Every day I feel upset because misinformed (in my opinion) Government legislation causes me to burn more energy than I need.

[HJT]

Goodness, that was almost a thesis :lol: . A very interesting read though. I have always had a very cynical view of oil companies. I am sure there are a lot of technologies that could greatly reduce or completely remove oil/petrol consumption that haven't seen the light of day through pressure from oil companies.

 

Howard

[Jeff115]

Yes and I read that you can now get huge tax breaks on your Humvee Stateside :lol:

 

J.

 

PS your advice on working the tdi seems sound, SA, and I'll be taking your lead.

[rwtomkins]

Just kidding, Sher, sorry if I upset you. I agree we should all make up our own minds about this and I presume there's nothing illegal in tweaking the Gal to increase it's NOx emissions. I don't think it's for me, though, so I hope someone can tell me how to ungum my inlet manifold when the time comes!

[Sher]

Sorry if I sounded upset but I'm not. The topic is very full of emotive idealists who only just scratch the surface and look at it in a simplistic way.

I consider myself to be an enviromentalist but I know that the Green party would consider me to be the worst sort of evil. Someone who knows enough to be able to pick flaws in some of their arguments.

The method talked about in the American site pages mentioned by Mr Intruder frightens me to death with the idea of washing out , rinsing and drying the inlet manifold.

Liquids/ water and diesels engines do not mix.

I've been thinking about it and what comes to mind is High pressure steam, in small enough quantities, when the engine is hot and running at high speed?? I am unsure at the moment how safe it would be. Depends upon the temperature inside the combustion chamber when at maximum compression. Any ideas anyone. (enough to burn Diesel anyway)

I seem to remember superheated steam was used in some low speed diesels to inject in really heavy fuel oils. Should be some data somewhere.

Not having seen the gung as yet that builds up. I hope to avoid it.

It suits the service agents more work for them.

[Ivor_E_Tower]

Surely inlet manifold un-gumming should not be a routine job for most of us? In practice, how often is it really necessary to do it, and under what driving conditions will it occur (eg only short stop-start journeys of under 2 miles??)

[Sher]

It should not be required at all. Its an artificially produced problem brought about by trying to reach conflicting targets.

It seems that a balance has been struck by the designers in reducing the NOx emissions and increasing the amounts of particulates(soot) in the design of the systems controlling the combustion and emissions from the 1.9TDI range of engines.

I could not understand why there was a limit of 5% Biodiesel usage when mixed with Normal diesel in the handbook, when apparently to all reports its should be such a clean burning fuel. I have a feeling that it may be related to this problem which is mentioned in several places over the web.

A google search of "TDI EGR Valve VAG" produced much of interest.