turbo tv

[robertmnorton]

Hi all,had an interesting drive back from Toulouse last week.Left TLS in 37deg,the xm loaded to the roof inside and roof rack piled high.Coolant temp running above 90 permanently,up to 110 on those long uphill pulls.Never missed a beat,then suddenly with my wife driving on one of the afoementioned uphill slogs only an hour into a 24 hour drive, she said "It's lost power".No drama, no warning lights,coolant below 100.She slogged it out 10k to the rest area,engine still running smoothly.I opened the bonnet had a dig around for 15 mins,too hot to be messing around with a hot engine bay,found nothing obvious.Pressed on.Check again when the cool night comes.Definitely struggling under load and black smoke trailing.Anyhow, as things go made the ferry on time and stopped at sisters in Norfolk.Got the meter out checked EPIC sensors and as much air ducting as possible without too much dismantling.Nothing.So onwards north.Paranoia had been gradually setting in as to the wellbeing of the T/C and/or EPIC pump.Got a good nights sleep then 'phoned Turner Diesel in Aberdeen,the nearest Delphi agent with worshop for phase 1 EPIC.On his talk through,disconnected and capped EGR inlet manifold,test drive,no change.Reconnected EGR.Check boost pressure he says.Cobbled together vaious unions and pipes to my pressure guage hanging it loosely on instrument binnacle.Low and behold ,2psi not 14.So started to seperate T/C to I/C and I/C to manifold ducts.There it was,a 3" split at the I/C to manifold duct immediately after the hose clip at the I/C on the underside.Easy enough to miss unless you remove it and squeeze it around a bit.So repaired with self-amalgamating re-inforced silicon tape.Performance back, no black smoke,boost pressure on test drive under load now 14psi,T/C ok.Anyhow was prompted into looking at availability of o/hauled T/C.Found this site "www.arturbo.co.uk" hence the "turbo tv" title, Interesting stuff,take a look.
robertm

[andmcit]

Robert; sorry if I appear a tad slow and with it being a Monday afternoon etc
by T/C I assume you mean turbocharger and I/C intercooler? For a minute I even
wondered if you meant torque converter on your autobox!

Abreviations are great but no use if you don't know the lingo!!

I've had a similar drop in performance from discovering a split pipe on a Cx GTi turbo
and a Xantia 1.9TD and its like driving with a binding brake!!

Andrew