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Date:         Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:37:34 -0500
Reply-To:     Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject:      Boston Bob Big Valve Update?  Not really... (LONG)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Hi y'all,

I've been away for quite a while, mostly working on my new daily driver, an '85 BMW 528e, another phenomenal German driving experience, and attending to my daily life, three full-time jobs in itself.

Anyhoo, some of you may recall my trials from last summer, when my engine blew up just after getting an oil change at the dealership here in Charlottesville, VA. While my traumatic experience couldn't be directly attributable to any doings on the part of the dealer, you can rest assured that I will never go back there . . . except maybe to buy parts I can't get anywhere else. I wound up buying a big valve engine from Boston Bob Donalds, who was a true gentleman to work with, a man of his word and a total straight-shooter. I had the van, an '87 Westfalia w/ AT, towed down to Salem, VA, where the engine was installed by Mark Deering of Salem Imports. Mark was also a pleasure to work with and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Vanagons and other transporters. He had lots of good suggestions of things to do to properly maintain my new engine, as did Bob.

Somewhere in this mix of great people, product and service, however, something didn't quite click right and I'm still trying to figure out exactly where the problem is. When I went down to pick up the van, I was surprised at the sound of the new engine. This may be something to do with the big valves, but it sounded kind of burbly (technical term) to me. Not knowing what to expect from the big valve engine, I figured this must be normal, so I headed off down the road. I hadn't gotten two blocks when I went to accelerate from a stop and had almost no power. I had had this kind of problem with the old engine and thought it would be gone with the new one. After all, much had been replaced, with a complete tune-up, new plugs, rotor, distributor cap, plug wires, other such things. The fuel injectors were not replaced however; neither was the AFM. I had, in the previous year or so, replaced the ECU, cleaned the idle stabilizer valve, and replaced the idle control module.

I turned around and returned to Salem Imports, where one of Mark's technicians adjusted something on the AFM and that improved the idle. I drove home with no further incident. I drove the van no faster than 55 mph for the first 1,000 miles per Bob's recommendations (and that was no mean feat, let me tell you), and changed the oil at the recommended intervals. The new engine has never really had much power, not even as much as my old engine, but I attributed that to the fact that the engine was new and the valves probably hadn't seated properly yet. One thing that was most surprising to me is the drop in torque when the van shifted from second to third. I found myself downshifting more often than I had in the past. One surprising benefit was that I was now getting about 17 mpg on the highway versus the 15 I had been used to. The low power problem did not re-occur . . . for a while. When summer ended and the temperatures dropped down into the 60s and 70s, the problem came back. So did the low mileage, down to about 14 mpg now. The typical scenario, at first, was like this: I would drive to work, 15 miles, and the van would run fine. At the end of the work day, I would start up the van and within a few minutes it would lose power, as if it were flooded. If I kept my foot in the pedal, the engine would run progressively slower and then stall. If I pumped the pedal, the power might come back . . . or not. Sometimes I'd have to pull over, if there were space to do so, and turn the engine off and back on. It would usually start back up and run fine after that. When the weather got colder, the problem seemed to occur less, but I can't say for sure because the van has mostly been parked and I've been driving my BMW more. Well, a few weeks ago I had to park the BMW because of a problem with the rear axle and I've been driving the van every day since. The problem does seem to be worse when the temperature is between 40 and 70 degrees. Now it sometimes loses power when I've only gotten a few miles from home on my way to work. Sometimes, when coming home, I've gotten ten miles before the problem shows up, usually when I'm going up a hill and need to downshift to accelerate up the hill.

This has been very frustrating to me, not to mention dangerous, and I'm trying like mad to get my BMW back on the road so I can figure out what's going on with the van and get it fixed before festival season starts back up. Is any of this directly attributable to the new big valve engine? I don't think so. My theory is that I've had a bad AFM all along and this is messing with the idle and causing the engine to run rich. I also think that Mark, or one of his technicians, didn't trust Bob's instructions regarding adjusting the valves and that they didn't set the valves correctly. I think that, as a result, the valves are probably not closing all the way and this is causing the engine to run even more richly and to not have as much power as I feel that it should. The only good thing I can say at this point is that I haven't driven the van much since the new engine was put in and maybe, just maybe, no damage has been done.

I'm hoping that maybe you all can give me some feedback on my theories and how I might go about troubleshooting these problems. I haven't adjusted valve lash on an engine in a LONG time, but I no longer trust any of the local shops to do this, so I'm up for doing this myself. I might need some guidance in this though.

Thanks for bearing with me and this long post. I hope you have all been well and had a great Valentine's Day. Marc Perdue


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