Building Otto

[Ezekiel81923]

Miles: 75,228


We passed inspection! How will remain a closely guarded secret, but we have stickers and we're legit now.

Also did spark plugs. It's been almost a year and a half and approximately 20k miles on Ruth's. We stuck with Ruth's gapped to .023 to .024.

Photos of the old ones below for expert analysis (cylinder 1 -> cylinder 4). They had all opened up a bit but only to .025 to .026. Wasn't getting misfires but a bad tank of gas (hopefully) was causing some serious knock and I decided it was time anyway so let's help a girl out.

Next up is a good bath and then we're headed to L'oe Show tomorrow. If anyone is in town let me know, I live about 5 minutes away and can be there any time. Will post pics of anything interesting I see there.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

Miles: 76,900

Oil change. 5w30.

A lot has gone on the last few months. Wedding, honeymoon, vacation, prepping the house for sale, and just found out we're expecting. Soooo I've been exceptionally lazy of late when there has been free time. But! I should have a free weekend in two weeks to finally do the mounts and LCAs if I can get one of my brothers out to lend a hand. Car has been driving great though, and I just gave it a bath so it even looks nice.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

So something I've noticed, and probably posted about before, is that whenever I see knock (either part throttle or at WOT) it's almost always cylinder 3. There might be some knock in other cylinders, but it's never not in cylinder 3 as well. Only one cylinder knocking? Cylinder 3.

I'm pretty religious about 4k-5k mile oil changes, the spark plugs are 3k miles old, so I'm not worried about anything serious but there are a lot of other things that we might consider "routine maiintenance" that I haven't done that I am hoping might help resolve some of this.

Coil packs. They're stock. Any point in getting RS3 packs or another brand? Or stick with OE VW?

I doubt the PCV has anything to do with it but that's also stock.

Injectors? 6 years, 77k miles. The port injectors are newer of course but the DI injectors are original.

I have a large enough pile of parts in the garage waiting for my lazy ass to get moving but they seem secondary to what might be an engine issue. My LCA bushings and motor mounts are definitely worn but I doubt false knock would only appear in one (the same) cylinder every time.

 

[Nineeightyone]

So something I've noticed, and probably posted about before, is that whenever I see knock (either part throttle or at WOT) it's almost always cylinder 3. There might be some knock in other cylinders, but it's never not in cylinder 3 as well. Only one cylinder knocking? Cylinder 3.

I'm pretty religious about 4k-5k mile oil changes, the spark plugs are 3k miles old, so I'm not worried about anything serious but there are a lot of other things that we might consider "routine maiintenance" that I haven't done that I am hoping might help resolve some of this.

Coil packs. They're stock. Any point in getting RS3 packs or another brand? Or stick with OE VW?

I doubt the PCV has anything to do with it but that's also stock.

Injectors? 6 years, 77k miles. The port injectors are newer of course but the DI injectors are original.

I have a large enough pile of parts in the garage waiting for my lazy ass to get moving but they seem secondary to what might be an engine issue. My LCA bushings and motor mounts are definitely worn but I doubt false knock would only appear in one (the same) cylinder every time.

I feel like I had similar, but I could be mistaken. Either way, OEM coil packs are good. Swap them around and see if it follows. Look at your plugs and see if there's anything weird looking on #3. Also remember that the knock sensors are just microphones, so it could also be something near 3 that's making noise and getting picked up.

I don't know particularly about the rest, but how much knock are we talking?

 

[Ezekiel81923]

I feel like I had similar, but I could be mistaken. Either way, OEM coil packs are good. Swap them around and see if it follows. Look at your plugs and see if there's anything weird looking on #3. Also remember that the knock sensors are just microphones, so it could also be something near 3 that's making noise and getting picked up.

I don't know particularly about the rest, but how much knock are we talking?

Typically -1.50 to -4.12 in cylinder 3 specifically

 

[swcrow]

any smoke (light white) at start up, during idle or any other time by chance? Regardless, I've always seen knock in cyl 3 for whatever the reason

 

[Nineeightyone]

Typically -1.50 to -4.12 in cylinder 3 specifically

I saw you're Russell tuned, so I think it's fairly safe to rule out irresponsible tune. But that it's ongoing suggests it might be worth asking your tuner about it, because he's going to see logs and determine if it seems out of place or not for the rest of your build.

 

[Ezekiel81923]

any smoke (light white) at start up, during idle or any other time by chance? Regardless, I've always seen knock in cyl 3 for whatever the reason

I took a 3 minute video of start up all the way through the warm up routine to a normal idle. There's no puff of any kind of smoke at startup. It's about 40 degrees out so there is the normal white fog from both exhaust outlets but nothing that seems out of the ordinary.

 

[swcrow]

I took a 3 minute video of start up all the way through the warm up routine to a normal idle. There's no puff of any kind of smoke at startup. It's about 40 degrees out so there is the normal white fog from both exhaust outlets but nothing that seems out of the ordinary.

that's good. I most definitely had that when my cyl 3 ring was going bye-bye.