[200q20v] Distributor

[C1J1Miller at aol.com]

Well, off the top of my head, here's some info for the archives.

Audi wants you to swap out the distributor and doesn't sell a separate distributor rotor.  The gear driving the distributor, and the oil seal, do eventually fail.  A new distributor is somewhere around $185, and includes a cap and rotor.

Many parts places, dealers etc. will sell you a new distributor rotor, but it is not the one that came with the car.  The one they sell is from the standard I5, used on various other audis, and is about 1/3 larger in width at the tip.  Thus, it fires several degrees earlier than the stock distributor rotor.  Places like www.thepartsconnnection.com have the correct rotor, brought in from Germany.  Scott Mockry's site describes this as well.  There has been some speculation that the wrong rotor has destroyed some high hp engines; on an unmodified or stage 1 engine, it's probably ok.

A rotor costs around $18, a cap around $12, so you're already part way towards the new dist. and that might be the wise way to go.

Chris



In a message dated Tue, 12 Dec 2000  8:16:04 AM Eastern Standard Time, Kneale Brownson <knotnook at traverse.com> writes:

<< There've been several distributor issue threads recently re. oil leaks, 
hall sender wiring problems, oversized holes in rotors, etc.  Did you use 
the Goggle search feature on the Audifans homepage?  The current 200q20v 
archives are sort of skimpy.


At 01:28 AM 12/12/2000 -0800, Derek Pulvino wrote:

>Am I crazy and just imagine that someone had recently had a problem with a 
>no-start episode in their vehicle, and had traced it back to a 
>distributor/hall sender?  In this same thread I think there was also talk 
>about checking for oil leaks in problematic distributors?  Well, if I 
>didn't just imagine this, it's driving me nuts because I can't seem to 
>find the thread anywhere.
>
>The reason I'm asking is I'm wondering if I shouldn't address the 
>potential distributor problem alongside my other current 
>maintenance.  Symptoms to date include periodic cold and warm no start 
>episodes, Hall Sender fault code in the ECU, some noise coming from the 
>distributor gear area, and now that I've begun tearing into the car I've 
>also noticed that there is some oil inside the distributor cap on the 
>guard sheild.  I've checked the grounds on the head, and they appear 
>fine.  What keeps me from just diving in and replacing the part is I've 
>never had a no start episode last long enough to pinpoint/prove the 
>distributor as the definite source of the problem, as opposed to wiring, 
>poor connection at the ECU pin out, or even an ECU problem, but I did note 
>no signal at the 3-wire connector to the dist./hall sender during my 
>troubleshooting excapade.  Could previous no start episodes possibly come 
>back to the oil noted inside.  What's other peoples thinking on this?
>
>Oh, and the  cap and rotor are fine.
>
>Thanks all,
>Derek Pulvino
>
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