4500rpm cutout and boost in neutral. Codes 2223 and 2342

Wed Apr 4 16:28:47 PDT 2012

Mike,

Are you kidding me?? HAHA! I feel like you just read my mind. You are spot on!

I was talking to my girlfriend a few days ago and I was telling her that my car making boost in neutral and that severe misfiring it has at 4500 rpm sounds exactly like the rally cars etc. which have this system where you keep the turbo spooled up before take-off. I just couldn't remember the name of it for the life of me.

So yes, I haven't even watched the video yet but I know what you mean. It has the same behavior.

My timing I am completely confident in. I know the cams are lined up with eachother and in turn lined up with the crank. That I know is good for sure.

Now the distributor portion is where I think the issue may be. Before I replaced the head gasket, I marked where the body of the distributor was sitting in relation to the head, but this may have been wrong to begin with from someone else working on the car before I purchased it. The inside marks of it I did line up for sure. I do know that the rotor is supposed to face the front of the engine at TDC, but that's all I have to go by, which is rather vague.

Do you know of a sure way to check that the actual distributor housing is properly lined up with the head? Of course assuming the insides are lined up and the engine is at TDC (those are easy to figure out).

I am also working on picking up a new cap (rotor I already replaced), wires and plugs. I was thinking of maybe buying a whole new distributor but it seems that they are extremely hard to come by. Does anyone have a line on these? I know 7A with filed down(or replaced) rotor will work as well.

Thanks!

Dan

________________________________
 From: Mike Claire <mike.claire at gmail.com>
To: Dan Bozga <audisport44 at yahoo.com> 
Cc: "200q20v at audifans.com" <200q20v at audifans.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, April 4, 2012 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: 4500rpm cutout and boost in neutral. Codes 2223 and 2342

Dan - I see that you checked all the 
timing references, and you're confident in the distributor.  But your symptoms remind me of VEMS Launch 
Control, which works by severely retarding ignition timing:  

http://www.efiexpress.com/catalog/article_info.php?articles_id=12

Check out this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28cRtFDeBYY  - sound familiar?

Mike

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Dan Bozga <audisport44 at yahoo.com> wrote:

    Hello everyone,
> 
>    I haven't been part of the list for some time now but I'd like to revisit an issue I've had with my 200. I didn't have time to mess with the car due to other priorities but I'd like to see if I can figure out the problem this time around.
> 
>   The car is a sedan with almost 200k on the odometer.
> 
>   My main concern is that I cannot rev the engine past about 4500 rpm. It gets stuck at that point and the tach needle bounces as if it's hitting a rev limiter. While this happens you can hear the car misfiring severely. The car acts this way wether it is in neutral or under load. Also easing onto the gas is the only way you can even get it up to 4500. If you try to give it too much it'll choke right away and start misfiring. The weirdest part is that it actually builds boost in neutral. I know I've said this before and nobody on here believed me so I'm including a video of  the phenomenon. The digital gauge in the car says it's building boost and so is the mechanical one I temporarily hooked up(this is a verified good gauge that I used in my B5 S4). The video shows vacuum at idle and boost when it hits that cutoff. Also you can see the tach and where it stops when you rev the car. It will never go past that no matter what you do and what the
> condition is.
> 
>   Here's a list of things I've done to try and track this down:
> 
>-Pressure test (all good and held at least 20psi from what I recall)
>-Replaced ecu with another good unit
>-I did a fresh headgasket, valve job and timing belt (timing is on 100%), I can attest there is nothing physically wrong with the engine
>-Cams were checked for alignment at tdc and the Os line up as they should
>-Replaced O2 sensor with original bosch unit
>-Replaced altitude sensor with good unit
>-New fuel filter
>-New line from bypass valve to intake manifold
>-Took bypass valve, spark plugs and wastegate frequency valve from my B5 S4. None of them made a difference
>-Checked wastegate and it moved freely, not stuck. The diaphragm is also free of holes
>-The car has no cats, they were gutted by previous owner
>-I also disconnected the catback just to be sure so I can say the car isn't choking from clogged exhaust
>-Took apart throttle position sensor, all contacts were good. I also measured it and it checked out
>-Tested hall sensor and it checked out
>-Tested RPM sensor and also replaced it with known good unit, which didn't help
>-Checked all teeth and timing reference sensors on flywheel, nothing was amiss
>-I believe I replaced the timing sensor too, which of course didn't make a difference either
>-Maf was tested by someone and was told it checked out
>-Checked pretty much every connector under the hood to make sure it had the right values and no faulty wiring
>-Checked wiring leading to ecu, relays and fuse panel as best as I could. Didn't see anything odd
>-Did output test, everything was normal. I don't think the carbon canister solenoid(or whatever it's called) was getting a signal though
>-It makes no difference if the car is hot or cold. It always runs the same, sometimes it will start to idle very rough too and not really want to move at all
>-Cleaned idle stabilizer valve
>-Tested air temp sensor, which was fine
>-All fuses are there and not broken
>-Distributor has metal gear, no teeth cracked or broken on it or the camshaft
>-I noticed some arcing from the distributor area one night while the car was idling, if I remember correctly it was around the hall sender
>-The temperature gauge isn't always receiving a signal
> 
>   My brother was in front of me driving the car one night and it just wouldn't go anywhere(worse than before), then he said all of a sudden(and I saw this), the car took off as if something unclogged and it just pulled to 80mph. After that it started bucking again and never got "un-stuck" again. While I was behind him I saw a few little bright red pieces comming out the exhaust. They looked a lot like bright burning ash.
> 
>   When the car hits that 4.5k limit, you can hear a clicking in the ecu, like a relay. And the wastegate frequency valve will frantically start clicking away too once you've let the gas go. I've heard it under the hood quite a few times.
> 
>   Anyways, I'm not sure what else I can say about all this....I'm sure there are things I did which I forget. If I recall something else I will post it on here. Or if you have any questions about a particular part you didn't see checked, let me know.
> 
> 
>    Do our cars have this issue at all? This is something about a 4k cutoff due to faulty brake light on intended acceleration:
> 
>http://www.intendedacceleration.com/tip_2.html
> 
> 
> 
>   And lastly, here is the video I recorded. It shows exactly what my car is doing:
> 
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STydKk6Ja28
> 
> 
>Thanks and sorry about the long e-mail. I just tried to include everything before I'm asked what I've done to diagnose this :)
> 
>Dan
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