Cleaned MAF, and car is slow again :(

[dylan8]

Maybe silly question, but has anything other then the MAF been checked? Has your fuel economy gone up?

[McDub]

Maybe silly question, but has anything other then the MAF been checked? Has your fuel economy gone up?

a brief vag-com check, that's about it.
and yes fuel economy does seem like it went up actually, but i don't have a good comparison of this because i never drove it slowly after i got it chipped, so this may or may not mean anything.
only comparison i have is pre chip to work i could get low-mid 7L/100km, and i tried a few slow runs after i stuffed around with the maf, and i can't get it below 8.
but that could simply be because of the re-map. or i am still driving quicker.

[dylan8]

when you disconnected the battery to refresh the ecu, did you notice it drive ok for the first 5mins, then go back to sluggish? probably to late to ask now. reason is, i replaced MAF, o2 sensor, temp sensor, and one other part i cant remember the name of, they didn't show up as being faulty on the vagcom or whatever my mechanic has. just showed there was a fault with my rear sensor in the exhaust system. (something the 2lt Bora doesnt even have!). this then lead to a fault being logged, and fuel usage going up.
So what im trying to say is it could be many parts and it may not log a fault under the right one.
Thats probably not bad fuel usuage for a gti (as far as im aware)...
How about your temperature guage? does it read right on 90 after 10mins or so or driving?

[McDub]

hmmm can't say i noticed it change after 5 minutes, though it does seem to have gotten worse the last few days but that could be in my head, not sure.
well that's comforting that they don't log errors properly! sounds like this may be a timely/costly problem to diagnose...
and yeah everything else seems fine, temperature goes to 90, idles at around 8300rpm...
although once again i may be imagining it, but a couple times the past few days, i have felt a small surge/bump in power delivery while accelerating very gradually, as though the fuel delievery was being messed up... but this could just be me noticing things that aren't there as i'm paying more attention to how the car is running!

[dylan8]

hmmm can't say i noticed it change after 5 minutes, though it does seem to have gotten worse the last few days but that could be in my head, not sure.
well that's comforting that they don't log errors properly! sounds like this may be a timely/costly problem to diagnose...
and yeah everything else seems fine, temperature goes to 90, idles at around 8300rpm...
although once again i may be imagining it, but a couple times the past few days, i have felt a small surge/bump while accelerating very gradually, as though the fuel delievery was being messed up... but this could just be me noticing things that aren't there as i'm paying more attention to how the car is running!

idles at 8300rpm...?

what yr and how many km? haha that sucks when you dont know if its just in your mind or not, do that all the time.

Dont know about the surging, i had big power downs with a broken MAF, would take off, and it was like your stalling, but it didnt shake etc, not fun when crossing busy roads etc

[McDub]

yeah i think 8000 is normal for the car, it might be just a touch higher than it should but has been like that since i got it at 85k, and its now at 105k. Year 03/04
edit: haha i just realised what i was doing. i obiously meant 830 and 800rpm...

[kaneda]

Have you preasure tested the intake track to see if there are any leaks ?
Cheep , easy and quick to do .............
Ive had a few issues of late and found 2 leaks in areas i wasnt even looking in just by slapping together a tester from bits around the garage and minute mend .

[McDub]

Have you preasure tested the intake track to see if there are any leaks ?
Cheep , easy and quick to do .............
Ive had a few issues of late and found 2 leaks in areas i wasnt even looking in just by slapping together a tester from bits around the garage and minute mend .

that's probably a decent possibility, it is what i suggested might be the problem in the OP, but no-one seemed to comment on it. As the only thing i touched was the air intake, naturally you would think this is where i introduced a problem?
saying that, the other possibility is that after playing around with the MAF, it made me pay attention to the cars performance, meaning it actually could have been running bad for say a week and i could have been oblivious to it IYKWIM

so maybe it's sucking in un-metered air, meaning it's running lean...
i don't exactly have the means of doing this test though (well i probably do but this whole thing has put me off touching my cars organs!)
but i've got some parts coming from ecs so i plan to take the car for some work very soon, will let you know how it goes.
(14lbs clutch, R1 d.valve, boost guage)

[McDub]

finnally got around to putting the car in for a service!

can't wait to get it, will post back hopefully late next week with positive news!

[McDub]

i might just be talking to myself now...

picked up car this morning. really hard to tell if performance has changed, partly cos i've been driving a diesel ute to work for the past week, but also most of my attention is drawn to all the cabin sound as a result of i'm guessing a combination of the single mass flywheel, and the yellow BFI dogbone inserts. it seems to just find the harmonic frequency of the cabin and *****s me a little! But at the same time i sort of like how i can feel the engine working... just not the feel of it between 1000-2000rpm... eeek

will do some more sprint times to see if the times are changed.

oh and no major problems were found, other than a faulty coolant sensor. sparkies were replaced too, they were still the originals from the factory. looked like they had been running rich, likely due to said faulty sensor. car was driven and logged and everything seemed in order.

i'm getting a new N75 valve put in in a couple days so will see if that has any effect also.

still noticed my idle drop to 500-600 rpm very momentarily when i was sitting at the lights this avo. no idea why it's doing that, it's probalby the 10th time i've noticed it do it now.
and yep the throttle body was cleaned incase someone was going to suggest cleaning it.