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On 4 May 2004 at 22:14, Brent Johnson wrote: > The co-worker I bought my fastback from told me the injectors were shot, her > mechanic said replacements were few and far between, and recommended > replacing them with carbs. She never did the work and I bought the car with > the complete FI still working. It would run fine cold, then quickly try to > stall when warmed-up and idle. Then, it would take a lot of pedal play to > get her started again. It's impossible to be sure, but this sounds like one of 2 very typical, and simple, FI problems. It is likely that your whole FI system, including the injectors, is fine. The first problem requires that your FI system be installed, but it needn't be running. Just get in the car and just turn the key ON. You should hear a relay click and then, about 1 second later, there should be a second click. If you don't hear the second click then there is likely a wiring problem, with a connector on the wrong terminal, or a wire pinched and shorted to ground. A second way to notice this is that if you just turn the key ON, the fuel pump should run for about 1 second, until the second relay clicks. If you have this wiring error, the fuel pump will stay on as long as the key is ON, which it should not. If you don't hear the second click, this tells you that there is a simple wiring error that is making the FI run excessively rich. We can show you where to look for the wiring error if you have this problem. It's easy to fix. The second simple problem is likely to be your voltage regulator. As they age and wear, the regulating voltage sags, and this lowered system voltage makes the FI run rich for some reason. The lower the voltage the richer the mixture. It also leaves the battery incompletely discharged, but owners in warm climates will seldom notice this. There's a simple way to test for this: Just get the engine warmed up on a short drive and then run it at medium RPM while measuring the voltage across the battery. That voltage should be 14.1-14.4V; if it is less than 13.5V replace the voltage regulator with a Bosch 30-019. That should fix it and it will cost you about 1/2 hour and $40. You may need to do this test and replace the VR even if you go ahead and make the switch to carbs. I realize that these tests are not so easy to do now, but you still might want to consider doing them. The FI gets quite a bad rap from lots of people, but the main reason for this is that it is poorly understood. The problems above are something that few mechanics know about, so it's not unusual for them to be missed. BTW, the original FI distributor is better than the 009, even if you switch to carbs. Remember: Don't pay too much attention to the ads; they're trying to sell you stuff. Their bias should be obvious. -- Jim Adney jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711-3054 USA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org