2.0 TFSI camshaft details or anyone with pump off?

[Ceebl]

Hi all,
if anyone has an inlet camshaft for a 2.0 tfsi (06F 109 101 (A to J revision is fine)) lying around or is planning on checking their cam follower anytime soon can they please drop me a pm?

I need to know measurements of the triple lobe assembly that drives the high pressure fuel pump.

If you are just planning on checking the cam follower by removing the hpfp the usual way, this could also be useful to me as you can easily measure the maximum travel of the cam follower this way.

Basically I need to know the maximum difference between the lowest and highest point of travel in the cam follower which tells me the lift that is exerted onto the fuel pump itself. Nowhere seems to be able to provide this information and VW say they have it but are not allowed to give it out, unless I want to give the car to them for £88ph and let them carry out a full diagnoses on it... which I don't want to as thats 1/3 of the price of a camshaft I'm nearly sure I need per hour!

If anyone can help me with this it would be great, if you are planning a cam follower inspection soon and don't know how to check what I want I can walk you through it/help as it is a fairly simple task.

Also to anyone who has access to VW's secrets and wants to tell me how much travel there should be on a HPFP in an AXX engine that would be lovely haha

Many thanks,
Chris.

 

[Ben P]

@gary87 works in VW I think, perhaps he could help?

or @pobmk4 may have one in soon

 

[pobmk4]

I'll have a look through all my info later when I'm not so busy, as much as vw say they have the info, i wouldn't be too sure of that. There won't be any of that listed in the ssp for the ea888 tfsi engine, majority of info they have, I also have.
What do you mean by travel in the pump? What length the plunger is?
You could do it using a dti gauge to work out degrees of lift from the base of the cam lobe, but I still don't understand why all the effort. The cam follower is made of softer metal than the cam lobe, if the lobe was worn, your new follower wouldn't last very long. I've only ever seen one out of all the cars I had in that damaged the cam due to wearing out the follower, when the do this they cut a groove in the lobe caused by the plunger. (It wore away the clip and that holds the spring and plunger together, EML was on too)

 

[gary87]

@gary87 works in VW I think, perhaps he could help?

or @pobmk4 may have one in soon

I do work in VW but I have hands like feet and literally know nothing about engines or anything like that so I doubt I would even know what I was asking if I was to ask one of the techs.

 

[pablo]

what have you replaced so far @Ceebl?

 

[Mark King]

I do work in VW but I have hands like feet and literally know nothing about engines or anything like that so I doubt I would even know what I was asking if I was to ask one of the techs.

I hope your not in the workshop

 

[pablo]

master tech lol

 

[Mark_C]

Is that car still not running right?

What pressure is it reading on the diagnostic and what have you verified it with to make sure its not the sender?

Have you tried another pump?

 

[steaa]

@Ceebl You could try asking on TFSI tuning facebook group. There are quite a few knowledgeable folk on these engines there

 

[pobmk4]

I've checked all the details on both ea113 and ea888, there is no dimensions listed for the cam lobe for the pump. What is wrong with your car that you seem to be having so much trouble with??

 

[Ceebl]

If you lightly increase the revs of the car up the range the fuel pressure climbs as it should. Once you go wot, especially in 4th gear+ the fuel pressure drops down to about 30bar and the car pulls timing and boost and drops into limp mode.
It has had a fuel filter, cam follower, hpfp, hp sensor, thrust sensor and return valve. Lift pump has been logged and it's within mBar's of its requested the whole time the fuel pressure is low.
The cam shaft looks a little scuffed but then as if a replacement follower since has polished it up a bit.
Mines an early axx engine with the notorious "a" cam which was a softer lobe.
The measurement I want, which is what I took on mine, was turning the engine over and measuring the amount the cam follower moves from the bottom of its travel to the top on each lobe. My cam looks a bit mushroomed out and I believe the lobe has spread and therefore isn't activating a whole stroke of the pump causing a drop in flow.
My cam follower at best moves 4mm from the lowest to highest point in its travel. This doesn't seem enough to me but I have nothing to compare it to!

 

[pablo]

thats assuming it drops all the way back when the cam lobe passes. it might only drop part way then be picked up when the lobe comes around again. Ive NOTHING to base that on, just thinking out loud.

 

[Ceebl]

thats assuming it drops all the way back when the cam lobe passes. it might only drop part way then be picked up when the lobe comes around again. Ive NOTHING to base that on, just thinking out loud.

It must drop the whole way back, the spring on the pump shaft is already loaded up against the follower slightly when you tighten the hpfp bolts in. But if what you are saying were true that makes it even worse because then the stroke of the pump will be even less than 4mm and I already think my maximum 4mm stroke is the issue with the fuel flow.

@pobmk4 Another way to look at it, is there any mention of how much the fuel pump is required to move in order to achieve a maximum stroke, i.e. how much the plunger is supposed to be moved by the cam follower? Maybe I've been looking in the wrong place.
I appreciate you looking through the documents for me anyway. Has to be answers out there somewhere, can't just willy nilly replace a camshaft because it looks a bit funny or I think the measurement is a bit small even though I have nothing to base it on factually

 

[Mark_C]

Why not take the camshaft cover off and physically inspect it properly?

A good one is about 42mm lobe tip to base, measured one recently to compare to another

 

[Mark_C]

also, found a thread here which shows similar measurements to what I found

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5934227-A4-DTM-2-0T-FSI-S3-intake-cam-swap

 

[Ceebl]

@Mark_C yes good man now we are getting somewhere, you wouldn't still have a spare shaft lying around you could measure the difference between the centre of the shaft and the highest part of the lobe and the centre of the shaft and a flat side of a lobe? The difference between these measurements will give you the amount of lift typically I assume

Haven't had the cam cover off yet because I did not physically have anything to compare it to, could tell through the follower port that there was no immediate damage or roughness on the follower but with no measurements for comparison there was no point stripping it further at the time!

 

[pobmk4]

@Ceebl I have a tsi spare engine (mk6 gti ea888) just for reference I can check what it is, not saying it will be identical but if I can get some figures it may give an estimation of wear as they won't be too dissimilar.

 

[Harry]

Im pretty sure I have a couple of these camshafts in the garage. If I can remember, ill have a hunt round the garage when I get in.

 

[Ceebl]

@pobmk4 As long as it is still the 3 lobe set up then yeah that would be awesome, I think I read somewhere that more recently they went to like a 4 lobe and a roller follower set up, that way be the mk7 onward though.

@Harry again any info would be great!

From what I have seen in the measurement above and a bit of bodged math I reckon the lift on the camshaft should be at least 8mm given all the variables I don't have to add to the equation I was working out a max lift of 14mm (not the 4mm my car currently has)...

However now that I do know the measurement from the flat to an opposite lobe (perpendicular height if you like) is supposed to be about 42mm what I will do at the weekend is strip my cam chain cover off and measure my own lobe that way and see if it is a few mm less then it is a sure thing it needs changed.

Keep the info coming guys this is great, theres no real info like this online I have seen, may have to take a few measurements of a new camshaft if I end up buying one and sticking a wee guide together for everyones future ref!

Cheers!

 

[pobmk4]

Funnily enough @Ceebl I think you may be right, as I think the last time I had one stripped that was the first thing I noticed, the end of the camshaft was a different shape. I don't have any gti's booked in over the next week unless any just drop in, but I'm sure it'll be figured out without too much drama.

 

[Ceebl]

Alright... not quite the clear cut result I was hoping for!
I got the chain cover off yesterday and inspected my cam lobes for the hpfp. They are worn but not quite as badly as I had expected.
I am reckoning the normal lift of a new camshaft must be around 4mm and mine is lifting 3.5mm
I worked this out by the following assumptions:
The photo on here of the guy measuring the new camshaft reads 42mm from flat to opposite lobe.
My same measurements are:
1. 41.67mm
2. 41.33mm
3. 41.53mm
Assuming no damage or very little damage to the flat side this means that my lobe points are on average down by 0.5mm
This means that a new shaft will lift (3.5mm + 0.5mm missing) 4mm
Therefore I am missing 1/8th of my fuel pump stroke.
I am currently on the fence if this is enough to cause my issues. I would be pretty sure it is the issue and seeing as the shaft is damaged slightly its no bad thing to replace it, but I will be sickened if I spend a good chunk of money on this and it doesn't fix the car lol
It does sort of follow logically that I am mapped to almost 100% of the flow ability of the pump. The pump is down at least 12% of its efficiency and I only have issues when I am using the top say 20% of the engine power

 

[Ceebl]

@pobmk4 @Harry Have you guys any ideas for or against this decision? Yes the lobes are flattened off to the tune of about 0.5mm which doesn't sound like a lot but when you consider the current lift is only 3.5mm that is a 12% loss.
Pob, does that TSI engine you have take the same type of HPFP as the TFSI engine? If so it must lift the pump a similar amount in theory!

 

[pobmk4]

@Ceebl , I've been really busy and haven't had the chance to do any measurements, I'll see how I'm fixed towards the end of the day tomorrow. But yes in theory the tsi should have a similar operating range.

 

[Ceebl]

@Ceebl , I've been really busy and haven't had the chance to do any measurements, I'll see how I'm fixed towards the end of the day tomorrow. But yes in theory the tsi should have a similar operating range.

Thats great mate, no pressure, the car is back together anyway... Just looking for answers lol

 

[dervsport]

Why don't you do a pump proof test? Ground the pressure regulator and see if it makes max pressure and how quickly. You would probably need a scope to measure the pressure build up time. Just make sure you ground the switching side of the pressure reg.