Ed Lijewski wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 9:14 am
^^ Yeah; from the start here I wondered if the device used to take that photo distorted the actual manifold color. Reds, oranges, after heavy 2.3 turbo use are common. White, is not FWIW.
I think the camera does exaggerate the color a little bit, but it was certainly more bright red/orange than dark cherry red when I took that picture.
zxr250cc wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 9:31 am
Has this car run right then been left to sit a long time? Or is this an unknown history used car running funny when purchased? We are seeing the symptom with the excess heat.. In a non boosted car I would look for a vacuum leak.
I bought the car about a year ago, not running, with a broken timing belt and gummed up fuel system. Previously, it had been sitting in a barn for ~15 years, so the vehicle's history is mostly unknown.
Ed Lijewski wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 9:14 am
^^ Yeah; from the start here I wondered if the device used to take that photo distorted the actual manifold color. Reds, oranges, after heavy 2.3 turbo use are common. White, is not FWIW.
That purple color is related to the sensor of the camera and IR filtering (presumably this is a cellphone). It seems like most cameras have a pretty good IR filter in front of the sensor, but it doesn't block all the IR light when something is really hot like this. Really, it's not distorting it, but it's taking some of the invisible spectrum and making it visible in the picture, along with the red/orange that's also in the picture too.
It has been a while, but lately, time, money, motivation, and good weather have all lined up to allow me to work on the car again, and I think I've made some progress. First off, I replaced the O2 sensor, and the O2 sensor code has gone away. The code 34 for the EGR valve is still there, but some reading on here has led me to believe that that will always be so due to a change Ford made for some later model years to keep up with emissions regulations. Even with the replaced O2 sensor however, I still found the hot side of the turbo to be reaching ~775°F +/-15°F (surface temp, measured with a laser thermometer) after sitting at idle for about 20 minutes. (I am trying to avoid driving the car on the roads right now, since it is neither registered nor insured at the moment.)
I checked the cam timing (for the I-don't-know-how-many-th time) and found it properly set. I also got a vacuum gauge and hooked that up to the black and yellow vacuum reservoir vacuum line near the little vacuum manifold that sits by the brake booster. While running the engine with the vacuum gauge, I found that it was running with a very low vacuum at first upon startup, ~8"Hg, before leaping up to ~14"Hg after a few minutes. The needle also seemed to be shaking quite a bit and oscillating within a range of ~1"Hg. This reading was within the range listed as "late ignition timing" on the gauge face.
Using the vacuum gauge this time, I re-adjusted the rotation of the distributor to where the vacuum peaked out at 20"Hg and then dialed it back a hair. This is right in the range of what the gauge face claims should be a "normal motor". I cross-checked the timing with my timing light and found that with the light set to 10°, the tick mark on the pulley lined up with 10° BTC on the timing belt cover, though the mark did occasionally flash down to 0° BTC. I am not sure if that occasional flickering is an ignition system issue, or just a symptom of my cheap Harbor Freight timing light, but I am not going to worry about it for now, since the engine seems to be running well.
After redoing the timing with the vacuum gauge, I measured the surface temperature of the turbo again after letting it run for a long time, and found that it only reached about 650°F at maximum, and tended to stay a little lower than that. Does that seem like a reasonable temperature for the hot side of the turbo? Not having owned a turbocharged car before, I am not sure. A 100°F difference sure makes it seem like it was indeed a timing issue though.
Also, regarding the smoke I mentioned in my initial post; The car still puffs out a significant amount of gray smoke on startup, but after the car runs a minute or two, it goes away. I suspect that is just related to the fact that it has sat for so long, so I am not worried about it right now.
My apologies if this post is too wordy for some, but I wanted to be clear and precise in case anyone else finds themselves reading my thread because they have similar problems.
tl;dr I hooked up a vac gauge, found the vac reading low, re-adjusted the ignition timing with the vac gauge to get good vacuum, and found that it lowered the temps at the turbo by ~100°F. It now runs ~650°F. Does that seem normal?
I would suggest the puff of smoke on starting the engine is related to valve seals that are older. They tend to leak a bit of oil when shut off and sitting and it gives you a bit of smoke during cold engine start up. If it was rings it would smoke constantly. That has been my experience anyway.
Im actually going to have to look into this too.
On my car I always thought maybe the cam timing pointer itself was off, i might try turning retarding cam timing a tooth to see if it helps.
