Actuator Agony

On the way back home from showing the car to Dale over at Bailey Performance Ltd, the Mk1 suddenly stopped producing boost and lost majority of its power. It was still driving smoothly and sounded okay however I could hear the turbo wasn’t spooling up. Only being a short distance from home I trundled on at a slow speed and avoided putting the engine under any great load.

After a quick inspection as to what was wrong with the engine I removed this from the turbo.

The connecting rod on the waste-gate actuator had snapped, meaning that the waste-gate was uncontrollable and was permanently open. For those who are unfamiliar with how turbo setups work, the waste-gate prevents the turbo from spinning too fast and causing engine damage by diverting exhaust gases away when a predetermined level of pressure is attained. Without sufficient gas flow the turbo is unable to spool up. The waste-gate is only meant to momentarily open to reduce turbo spin, however in my situation today the permanently open waste-gate resulted in no boost being produced at all.

Next on the to-do list.. reattach and re-weld the connecting rod to the actuator.