Water issuing from exhaust pipe. 1994 S4

[John Shenton]

Warm and sunny regards from Saudi Arabia... I have newly purchased an S4 from a single owner who, I am swiftly realizing, epitomizes the ultimate DPO. Expect to hear more from this part of the world!!

Recently had a replacement stock turbo charger fitted (done by local "mechanic") and then personally changed all vacuum pipes lines which had perished ( except the one to the heater which I haven't traced yet. To do this I took off the Coolant combined header tank (white plastic variety) to get at the various pipes.Fitted a new chip , memcal adapter , Kand N FILTER and stainless exhaust from PUKesprit. Finished this and took the car for a fairly gentle 100 mile test run and for the first time she was running smooth and lovely, with amazing amount of grunt. , then just as I was reaching home she started to overheat. I let her cool down, topped up the coolant , which needed a litre or so, and fired her up again. This time I got a shower of sooty spots from the exhaust tailpipe, Letting her run, the spotting continues, with warm water rather than steam. I was advised by Marcus from PUK esprit that it might be a leak with the turbo water jacket leaking into the exhaust. Disconnected the (red) pipe hose feed to the turbo cooler from the Tpiece and reconnected the main hoses with temporary splice, thus bypassing the turbo coolant system. . Spotting from exhaust continues.

Removed each spark plug , which were black and a little rich looking, but with no white deposits or evidence of water in the ignition chamber. cleaned plugs, checked gaps, reinstalled. Still spotting water from exhaust.. Checked flow and return from charge cooler coolant pipes, having topped up the charge cooler through the air bleed valve before the run. Absolutely no water flow whatsoever!

Two questions follow.

Q1 What is my next step to trace the water leaking into the exhaust?

Q2 Where can i get a replacement charge cooler pump or a kit to rebuild mine, which I can get couriered to Saudi?

[andydclements]

Hi John, welcome to the forum and to ownership.

Now to the issue. In reverse order.

Don't go for a chargecooler rebuild kit (either original or poly) you'll end up treating them as a service item and that get annoying and expensive (very annoying as you loose power noticeably). Switch to an electric pump, it doesn't have ton be big, something such as the Volkswagen group secondary water pump would be great.

Do any of the local mechanics have the kit to pressurise the water system? It merely secures to the expansion bottle and uses compressed air (at about the pressure you'd get with a hot engine) to force the water out the way it does when running, except you can get your (or rather their) hands around the engine without getting burned or scalded.

Failing that I guess it's a case of rule out all other causes, you sate the symptoms of water in the combustion cylinder are not present but if the water was pure enough (I'm in Norfolk in the UK, there's so much lime we nearly have to hit water with a hammer) it may not leave any trace. So you'd be down to compression tests, UL lights with dyes etc.

Hope it's something to go on for a start.

Andy

[rogerch]

I made this (free) to pressurise the cooling system and locate the leak.

[nemick]

Is this water coming out of the thing even when it's warmed up and/or hot?

[John Shenton]

Thank you Andy,I have not yet found a convincing mechanic here, and thew majority are used to the more agricultural engineering of american cars, they are fine when my old jeep wrangler falls apart occasionally.

Last night I was reading of the electric pump conversion and it seems the way to go. I will find what pumps are available on the market here and start from there.

Neil, that is a good question... I have not run the engine for long enough to know whether she leaks when hot ... reason being that when I saw the water I was nervous to take the car out till I had found the source in case I had cracked the head or something. I have spent most of my life fixing old british bikes and harleys and have not such enormous experience with car mechanics. I guess that will change now.

[nemick]

John,

I think it's important to know whether this issue still occurs when the car is fully warmed up. Presumably the ambient temperature where you are drops quite a bit at night, so what you might be seeing is just normal condensation/sweating as things warm up. I live in Indiana and I experience pretty much precisely what you are describing until things are good and hot. Your experience with old British bikes will stand you in good stead with the Lotus, not so much the Harley's.

[Bibs]

^ What he said. Here's 3 Esprit's warming up a month or two ago...

[John Shenton]

Thank you guys. I hope you are right. Come to think of it we have had RAIN for the past week or so, which happens every three years or so, so there has been HUMIDITY! Normally unheard of. I will go immediately downstairs and run the engine for half an hour to check!

Well, I am almost too ashamed to say this, but after a few minutes, the water disappeared!!!!!! What a twit I feel.

Well the fact that I am not removing my head this weekend speaks volumes for the network and the forum.

Now I only have 999 things left to worry about. Please have a quiet smirk at my expense....

I have today ordered a Bosch water pump from UK and a plug and bracket from WC Engineering in Illinois, so hopefully the charge cooler will be functioning soon, before the ambient temperatures here climb off the gauge. Better start to look at the non functioning a/c next perhaps or the drivers side window, which has stuck in down mode..... . I certainly won't need a windscreen wiper for another year or two so the threadbare bush on that can wait....

New Brembro brakes on the back next weekend ah so much fun, so much expense, so much love. Like having a new girlfriend only more demanding.

[Bibs]

[cjtpb13]

John,

Enjoy the S4. Lovely cars they are.

Bit of advice for the Chargecooler plug kit. You might find that you need to get a slightly larger 'o'ring than what is supplied.

[andydclements]

Glad it's just condensated mist, but better to be safe and ask than assume, find it's major only when it goes bang in a big way.

[nemick]

The inoperable window is most likely a bad switch, "They all do that Sir". There is a relay modification/incorporation that can be done to make the switches last longer. Hopefully, that's what it is.

[John Shenton]

What a reassuring feeling it is, to sit down at the computer and to know that there is help out there.

What a satisfying feeling it is, to know nothing at all about Lotus doors, switches, trim or trapezoidal gizmos which should make a piece of glass slide smoothly up and down but don't, and armed only with some good advice from a website, to manage to fix a defunct side window. No more sandstorms in the cockpit!

Now here is another puzzler....

Removing the flanking panel behind the rear quarter light on my driver's side, I unearthed a white 50w power amplifier, a "Coustic" "Power Logic" , with all the cables cut off. My car is now a couple of kilos lighter still and the amplifier is sitting on my desk asking questions... like "Am I an original sound system fixture from the mid nineties or a later but not latest, addition?" ( my center console has already been butchered to fit a four channel home theatre by the DPO) It seems quite likely that it works, so unless someone tells me it is a collectors item then it will probably go under the seat in my jeep so I will be able to hear music at speeds more than walking pace.

[nemick]

I don't know for sure, but that amplifier doesn't sound stock to me. Put it in the Jeep, lol.

[lotus4s]

Amp was not OEM, added by a PO...

[John Shenton]

In the sep or in the bin then!