RSR

Gevo - check out richporter. I have on my truck and my wife runs on her car now. Been great. Lifetime warranty. New on amazon at least were in the $130 range which is about what parts yard charges for scrap. There was a thread on here I posted in so sure you can find through searching where a member went through several remanned OEM distributors and none of them had electrical pickups that tested within spec.

Mine, don't remember offhand which code it is, but the crankshaft sensor wasn't working at all. No errors or notifications of any sort and no symptoms liek you report, but finding that and replacing it did perk up my engine.

The only caveat w/ the richporter is that turned all way counter clockwise, they do run right at about 10* btdc so it won't allow you to retard timing much more than that. I run at about 12* on mine...

Looks like their temporarily out of stock @ $139.92 ubt usually restock w/in a week or so: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B001DALNGQ

Good luck!

Gevo

Thanks for the mention RSR. I also did not get any errors from the ECU. But I did get the symptoms. And, although the popping started all of a sudden, I can't be sure if I had loss of power before that...? But, for sure at some point the ditributor was all well within spec.

Much more than that 'new' cardone unit. At that time my research into which new products to get was in it's infancy, I am much better equipped now.

I will definitely look into the Richporter unit. Thanks for the advice and review.

The main problem of the cardone unit was also that I couldn't adjust it to between 0 and 12 degrees.

Anyway, I ordered a 'used' one off ebay, OEM, it was cheap and the guy confirmed the resistance values for me. Rockauto took the return of my now 6 month old (but in a box in teh garage the whole time) cardone unit. I am free to purchase another new one while this OEM one i'm going ot install today slowly continues to die

On a personal note, and it seems I can't say this enough, thanks to all of you who help me out here. I know I get lengthy sometimes, but the devil is in the details, right?

I wish I could find and AUDI forum with 10% of the knowledge I find here so I can diagnose my steering issue

Gevo

Well I got the used OE distributor. Checked all spec and its just right. Installed, timed to 10 Deg. BtDC and took her for a spin. Was much better. As it used to be. Great happy!

Then took another drive and after a few miles it popped couple times as before at low rpms during throtttling up. The power seems normal tho. It hasnt popped again. Ill check resistance of distributor again. If it went bad, maybe something in the harness killing it. I hope not

What are the chances the popping was a one off ???

RSR

You're welcome. Indeed, the devil is.

Uncertain. Did you pull the reset fuse? If it was ignition related, then pulling the fuse should help it relearn new ratios faster.

A bad distributor -- not igniting the fuel -- could cause misfires.

Also, check your cap and rotor on your new one if new didn't come with it. Highly worth the $15.

Gevo

I did reset the ECU. The cap and rotor only have 3000 miles on them, great condition still.

I checked the distributor, and the resistance values came back perfect.

I plan to go off-roading next sunday, I hope it stays in working order!!

I will drive it a bit this week to make sure. Didn't get to do anything on it today :/

Gevo

Update. Im cautiously optomistic I found the rest of the problem with the popping and further power loss that I realized I still had even after distributor.
I drove it a bit today and after a bbse test run I started to unplug various components one by one then drive to see if I could find the one with the problem. The problem was that I was still getting the popping and power was still low. Long story short the 2nd thing I unplugged was the tps. Huge difference. Engine worked very well. No popping. I thought ok, lemm plug back in and see. Sure enough soon it started popping againg and intermittently as before being powerless. I repeated this 3 times throught runn8ng my chores. Everytime with tps it sucked and without tps it was good. I didnt expect this kind of behavior from a bad tps. But readjng through the forum people mentioned it and Im glad I tried it.

New TPS on the way with a new igniter. TPS was I working order before, along with the distributor. How did both go bad at the same time??
I also got a new coil cause mine is 10% out of spec and that bugs me.

As I said. I am cautiousluly optomistic that I solved this problem as well.

RSR

Hate to mention, but wiring?

Gevo

This one time, I dont think it is
Ill see soon with new tps

Gevo

Well, to wrap up these issues for everyone in the future...

I ended up NOT replacing my Igniter or Coil (the ones that I ordered weren't the right ones, although the VIN number match said it would be... I'm never buying a vehicle in the month the model was changed!!!!

SO! How did my problems get fixed. Grounds. Although all of the grounds as per the fsm were there and I promise to you I cleaned all surfaces etc... I was getting an inconsistent spark. I got a few 4 gauge ground wires and re-did all of the grounds, including a couple additional ones to all points that had a resistance of more than 1 ohm to the battery terminal. That fixed my spark, and it was then clean and consistent.

The injectors, the orange flamethrowers refused to work for me. About 1500 to 2000 miles ago Injectordyne sent me a set of tan ones, and the difference was night and day. I adjusted my VAFM back to stock configuration, and the engine runs very very well. No popping, no hesitation, no struggling.

During all of that I solved a code 52 problem. If you care search "Gevo's rebuild thread code 52" .

At the moment, I am very proud of this machine. I've taken her wheeling multiple times and she is running like a champ. Tranny rebuilt is solid, works very well. ENgine temp is perfect, power is much better than ever.

Looking forward to a few months of no headaches.

And, she turned 222,222.2 Miles today