C5 X7 ambient lighting (and some other bits and pieces)

[vborovic]

I'll finally go into debugging the P2125 Air Doser error ... did the engine running test today, it seems the doser doesn't want to budge as it should during the test ... I could say that I've noticed a slight increase in fuel consumption, but that's a long stretch (making shorter drives that in the previous months) ... but, since I don't want to have any unwanted errors on my car, it will have to be worked on ... hopefully, it is just stuck ... the new unit costs approx 110 GBP (eBay), at the dealer roughly 150 GBP ...

[vborovic]

Due to poor weather and a lack of time, I've postponed the Air Doser issue for this weekend (I want to see for myself if the issue is simple to fix or what it is exactly, before I leave it to the Service) ... in the meantime, I've left the car in the Service for another issue, what I initially though was caused by low air con gas ... turns out the gas was all there, literally ... but in the process of debugging, they've found out one of the valves in the air con pump is broken/damaged/clogged/whatever ... it will be fixed tomorrow by replacing with another valve, new ... repair cost should be around the cost of the steering rack ... not exactly cheap, but certainly cheaper than a new air con pump (ranging from 260 GBP to 360 GBP)

[vborovic]

So, the air con compressor valve, here's the culprit (supposedly) ... this is not intended for repairing/replacement (as far as PSA is concerned - you can order a new compressor though), but it is possible to get one of those from the specialists who work on air con compressors (among other air cont items) ... I don't have the exact valve price yet, but it shouldn't be more than the steering rack repair ...

[vborovic]

Finally ... today I had a stoke of luck, I've managed to find a MiraScripts backup which I did before something changed in the configuration and caused the F303 error ... tried changing the personalization menu, and some other possibilities with DiagBox and MiraScript, I couldn't trigger the error, so something else was the cause in my case ... at least, I now have a stable config backup, and no error on the RT6 device (although the DiagBox can't detect it, I have to manually select the telematics device) ... now, the funny thing is that the protected telecoding notice is displayed just before I confirm the telecoding procedure, but I can freely change all the options with DiagBox once again ...

[vborovic]

Moving along, today I've received a TPMS antenna ... this is what it looks like:

Brand new, from the Citroen Service ... manufacturing date on the back says 2012-02-27 ... old stock, obviously ... ... and it has some sort of industrial coaxial connector on one side, which I've managed to track down:

http://www.systemgear.net/products/deta ... s_id=17843

I need its counterpart:

http://www.systemgear.net/products/deta ... s_id=17844

Of course, I don't want to order 200 pieces, since I need only one, so I'll try to find a single unit ... if not, there's always a guerrilla method of just cutting the cable and soldering/insulating the other end ...

[vborovic]

I've ordered a device which should show me the driving lines while reversing, dynamically, by reading the ESP data via the OBD port, over the existing camera image ... the next issue to solve would be to enhance the reverse camera image (to reduce image noise, somehow ... I used a higher quality coaxial cable, shielded, but for unknown reasons, I get horizontal lines that get worse once the weather is moist or rainy - something with earthing, but can't put my finger on it)

[vborovic]

Today I've decided to check that Air Doser, and to my surprise now it is working (at least it doesn't throw any errors) ... but, I've decided to clean it (what can be cleaned), just for the piece of mind, and upon removing the hose from the intake, I find oil traces, inside the hose (very small amounts), on the plastic flap and on the inside of the doser .. cleaned everything as much as I could:

Now, what I've found interesting is that the left side intake is inactive ... it never was since the car was built ... the connector to it was never attached, the flap is fully closed, and the connector which should (maybe) be connected (if not on this, maybe on some other engine) has a slightly different plastic cutout that limits attaching in the wrong position.

Now, of course, me being me, I won't settle unless I plug the connector to the left intake, but I don't know if I'll get anything out of it ... ... from the looks of it, the right side is cold air intake, the left side should be hot air intake (the hose goes somewhere to the back of the engine) ... and "everything" seems in place for the left intake to work ... but it doesn't ... now, does the different kind of doser exist that has a different, but compatible connector to the one that is nearby on stand-by (marked on the bottom picture with the yellow line - the connector is attached to a blank socket)? What kind of sorcery is this anyways?

Those of you who have 2.0 HDI engines, what's your situation, do you have the left air intake active/connected on your Air Dosers, or is the situation like on my car? I'd say this can only improve fuel efficiency, or allow for different air distribution (not only getting cold air, but also hot), which shouldn0t have any downsides to the engine performance. Also, those of you who have different engines diesel or petrol), please chip in so we can shed some light on this matter.

[bobins]

Here's the pipe components:



Here's the front pipe routing:



And the rear pipe routing:



And a pic from document E1AT0102P0 showing the two dosers with their connectors plugged in:



The earlier 138 engines only had the single doser.

[vborovic]

That's what bothers me, I have a 163 engine, and the left intake is not in use ... and the even more interesting bit, it is OPR related, I think from 12393 (from memory, but definitely after my OPR). they only have a single intake doser available (first pic - part 7) and the turbo pipe also doesn't have the 2nd supply line (first pic - part 2)

[bobins]

Presumably your car is a 'warm climate' spec car ? I wonder if the ability/option to intake air that hasn't been through the cooler is only available on 'cold climate' cars ?

[vborovic]

That's something that crossed my mind as well, but I don't see why they would disable that option altogether since then onward ... and some other engines never had the twin intake doser in the first place

[bobins]

The evolution from single doser on the 138 to twin doser on the 163 was to do with emissions compliance - presumably they found a different way to comply on the later 163 cars ? Perhaps they had a word with the VW engineers and found a cheaper way to comply with emissions standards
I wonder if cars sold in Croatia weren't required to meet the higher standars at the time your car was imported ?

[vborovic]

My car is actually from Italy ... sold to a car dealer in Slovenia, imported by me to Croatia ... will try to do some more digging on this matter ... I'm very curious what would happen if I would be able to enable the 2nd intake (the way I see it, I only need the connector, the part from the turbo (pic 1 part 2) should be open - than might need checking) ... if it would be necessary to do some reconfiguration, that's not an issue .. that's why I asked, if someone also has the 2nd intake on their car AND the connector connected to the left side ... that would give me a major clue ...

[GiveMeABreak]

Can't help you there VAB - I have the 140 Engine (138).

[vborovic]

Didn't have the time to dig deeper regarding the 2nd valve input ... I've decided to fix something that was due a long time ago, the left Alpine headrest monitor was acting up (rarely working), so i dismantled the left boot panel today, and went error hunting ... it was a success, because now nothing is working ... ... probably the control box was faulty, and now it won't display any image on any monitor (I was suspecting it since I got it 2nd hand), so it seems it decided to bail on me permanently ... apart from that, I've decided to fit the tow-bar ECU where it belongs, and in the process wasted a 15A fuse on it (thank god for the fuses) ... remind me not to have an active wire loom (13 of them actually) touching each other (the 13 that make the tow bar socket, forgot about them and obviously some of them touched - you could hear a distinct "click" as a result ... ) ...

The existing tow bar wire and connector from the car was in place (I'm amazed that I've never noticed it before) ... it actually has a 2nd connector, that's also wrapped from the factory, no ideas what it does (or what it should connect to) ... I've removed the parking ECU, placed the tow-bar ECU, and returned the parking ECU in the original location ... and in the process figured out where to put the TPMS ECU ... the current situation looks like this ... if Frankenstein is still looking for his wires, send him over ...