Lad's Astra H 1.6 ecotec needs a CT/mot, and here has to have no fault codes or CEL light lit, and no potentially emissions related codes in the ecu log itself.
I was driving it testing after I replaced the engine with a lower km one from a breakers and it randomly gave the code P01113- port deactivation position sensor voltage low and triggering the CEL light. I could clear it sometimes, and it'd be ok for a restart or two, then it would appear again. Check the small print of the guarantee of the "tested good" motor, and it only covers the engine block and head and internal components, not that I want to take it back out yet again and return it.
This code is related to the "twinport" system the engine has, it has two inlet ports per cylinder, and a flap valve blocks one off in the inlet tract at low rpm's to improve low speed torque and emissions, as you hit the loud pedal the ecu opens a valve which connects inlet manifold vacuum to a actuator on the end of a lever connected to the flaps via plastic linkages and opens them & it has a variable resistance sensor (glorified volume knob) to check its moved properly. Complicated & plastic & it has 140,000km on it.
A play in opcom diagnostics with the port actuation tests saw the position sensor reporting 4.5v at the sensor when open/actuated (good, its a 5v sensor and this is in the normal range), and 0v when closed, so all working as it should. Except... The ecu needs to see 0.3v or more in the closed position or it declares a fault for wiring broken or bad sensor etc.
So I took the inlet manifold off, then the lower inlet manifold to get to the port sensor as its buried round the back and cleaned all the egr tracts out in the manifold which were plugged with carbon, the linkage was a bit sloppy but not terrible. So changed the sensor for the one off the original engine, and after hours of fiddly work & new gaskets it went from intermittent to happening all the time. More head scratching and there was a youtube video of a bodge with a bracket limiting travel as a end stop that could be adjusted to give 0.5v all the time at the sensor but that limits the range of movement artificially to me.
The core issue is wear & slop in the plastic linkage for the flaps causes it to travel past the 0.3v parked position a tiny amount, and Vauxhall/Opel say the only fix is a new lower inlet manifold assembly at 700 quid. So I removed one of the mounting screws for the actuator, and moved the actuator itself around the one remaining one while watching the sensor voltage rise to 0.5v in the closed position, and made up a tiny bracket to hold the other screw to take up the wear play in the linkage.
Check engine light (CEL) gone, twinport still has full range of motion and its well secured. I might make some new peek bushes up for the spare lower inlet manifold's twinport linkages to do it properly in future but that depends on my enthusiasm to spend my shed time on it. And we all know what that means. It will have this bodge until the end of its life now.
Now just a oil leak to go, and its ready and done.
I was driving it testing after I replaced the engine with a lower km one from a breakers and it randomly gave the code P01113- port deactivation position sensor voltage low and triggering the CEL light. I could clear it sometimes, and it'd be ok for a restart or two, then it would appear again. Check the small print of the guarantee of the "tested good" motor, and it only covers the engine block and head and internal components, not that I want to take it back out yet again and return it.
This code is related to the "twinport" system the engine has, it has two inlet ports per cylinder, and a flap valve blocks one off in the inlet tract at low rpm's to improve low speed torque and emissions, as you hit the loud pedal the ecu opens a valve which connects inlet manifold vacuum to a actuator on the end of a lever connected to the flaps via plastic linkages and opens them & it has a variable resistance sensor (glorified volume knob) to check its moved properly. Complicated & plastic & it has 140,000km on it.
A play in opcom diagnostics with the port actuation tests saw the position sensor reporting 4.5v at the sensor when open/actuated (good, its a 5v sensor and this is in the normal range), and 0v when closed, so all working as it should. Except... The ecu needs to see 0.3v or more in the closed position or it declares a fault for wiring broken or bad sensor etc.
So I took the inlet manifold off, then the lower inlet manifold to get to the port sensor as its buried round the back and cleaned all the egr tracts out in the manifold which were plugged with carbon, the linkage was a bit sloppy but not terrible. So changed the sensor for the one off the original engine, and after hours of fiddly work & new gaskets it went from intermittent to happening all the time. More head scratching and there was a youtube video of a bodge with a bracket limiting travel as a end stop that could be adjusted to give 0.5v all the time at the sensor but that limits the range of movement artificially to me.
The core issue is wear & slop in the plastic linkage for the flaps causes it to travel past the 0.3v parked position a tiny amount, and Vauxhall/Opel say the only fix is a new lower inlet manifold assembly at 700 quid. So I removed one of the mounting screws for the actuator, and moved the actuator itself around the one remaining one while watching the sensor voltage rise to 0.5v in the closed position, and made up a tiny bracket to hold the other screw to take up the wear play in the linkage.
Check engine light (CEL) gone, twinport still has full range of motion and its well secured. I might make some new peek bushes up for the spare lower inlet manifold's twinport linkages to do it properly in future but that depends on my enthusiasm to spend my shed time on it. And we all know what that means. It will have this bodge until the end of its life now.
Now just a oil leak to go, and its ready and done.
