KN Laser swirl plate actuator missing. ?:-|

[ZeLittleRedCar]

Hi All.

Bought a very tidy KN a few months ago. 1600 DOHC ZM.
Seemed to perform well on the highway; a bit slow on long uphills ... yeah - OK - not a turbo or V8.

BUT ... one day (after freezing outside in a couple of zero degree nights) ... it began to absolutely fly up the same hills ... like it suddenly found another 20kW. OMG. }}}:-O

A few weeks later it was back to crawling over the top of same hills at 80. Grrrr.

Hmmm ... dig dig dig ... engine has an MTIS system = for inducing intake air swirl below 3000 rpm via a movable butterfly plate in each intake port, ganged together on a common spindle.



These plates are opened/closed via a vac operated pushrod actuator connected to this spindle..

Still with me?

OK - actuator must be a bit stuck (tech term). WD40 should fix.
I thought ...

Under engine with a flood light ... ... ... ... ?

What actuator? Nothing there resembling this pushrod actuator. ???



And no evidence of a full width butterfly spindle across all ports ... ?:-|

SOOO --- what is in there that can change to improve engine performance ... GRRRRRR.

Has there been some sort of a mid-production change?

Over to the KN KQ Grand Wizards ... :-D

[GTLEGEND]

Only KN KQ Laser with the 1.8L engine had the inlet manifold with the actuator. The 1.6 did not. See the difference between the two in the images below. The actuator is number 20 in the 1.8 engine image.

KN Laser Inlet Manifold 1.6.pdf

KN Laser Inlet Manifold 1.8.pdf

[ZeLittleRedCar]

Originally Posted by GTLEGEND

Only KN KQ Laser with the 1.8L engine had the inlet manifold with the actuator. The 1.6 did not. See the difference between the two in the images below. The actuator is number 20 in the 1.8 engine image.

Attachment 102033

Attachment 102034

Thanks GTLEGEND.

As I've dug deeper I've opened a real can of worms for myself.

The diagram I posted comes from the workshop manual for the 1600 ZM engine. Ahhh - but which ZM is it? Many variants, as it happens.
Depends on the car maker, the country, used in later cars - eg the Focus.

So - my car never had tumbler butterflies, but I can see in the head casting where provision had been made for the butterfly spindle.

Back to my original performance/lack-of issue:

What is in the intake path that can suddenly change and produce the extra performance?

As mentioned earlier, the car spent a couple of nights in zero deg. temps.
Next time I drove it .... whooosh ... over tall buildings in a single bound ...

Obviously something had changed ie contracted c/- the cold, allowing 'everything' to work properly again.

A few weeks later - back to crawling up those same hills.

Arrrgggh.

Suspecting vacuum related.

Cheers.

[chris.j]

I've sold EFI parts for many years and the most common part for these is the airflow meter. They don't throw codes generally, but cause lack of power issues.
The genuine unit has ZL01 embossed on it.
You can purchase a genuine unit from Burson auto parts, AFM-003 is the part number.

[ZeLittleRedCar]

Originally Posted by chris.j

I've sold EFI parts for many years and the most common part for these is the airflow meter. They don't throw codes generally, but cause lack of power issues.
The genuine unit has ZL01 embossed on it.
You can purchase a genuine unit from Burson auto parts, AFM-003 is the part number.

Thanks Chris. Will dig further re vacuum leaks first. Cheers.

[foxtrot3]

Originally Posted by ZeLittleRedCar

Back to my original performance/lack-of issue:

What is in the intake path that can suddenly change and produce the extra performance?

As mentioned earlier, the car spent a couple of nights in zero deg. temps.
Next time I drove it .... whooosh ... over tall buildings in a single bound ...

Obviously something had changed ie contracted c/- the cold, allowing 'everything' to work properly again.

A few weeks later - back to crawling up those same hills.

Arrrgggh.

Suspecting vacuum related.

Cheers.

Hi. What changed? The temperature of the air. Cold air is more dense so that means it sucks in more oxygen and that means a bigger burn and that means moooore power. Cheers MD

[ZeLittleRedCar]

Originally Posted by foxtrot3

Hi. What changed? The temperature of the air. Cold air is more dense so that means it sucks in more oxygen and that means a bigger burn and that means moooore power. Cheers MD

In theory - yes. Practically - no. Was good in warmish weather fo the next few weeks. Then it died. :-(