Not sure how many of you out there are brushed up on your Turbo Wastegate and vacuum hose knowledge but here goes nothing.

Anyway, I finally picked my brand new MCS up on Monday night. It was all very exciting. However, next day to work (Tuesday), on mile 40 of my brand new MINI, going about 30 miles an hour... I get a nice little beep and 'engine malfunction' light. According to my manual the light alert (orange engine with slash through it) meant to get the thing to service right away. Terrific, huh! They give me a worthless (to me at least) cheap BMW rental for the next 24 hours (like I really want that). So well after 24 hours, (on Wednesday) they call me and tell me that I can pick it up, and that someone in production just forgot to connect the vacuum hose to the wastegate on the turbo. I guess that thing must have been building up tons of pressure or something? So Yesterday I finally had my car for 24 hours, and its the greatest thing ever. Its Friday now, and I'm starting to get concerned; hoping that there was no damage done to the Turbo. I'm thinking I may give service a call and ask about it since I don't really know much about Turbos and how that vaccuum could effect everything. Not exactly sure what the deal would be putting 60 miles on a car with no vacuum connected to the wastegate. Regardless to say, Irvine MINI hasn't been the most helpful in explaining to me what was wrong with my car or anything. They simply gave me a sheet of paper that explained that a vacuum hose was disconnected from the wastegate when they built it. Don't they check this stuff at VDC?!?

Great buzz kill huh!

Specs: Sparkling Silver S. Black top, stripes. Premium. Automatic. Chrome Line Interior, Exterior. Hi-Fi Audio, Sport Suspension.

 

Relax, not having the vacuum hose connected is not going to damage anything on your engine. Enjoy your new MCS!

 

Its no big deal. Don't worry about.

Its makes me want an externally venting wastegate on the R56. That would be COOL!

 

off topic but boy do i hate irvine MINI. you and I are not the only unhappy customers either.

 

The wastegate is sprung open, vacuum closed. If the vacuum line was disconnected from the wastegate actuator you wouldn't be building any boost at all, thus preventing any possible damage from overboost to the engine.

 

If that was the case, the mini would have a wga that's one of a kind. If it's like every other interally gated car I've messed with, the wga is sprung in a manner in which keeps the flapper shut. Most oem wga are lightly sprung, so even if you did overboost I'm sure the mini has some measure to keep it safe, such as it could yank throttle in the drive by wire crap. Could it have overboosted, sure... but I certainly wouldn't worry about it. The wga normally has a hose ran to it from a solenoid which also has a ran to it from the intake tract somewhere. The solenoid can control the boost by letting the same, or less air go to the wga than is in the intake tract. The more air the solenoid lets go to the wga, the less boost it will make, the more air the solenoid restricts, the more boost it will make. That is why when you mess with a mbc(supplementing a solenoid), to increase boost, you make the hole it in bigger(interanally) to "bleed" off more air, and let the wga hold the flapper door shut longer which forces more exhaust gasses through the turbine in which keep the boost level up. I'm going to stop here....

 

Photo for reference. The WGA is at the bottom of the picture, holding the wastegate shut.

 

Hmmm. Thanks for all the information! All very interesting. Now what if the Solenoid was disconnected at the same time?

On the service dept. invoice it reads:

"62 Vacuum Line that goes to Turbo Wastegate disconnected... Tested for vacuum to the wastegate from the vacuum pump. Found no vacuum present. Inspected vacuum solenoids. Found vacuum solenoids disconnected. Resecured and retested for vacuum, vacuum present at wastegate. "

 

Would you compare how the car ran with and without the vacuum line connected to the wastegate?

 

I only got 30 miles with it disconnected, and I hate to say it, but I really cannot tell the difference. I took it for a good spin for the first 30, testing it out thoroughly, and I could feel no problems. Now when I drive it, it worries me that there is no significant change. Some people are telling me that I would be getting no turbo for those first 30 miles... but it seemed like it was driving fine.

 

My guess is you were getting no wastegate for the first 30 miles.

 

They do. N14 wastegate, sprung open vacuum closed.


And for reference, N54 wastegate:


Keep in mind the N14 and N12 engines have a vacuum pump driven off the back of the exhaust cam and this is the vacuum that controls the wastegate, not manifold vacuum.

 

With the solenoids disconnected you would instantly get a check engine light.

As for the line being disconnected the car would boost to say 20 psi and then put you in limp home mode and give you the code. The programming on the ecu will not let you damage the car unless you are hiding the boost from the ecu and in that case you can kiss your rings bye bye