He is back again! Technical Editor of Motor Age magazine, Brandon Steckler, walks us through an easy and efficient, confidence-building approach to discovering gasoline direct injection (GDI) driveability symptoms.
Last month, Brandon showed us his tried-and-true approach to symptoms exhibited in conventional, port fuel injection systems. All those tools and techniques still hold true regarding GDI systems. However, the layers of complexity and system strategies grew and changed with the implementation of the technology.
Using a process Brandon likes to call “A.F.A.D,” this easy-to-recall acronym helps him to remember what it stands for:
- Air measurement
- Fuel delivery
- Adaptive strategies
- Default strategies
As Brandon described in last month’s episode of The Trainer (using graphed PIDs), in this video he evaluates each area of concern one at a time. The point is a lean-condition symptom (on a 2014 BMW V8 engine) seemingly related to a misreporting air mass meter was caused by a lack of fuel supply.
The PCM protected the vehicle from the lean condition. Not by increasing fuel delivery (via fuel trim) but instead by closing the throttle. The vehicle’s poor performance was not due to the cause of the issue, but the effect of that issue.
The A.F.A.D systematic approach ruled out what simply could not be wrong with the vehicle. This left only potential faults with the low-side fuel delivery system to be further investigated.
Stick with Brandon in this episode of The Trainer and learn the same systematic approach Brandon uses in the bay to preliminarily discover what area the fault lies in. All of this is conducted right from the driver’s seat and without any wasted time under the hood or beneath the vehicle.
So, tune in with Brandon and hang on tight! You can’t afford to miss this episode of The Trainer!
