I had a VW GTI and I won't even get into the issues it had. And I bought it brand new. After I bought my first Toyota, I forgot what an engine problem even is....

 

The low oil pressure light turn out to be, after all, the variable timing intake cam.
Installed a new one bought 3rd party online, on the meantime installed a turbo jacket and new water pump O-rings.
The turbo jacket helped a lot to keep the temperatures low on the engine bay, and did notice the car takes more time to reach 190F. This car intake manifold runs over the turbo manifold, with a temp gun, they are much lower and now the intake tube is warm to the touch when before within seconds had to let go because the pipe was so hot. I wrapped the tube with laundry dryer aluminum tape, which does keep it a few degrees lower than before.

I still get the intake manifold code P2015, it only comes on when redlining the car. I need to buy a device or take it to a mechanic to calibrate both, the manifold and airbag sensor. It seems the previous owner changed the passenger seat and whenever that happens, needs to be reset.
The car drives fine, engine has 170psi piston compression, and consistent -23 in vacuum, which is super healthy after all the surgery done to it.




Also installed a new DSG flywheel, major difference, shifting is so smooth, very snappy with a mellow backfire between shifts like in the Forza games, lol.




Replaced the O-rings in the oil filter bypass valve, as that also tends to give low oil pressure.





The next step is to replace the front-wheel bearings as they are a little noisy, later get a catback exhaust or do a resonator delete.

 

Awesome job Grizzlyman.
Cool pics and update.

Did the low oil pressure cuz of the VVT cause any wear in the cam journals up top or anywhere else you could see?
How much longer till you're driving it, sounds like you're almost there. Rock on, kick azz job.

 

​​​This is where it stands at this moment, car is complete. Runs and idles well, the heater is ridiculously effective, warms the cabin in no time.



When I did the first overhaul /teardown, the complete cylinder head was bad. Engine was rebuilt, but made the mistake of installing a used intake cam from an alleged good one sold on a bundle by a nearby mechanic.

On the second time around replaced the pcv, cams and balance shafts plus a few other things. Nothing else suffered any damage with the low oil pressure light on.

I was so upset I drove it redline just to see what was going to explode and amazingly it still drove well, no knocking, no loss of compression. The only item that worked on temperature signal was the intake cam, affected by oil. I did a complete teardown, all engine bearings look good.

I still not claiming victory, is only a few days, but man if before with all the beating it did not seized, it will not now.

 

I had a mk7 gti and R , this brings back memories. Great cars. Thanks for updates and pics.

 

wow, grizzly, so impressed with your patience and skills. and budget.

on the variable intake cam being a culprit, what exactly was wrong with the one you took out? i thought that had no moving parts? obviously i don't know what i'm talking about.

 

The left side is a very bad intake camshaft, oil stains (signs of leaking) on gear faceplate.


Both are intake cams, left is toast, from how I got the car. Right side is the used I found at the time that resulted to be bad as well, minor signs of leakeage.

The gear internals are so worn out the gear can be moved by hand for the left intake cam.

Gear to cam lobes relation look the same on both.


Gear to cam lobe is off on the left camshaft, although it still retains the same gear location, cam lobes move freely.

When the engine is very low on oil the end of the camshafts is what usually starve from oil been the farthest from the oil feed coming from the cam bridge ports.

significant scoring, if this happens the complete cylinder head is trash, journals (bearings) are also damaged.
I am impressed that an engine with this much damage, made a 45 min drive from where I bought it from.

All the piston rings were cracked, and the oil control rings were shut.

VW uses a coil type control ring, an engineering disaster. I installed new pistons with waffle control rings (standard type), none of that fancy coil design.


Left side is the old style timing chain, right are sets of the new design.

New intake cam

 

can't believe all you've had to do... but i guess it is 11+ yrs old with 112k+ mi on it.

are you a mechanic for a living? seems like an enormous effort and expense... i guess you like the challenge?

anyway, i hope it runs great after all your hard work! definitely a fun car to drive, when it works!

 

Only thing worse than doing that job once is doing it twice!

How did you not loose your cool after doing all that work and you figure out the replacement cam was junk?

 

This now REALLY reminds me of the VW CC I had to put 3 engines in to get one that worked correctly. Customer ended up just giving me the car and swore off VW completely, I honestly can't blame him since VW is an extremely problematic brand in general when it comes to needing to do jobs multiple times.

 

OMG just shoot me now! haha

Why did the cutomer think you'd want it after all that, I don't know.
You still had to find a good engine for it.

At that point it's time for a gallon of gas and a match! lol

PS- These don't look easy to work on so hats off to ya'll.
I've never worked on a VW other than my Rabbit in high school that ate coolant temp sensors.

 

My wrenching background started with Ford Escorts, Mazda Miatas, Honda Civics/CRX, Preludes, OG Toyota Supras. I never ever worked on european cars. Since I was young, I burned many weekends doing clutches, struts, the usual brakes etc, I am by no means a certified mechanic. The internet is an incredible sourde of information, youtube, FB, forums, endless hours searching to the point that at home I have a 3" binder full of diy printouts, guides, manuals.

I found this GTi with some minor issues, at least at the time of purchase, and saw it had passed inspection a few months before that (now that I think about it probably the seller paid someone to get the tags), so thought it will not be that bad to wrench on it.

Let me tell you.... european cars are unique beast, it was as if everything I knew went out the window, gone, I was like man, you got to be kidding me, and why this, and why that... and seriously, with cursing in between.
VW, Audis, use ridiculous amount of special tools, for everything, and everything, super overly engineered, but then something as basic as a drain plug does not exist (and newer cars some have no oil dipstick). Maybe later I will take a picture of all the tools I have bought during the course of this build. The amount of allen tork and triple square wrenches, bits, sockets, pullers, locking devices etc. Once I figure out all the tools, it was smooth sailing, and finally became somewhat enjoyable to work on.

I spent two weekends tearing apart 2.0T engines at a junkyard just to familiarize myself with how everything goes together, motor memory, and figuring it out shortcuts to get the job done quicker.





grabbing as many sensors, bolts, nuts, any nut, bolt with a weird design I would take it, coming out of the yard with buckets full of bolts for a few bucks, super cheap.

Ordering parts was another hassle, I am not lying, the dining room table was divided by parts that fit (or can make fit with minor modification), are ok, on one side, with the other side, parts that were defective or wrong parts sent.

The clerk at the post office would ask me if I was an ebay seller, if I had some online store, because of the amount of times I would come and go with packages. He would laugh, like again, another part, and I was yeah, for real. This included purchasing from FCP Euro, rock auto, etc.
The solution for that was to buy two of the same item, and whichever looked better, and fit best would keep and the other to return.


wrong cylinder head shipped, GTi do not have exhaust cam.sensors, like the ones seen on the pair holes on this one.



oil holes missing....!


To answer how did I figure out it was the vvti, I would get if I recall, P0340 code, camshaft position sensor. I had three or four items of the same, replaced the sensor, replaced the cam pressure sensor multiple times.


too small chain links (subpar quality)

chain guides holes do not align

The low oil pressure light and code would kick at the same time, and the code was pointing to the intake cam side as both sensors are on that side. I replaced them, code still there, so I said, something is giving out a bad reading, the only thing left was the cam itself.
When I took the cam out, it had excessive play, the gear in the cam gets filled with oil and inside has a pressure valve with a spring (at a certain pressure it engages or not, etc), and when is full of oil the gear is suppose to stay in place, not move by hand if I hold the camshaft (as if it is adjusting timing), and it moved a lot. So bought two intake cams, following the rule of buying two at a time, lol, and surely one of the cams had too big of journal diameter, while the other one fit perfect. They are tested by bolting he cam cover, no hydraulic lifters and if clearance is right, it suppose to spin freely in its channels. The new camshaft was rock solid, no play, and seems that was the issue because no more P0340 code, and no more low oil pressure.

*Will admit had my moments of throwing the towel.
I do jigsaw puzzles, changed my mindset and viewed it as a giant puzzle I needed to resolve. May sound cliche, but thought about the moments I got stuck on a specific piece, and took it easy, as another piece to put together, and in between the mayhem or parts anr pieces that although confusing, it all would come together on its own.


From scored cylinder walls and cracked rings

To a fresh block, with consistent compression


I currently have a spare block that I am going to give it a refresh if at some point this one gives up.
I got coming in the mail the front wheel bearings (oem) and transmission oil kit.


As of right now is complete in good running condition.


2011 VW GTi 2.0T 100% stock, besides an oversize engine block and port polish cylinder head

 

Wow, what a truly amazing journey with that car.
Betting you can rebuild the engine now in your sleep after all that, not that you probably ever wanted to go into it so deep. lol

These are the stories I come to Club Lexus to see, cool.

So if you were writing a TSB on this car for a fix what would you say?

Symptoms: car is doing this(fill in the blank with symptoms)

Check: check this(fill in the blanks with what to check)

Replace: replace this(fill in the blank for what to replace)

Could it be fixed with a "TSB" like that(if one existed) or was it WAY more complicated and tearing down the engine is required.

PS- what I couldn't tell from your repairs is it kinda looked like someone else had already been in there and did some funny business which required a complete engine tear down. Did I get that right or maybe I assumed wrong on that.

PS- after reading this it looks like don't mess around with used cam/VVti's but if they are obsolete and not available- pray hard and cross fingers that job doesn't have to be done twice!

 

I thought for a while the TSB approach and in all honesty, IMO, these cars once they are past 100k, they are due for a major overhaul to prevent catastrophic breakdown like on this vehicle. Most scenarios will point to balance shafts, variable intake cam and timing chain/tensioner. Everything else will follow; water pump, walnut blasting, pcv valve, oil pump, DSG flywheel (and it will fail), in combination with rear main seal.
The oil consumption issue is due to faulty control rings from the factory. An engine that likes to run hot, is extremely sensitive to oil pressure, and then lets put crappy oil rings. And what they were thinking with such an overly engineered pcv system prone to failure, creates excessive internal pressure blowing the rear main seal. To me, these engines were meant for cold climates.
Not all is lost, this engine has one of the most durable short blocks. I was impressed none of the crank journals were scratched, none worn out (tested by a machine shop and I also bought the tools and confirmed the numbers).
When I dropped the oil pan looked like shrapnel, and then again the block was pristine, and I drove the car for at least 45 minutes with cracked rings, and a low oil pressure light and who knows how much the seller.
Then the engineers decide to put screens on almost every oil passage (I removed them all, cam bridge, fuel pump, balance shafts), making it the number one reason why the balance fail, they get clogged with dirt, instead of letting the oil filter and oil pump screen do its job.

The engine is a week in, *did two oil and filter changes (to remove any extra rtv sealant, metal shavings), and the engine is running well. Just completed changing the DSG fluid, 5 quarts of Liqui Moly and a new transmission filter. Coming out of a disastrous engine, was expecting sludge from the gear internals, and was I wrong. It looks like the previous owner did DSG services or this car was barely abused due to under powered faulty engine.


And yes, you are correct, someone had been in this engine before, missing brackets, covers, stripped bolts. I am willing to bet one overhaul was enough, and got rid of the car. I would say my only regret was I could have bought this car much cheaper, the recent smog inspection, and only low oil pressure light (thinking it was a sensor) threw me off and fell for it. This vehicle does not make sense, a dirty abs sensor will cause havoc and light up the panel like a christmas tree, but there is mechanical failure of the engine costing thousands of dollars in repairs and only one light is on.

Lexus needs to learn from VW on how to make automatic transmissions (because they shift so smooth and super fast with the classic DSG fart [brupp!] and VW needs to learn how to make engines from Lexus, ha ha!

 

German cars intended lifecycle is 60-100k miles, it's working perfectly as engineered