S8 Inlet manifold flaps inspection

[Delboy]

So some of you will be aware some of the first D3 S8's off the production line have had problems with inlet manifolds, there are plenty of stories of the flaps getting broken in the inlet manifold.

I too drive an early edition of the S8 so idle hands led me to have a look to see how things were today, thankfully mine are ok at present.

The following images and videos give you and idea of what to do to inspect them and how to go about it.

You will need to remove both air inlet ducts from the throttle bodies, like in the following two photo's



Separate the crankcase breather hose from the fine oil separator and remove the vacuum lines and disconnect the wiring from both throttle bodies.



There is a couple of screws that are not immediately obvious one being slightly obscured by a bracket that holds the wiring loom behind the engine and the other is the bracket that secures the oil separator to the throttle body bracket.



You can see now with the plenum removed the locations of the bolts.



Images of a good set of flaps



And an image of a broken set from the same perspective.



Once I established that mine were not hanging down like the above image I then recorded a video with the Output test selected for the flap change over, Cant remember exactly what it was called but you have to cycle through a set of sequential test until you get to it in Module 01 output tests.

See attachments for video.

[Conquistador]

Thanks for that.

You say early S8s but how early are we talking? What would be the long term effects of not acting on a seized manifold?

[Delboy]

The old manifold was dropped on 1/8/2008 so if your build date was close to that time you may already have the revised manifold.

You ask about seized flaps, are yours stuck?

Come up for another breakfast meet and I'll have a look inside yours if you want.

[Conquistador]

December 2007 I think mine was built.

That would be good if you could! I tried a few months ago thinking it was a 10 minute job and thought I'd inspect the air filters at the same time but soon realised it's definitely not a quick job to tackle

[1781cc]

Mines a facelift, registered 14-01-2008, was this manifold update introduced with the facelift or as a separate thing post build?

Thanks for the tread, very helpful!

[Delboy]

I couldn't say, the date I provided is from Etka parts databases