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When I originally bought my Golf 5 GTI, I did not know of any major issues with these engines. I did in the earlier days come across a post of people warning about the Fuel pump cam followers failing. I didn’t really take note of it until one of my friends had to replace his. He had an Audi with a 2.0-liter TFSI engine.
I started to worry about my engine as I have never had the follower out to inspect it. This is now before I started any om my mods to the engine. The Golf 5 GTI had approximately 140000 km on the clock. Everywhere I read it sounded like a really easy job to inspect or even change out the follower. As I had a feeling that my follower was going to be worn I went ahead and ordered a new one.
The agents didn’t have one in stock so I had to wait about 2 days to get one from the factory. I could not believe that the agents would not have any in stock. If this is a problem part on the TFSI engines surely they should keep stock of these CAM Followers? Sure VW must make the inspection of the followers part of a service routine.
First inspection of my TFSI cam follower
I finally received the cam follower from VW. Surely it turned to be a fairly easy job to take the pump out. There were two pipe setups on the TFSI high-pressure fuel pumps. The older version had 2 stainless hard lines one was pressure and the other a return line. On the newer versions, the return line was a soft hose. The newer version was very easy to work with as you didn’t even need to disconnect the line. You only had to crack open the pressure line nut and loosen 3 bolts and the pump came out. On the older version, you had to loosen both stainless pipes. The return line had a banjo bolt you had to loosen with a torques bit.
With my luck I had the older version, everything was easy except the banjo bolt. Access to the bolt was really bad. I got the pump out and pulled out the follower.
The Cam follower was stuffed, the center of the follower was paper-thin. If I have left this the follower would have worn through and I would have a messed up pump and cam as well. At this point, the cam already had some damage to it. The cam lobe is ground with a slight angle on it, you will not notice it with your eyes. The function of the angle is to make the bucket spin. This makes that the lobe does not push on the same spot every time. What happens is if you get to the point that the follower is worn like in the above picture the engine will run fine with a new follower but you will have to check the follower more frequently. By frequently I mean every service.
So what are the different stages of the follower wear?
The above picture shows you the different stages of follower wear and when you should change it out. The follower bucket comes with a DLC (Diamond Like Coating) on it. This coating is extremely hard, but if the cam lobe had been damaged the coating will wear off and the damage begins.
Fitting an upgraded High-Pressure Fuel Pump
When you want to modify your TFSI beyond the stage 2 mark then you have to fit an upgraded high-pressure fuel pump like an Autotech or an APR pump. With these pumps, you will be running in the region of 130 bar fuel pressure. They will load up the cam follower more. You will have to do inspections of the follower every 10000 km. If you have an already worn cam that number will reduce to 5000 km. In my case, I had to check my cam follower every 5000 km as I was running stage 3 software. I actually had to replace the follower every 5000 km.
Although I really enjoyed the drive the cost of replacing these followers every 5000 km started to get to me and I had to make a plan.
So what options were out there?
After some research, I found a few companies that made aftermarket followers with holes drilled in different locations, different thicknesses. But the result was the same or even worse than the standard follower. I then found a company in Canada that makes an adapter kit so you can run the TSI roller follower on a TFSI engine. I did some further research on the internet and found that the EA888 2.0 TSI cam follower by design was better. It had a built-in needle bearing that the camshaft fuel lobe rode on as opposed to a bucket that rotates about the lobe axis.
I got in contact with the company iABED, to get some pricing. It turned out the pricing was a bit on the rough side as you had to get a new VVT cover on the side of the engine that is machined to take the adapter. The adapter does not just fit.
I spoke to Issam at iABED and arranged with him just to supply me with the adapter for the follower. I had access to a machine shop so I had my VVT housing machined so that the adapter will fit. The only things I had to buy were a TSI follower from the agents, and 2 new o-rings one for the adapter and one for the fuel pump. This reduced the cost of the kit by a lot.
Want to do this upgrade? Check out the following link.
iABED Industries TSI Cam Follower Conversion Kit – With Black Anodized Adapter: Eliminate your FSI’s failure-prone cam follower once and for all! .The outcome of the installation.
After the kit was installed I primed the fuel pump and got the car started, the engine wasn’t making any funny sound so I was happy. I took the car for a drive and the car performed the same way it did before the installation. I was happy this was a proper fix for the cam follower wear problem on the TFSI engines. After I did the next 20000 km I took the pump out again for inspection. The follower was still looking brand new. The cam lobes looked the same way as the last time I had the pump out. There were no new wear marks. This was a great fix and I would recommend this to anyone that has a modified TFSI engine.
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