Ecotek valve in the 5GTT (from old site)

Ecotek valve in the 5GTT

contributed by Ian Simpson

My experiences with one.

I purchased an Ecotek valve a couple of years ago to see if it could help me increase the mpg from my 5GTT.

I still have it fitted but I don't use it at the moment. I'm not sure could say that it's right for this car really. With mine it exaggerates a problem with idle being a bit too slow or a bit too fast. It makes the car stall or idle very high. And the ECOTEK noise is OTT. Even with their Pipercross filter acting as a silencer and extra foam.

Initially it did seem to yield a better fuel economy in mixed motoring. At 28mpg it was the best I'd ever had by about 1mpg. That only lasted one tankful though as engine problems started to occur, probably not related to the Ecotek though, and the mpg got worse and worse. So I stopped using it. I found the fine gauze blocked up rather quickly and needed to be cleaned often. They sent me a new more open gauze to stop this, but the noise it made with this was much worse.

Marco from Enfield has one also, he seemed to think it might be of benefit, but a little difficult to say.

On manifold pressure of approaching zero, and on boost, it is, of course, shut, so not making any difference, which is different to a normally aspirated car.

At first I did also think it helped off boost acceleration as well, seemed like by quite a bit, but I think it might depend a bit on whether the fuelling is rich.

In short, I'm not sure really. But they offer your money back don't they? So that makes it worth a try, just in case. Their customer service does seem to have been good, for me anyway.

I fitted one to a Peugeot 406 turbo, and the car was reported to go faster, he liked it. But the MPG seemed to get worse!! At odds with Mr Ecotek Barclay Lamonts experience with a 406 turbo, apparently.

Also a pal has one on a Rover 25. He likes it. A definite improvement he told me.

Here's how I fitted mine:

I unscrewed the one way valve, that comes from the brake servo, from the rear of the manifold and cut back the servo rubber pipe by about 4 to 6 inches and refitted the one way valve there. Then, from that, a smaller diameter rubber pipe onto the Ecotec.Next I put the rubber 90° bend in that was cut from the original servo pipe and this is going onto a dummy one way valve (a standard one, cut open, internals removed, braised together) screwed to the manifold in the normal place.

This way the standard one way valve stops the servo from losing vacuum under boost but does not hamper the Ecotek, as the standard one way valves have quite a lot of resistance to air going through them. The Ecotek acts as a one way valve under boost but maybe not as well as the proper one. I'm not sure if the Ecotek reduces the vacuum in the brake servo.

Bit of a palaver really to do all that.

I wanted the Ecotek direct into the manifold as that may be the way to get it to be most effective, if it actually works at all, I'm not convinced. Just putting another standard 5GTT one way valve into the manifold may have the same effect!

Oct 2003

Ian S RTOC Profile https://www.rtoc.org/boards/images/bu...iend-small.gif