Pulled my bonnet/hood today to check oil and noticed a small black pipe (blue arrow) running horizontally along the front frame of the car ,just above the fan. As you can see from the pictures there's a plastic type cylinder to the right of the rad.(red arrow) The small pipe goes into the top of this and runs along the front frame, but to where. Think it has to push into something, any ideas. Can someone pull their hood and see, thanks.
And another point , this last few days on start up there is a whining nose from my drivers side engine bay. This sound seems to be coming from down behind where the air filter is, in that direction. It does it for about half a minute then stops , not sudden but like a fan slowing down. It a noise that i would say is between a fan/hoover.

 

Find it strange that no one can open their hood a see if this pipes goes somewhere or does it just fix along the frame, maybe they've all disappeared.

 

I've had a hunt through the workshop manual, and I can't identify it, but there's a lot to look at and we don't know what system it's part of. Not much point looking at my car, sorry, because it's a 5.0 (and, anyway, it's dark outside...).

 

Mine is an '07 XKR as well but I don't have the pipe or that cylinder on mine although it is a Japanese import. There is a bracket which I suspect your cylinder is attached to and there is a bolt hole on the cross beam but I don't have whatever those bits are.

I had to remove the engine cover to take the photo so that may be why you aren't getting much help.

 

Hey Mate,
No joy from me, although mine's an '08. Just thought, I'd take a peek anyway. My area there is entirely vacant.
Good Luck....

 

So unable to assist as it does not exist on my car, sorry.

 

if it isn't on some cars i must have a mystery part.

 

It looks like some kind of vacuum canister but don't know what for. Maybe for the headlight washers to pop up .

 

Think I've found it: the 'tank' is the secondary air injector vacuum reservoir. Here's what the SAI system does:

The reservoir sits between the intake manifold and the SAI switching valve, with a one-way valve to keep the vacuum from being lost when the intake manifold is not at low pressure. It ensures there is always a source of vacuum to operate the SAI control valve, even when the throttle is closed and there's no vacuum in the intake.

So, that reservoir should have a connection to the inlet manifold, and another to the SAI switching valve. It's hard to tell from the diagram, but i think the pipe that runs along the frame is the one that should connect to the inlet manifold.

 

That critter sounds like what we called, in the 70s, a smog pump.

 

As always Ngarara your a mind of information, i have tried to see what it pushes into but can't see anything, it must be on a UK xkr, puzzling, maybe that's why i'm getting a bit of a whine noise on start up, like air, further investigation needed.

 

Also, a good reason to determine where that pipe terminates, is for engine engine performance. A vac leak in an engine can cause for performance woes.
A vac leak in a aspirated engine makes them difficult to tune, the idle is not steady etc.
Happy hunting.....

 

Yes, if the outlet pipe from the reservoir is open, then the manifold can suck outside air via the reservoir. Also, with the SAI system not working, you'll get more smoke on startup, and the cat converters won't heat to operating temperature as quickly.

I can't see where the hell that connection goes to - most of the other vacuum pipes go to the induction elbow connector, which is the tube between the throttle body and the supercharger, so that would be somewhere to look.

 

Had a look today. The pipe goes under the engine cover and into a small gizmo(technical term lol)where another one of the same size emerges. I have a pic.

 

The front of the car is on the right of the pic. The pipe comes from right to left and connects just below the flexi pipe,then the other one emerges and connects to the device in the bottom rh of pic.
Hope that helps

 

I replaced the SAI on my daughters BMW recently. Not sure if this is the same as yours but when it was failing it would make a whining noise. Made the engine sound like it had a jet turbine starting up when cold. It lasted for about 40secs then switches off. Its all to do with the emission control system. When it finally fails it will light up the engine check light. I wondered if it was disconnected on purpose because it too was failing??

 

I remember seeing this vacuum reservoir thingy on a later model S-Type R and wondering what the hell it was.

Now I know.

If that hose is not connected then you will have a vacuum leak which is making that noise I guess, unless someone disconnected it on purpose and plugged the fitting.

 

The device at the bottom RH is the SAI switching valve - it's an electrically operated valve (controlled by the ECM) that turns on & off the vacuum supply to the SAI control valve. The control valve is the one that actually feeds air into the exhaust manifolds.

The switching valve has two vacuum connectors - i think the upper one (closest to the electrical connector) goes to the control valve, and the lower one to the vacuum reservoir.