The Project Pad

DE80q wrote:It will be nice for that trip to be getting almost 50mpg! I love this build, just wish I knew more about diesels, then maybe I could have attempted it.

This is my favorite car I have built to date.

Love it.

That is all.

Carry on.

Wow 50 mpg, same as my stock 1Z Golf 3, your build seems efficient

Foscora wrote:Wow 50 mpg, same as my stock 1Z Golf 3, your build seems efficient

Yes, I am very pleasantly surprised. These numbers have been calculated using actual mileage over known trips with points on google maps since my odometer just died. So I think the numbers are very accurate.

I think it must be getting good mileage because the 6th gear is quite high and keeps the rpms low, even at high speed, the big injectors have a very quick injection window at low demand, and thus are efficient when cruising, the larger turbo is less of a restriction when crusing.

Something I have noticed about diesels is that you seem to be able to beat on them very hard and the MPG basically remains the same over the entire tank. All the diesels I have owned are like this, you might be able to hypermile and get a tad more miles per gallon, or you can drive like a complete jackass and lose 3% of your mileage.

I ordered this oil cooler and the -10AN stuff to connect it. Pricey cooler, but I think this will make my car 100% rock steady for temperature, even when abusing it or sitting for hours in traffic. Something I want nailed down before my cross country road trip. Currently everything runs perfectly cool under most driving conditions, but I like to run it hard from time to time.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/der-15845

I will connect it with a sandwich plate
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hda-205

I don't have great airflow through my radiator at low speed. My setup only allows for a small fan that doesn't do much to cool when the temps get really hot and ground speeds are low. It doesn't ever overheat, but oil temps and coolant temps climb when beating the car hard over the mountain pass when the outside temp is in the 80's. It can take a while for them to come back down. The coolant temps are getting to around 212-220, not horrid but could be better. Oil temps get up to maybe 250-260. Again not a show stopper, but it should be better. You can watch oil pressure drop significantly after a hard beating.

I have the perfect spot for this little cooler behind the lower grill where it will get LOTS of fresh air. It should serve to remove the extra heat from both systems nicely since the factory oil cooler is cooled with engine jacket water. I will control the fans off the radiator fan circuit. I think this will keep my oil temps rock solid at 180 (the sandwich plate adapter is thermostatically controlled at 180) and also take some extra heat out of the coolant. Another bonus to leaving the factory coolant-to-oil heat exchanger is I will still get the advantage of a quick oil warmup in the winter. I think a TDI really needs this to get the oil up to temp in the winter, and removing that would create much longer oil temp warm up.

dana wrote:

DE80q wrote:It will be nice for that trip to be getting almost 50mpg! I love this build, just wish I knew more about diesels, then maybe I could have attempted it.

This is my favorite car I have built to date.

Diesels are simple.

Dana's diesel primer:
-Lots of compression, enough to heat air past the flash point of atomized diesel fuel.
-spray the fuel close to TDC. Spray as much in as quickly as possible before the piston reaches the bottom of the stroke. The farther down the piston is, the less time the fuel has to burn and the more smoke (and heat you get). This is why bigger pumps and injectors can actually be more efficient and make less smoke. Quicker injection = better (unless nozzles are so big that they dont atomize well).
-Provide enough air to burn all the fuel.
-as far as controls and wiring, its no different than swapping other VAG motors around. The diesel controls are real simple. Timing is controlled, fuel quantity is controlled. and glow plugs are controlled. I think thats about it. There are a handful of typical sensors to provide the necessary feedback to control fuel quantity and timing. Turbo can also be computer controlled, but its not in my setup.

Since diesels are fuel throttled and run on knock you can add more boost without worry. No point in adding more than the fuel you have available as it just heats things up and provides more exhaust manifold pressure to overcome. In fact, I find that raising boost pressure to a diesel without adding more fuel does little if anything to generate more power.

This car is in its own class of awesomeness. An incredible build. That mileage will only improve, exceeding anything my car can muster.

dana wrote:Something I have noticed about diesels is that you seem to be able to beat on them very hard and the MPG basically remains the same over the entire tank. All the diesels I have owned are like this, you might be able to hypermile and get a tad more miles per gallon, or you can drive like a complete jackass and lose 3% of your mileage.

Mmmh not really, I've experienced many diesels by now (pro-diesel country ftw ) your observations are not 100% true.

That's true for many VAG TDIs, but some other cars won't.
I never found the reason, whether it's due to the weight of the car, type of injection or whatsoever, some cars will just drink way more fuel when flooring them

For example, this is true for :
Golf 2 1.6D
Golf 3 1Z
Golf 4 AHU
Caddy ALH
Golf 5 1.9TDI 105
BMW 320D E46

But this is untrue for :
Ford Focus 1.8TDDI ~20% less autonomy
BMW 525TDS ~30% less autonomy
Citroen Xantia 1.9D/TD (< these are the worse, you can do 40mpg driving normal ... but 18 when driving like an ass)
Opel Vectra 2.0 DTI ~20% less autonomy
VW Multivan 2.5 TDI 174 ~30% less autonomy


I'd say, bigger & elder engines on the biggest cars are the worse in that case, but there are counter-examples

Awesome build Dana. If you ever sell...... lol

I took my mileage from ~800km per tank to ~1300 in my beetle. From when I bought it to when I swapped it. I think it was a combination of driving style change as well as maintenance/upgrades.

That being said, my 04 Jetta (BEW) is a fucking asshole and will only do 900-1000km no matter what. I've changed cam timing, tried to get it as hot as possible, etc etc etc. I'm not a fan of the BEW, i wish i waited to get an ALH. But I have it now and I drive it twice a week so I fill up like once a month.

a little project car refinement got out of hand..

I had planned to install a cam and lifers and an oil cooler. When I pulled the cam I saw a couple lifters with abnormal wear. I decided I should pull the head and make sure there was no piston to valve contact. I still had the wimpy factory valve springs, and it seemed like a real possibility that they flutter open under high boost.

Once the head was off, I found no evidence at all, but decided to port the head.

Then I decided I needed to install my new 240mm DMF and clutch, so I may as well pull the motor. So with the motor out I have a list of things to do.There were several issues I discovered
-only two of the 4 intake manifold bolts were never tightened!!
-there was a small bit of metal that looks like part of a hole boss in the timing belt cover that had gone through the timing belt and was sitting in the bottom!
-the main timing belt cog was a bit worn on the crank and causing timing deviation.
-the head needs porting
-both of my motor mounts were ripped out
-I want to change the bulkhead fitting in the oil pan for the turbo drain to a welded AN fitting
-the intermediate shaft bearings are a little worn, not a deal breaker, but "while I'm in there"
-adding a lift pump to the fuel system
-power steering pump is noisy
-adding a bigger cam and dual valve springs

Plus I still have paint work to do on the passenger side. Sucks to not be driving the car. I was really digging daily driving it, but it will be nice to iron out all these details. I hope that the car will run lower EGT's, smoke less and have more top end power. I also hope the new flywheel can handle the torque and not bottom the springs out.

Heres to hoping

Wow, I would say it got a little out of hand... the question I have is, how were you making the boost you were with a loose intake manifold?

DE80q wrote:Wow, I would say it got a little out of hand... the question I have is, how were you making the boost you were with a loose intake manifold?

Both end bolts were tight still, it was mostly sealed. It probably leaked some when it got hot. Either way, not good, and pretty bone headed!

Is it back together?

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scubagli wrote:Is it back together?

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yes. Had it running well for 30 minutes to break in the cam. Took it on a test drive. It was running great for about 10 minutes and it started shitting out quite badly under load. Like it did way back when I had the timing really retarded. Except this time, injection timing is dead on. No codes.

Swapped entire injectors out for a spare set, no change.

Checked compression, all cylinders 460-480.

Cam and lifters look perfect

Cam timing dead on.

It would seem like I have a pump issue or a restricted fuel supply. Honestly I am just kind of over it at the moment. I'll get my motivation back.

I probably dumped 100 hours and untold dollars into it this month and let other life priorities slip.

At least the new clutch flywheel and starter seem to be good.

Its probably something simple. Ether a fuel supply issue, bad pump or a wiring issue.

A miracle has been performed by diesel purge. I think the timing piston was stuck in the pump. Running like a champ now. Looks like it's time to upgrade to an 11mm pump.

Thanks for the ride in Burlington, fun car.

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Good to meet your Steve, glad you enjoyed the car.

I've been dailying it all week, and it is great. The last round of updates were a good success. The new clutch drives very nicely, and the bad DMF shuddering when rolling into the torque in high gears is gone. Oil and coolant temps run much cooler, EGT's are cooler, the car pulls harder up top and runs better in general. I still have no lift pump, and I can feel and see the timing dropping off at exactly 3500 rpm. My lift pump should help this, and 11mm pump would help too.

Get the lift pump in, pull some logs, send them to the guy who wrote your chip and get a new one burned....

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The final set of refinement is almost done in preparation for my 2 week cross country trek to BBQ with the TDIq. This round I have done a ton of little and annoying tasks that have taken me about 3 weeks to work through. The car is looking like a nicely polished turd, no more rust spots, trim all in place, body panel seams all reasonably correct.

-Added lift pump, running off factory fuel pump relay, using a second relay that grounds the signal pin and is triggered off the fuel stop solenoid. This works perfect, it primes the pump for 5 seconds or so and then runs permanently when crank motion is sensed.
-replaced driver side door lock cylinder, swapped tumblers into new OEM lock assembly so the ignition key still opens the drivers door. I also had to rewire the door harness as the power lock trigger wire was broken in the drivers door accordion
-fix intermediate shaft oil leak
-change trans fluid
-pull out dents in rocker panel and pinch welds and recoat the rocker panels
-remove passenger fender, repaint lower half (under mid trim and down)
-replace idler pulley on serp belt
-ordered spare belts for trip
-replace rear diff, mine had a noisy bearing on the driver side
-replace snub mount rubber, TDI ate the old one
-run some diesel purge through the pump
-change fuel filter
-repaint valve cover (very important)
-fix intermittent wipers, not sure exactly whats wrong here. Probably just nasty dried grease in the contacts of the motor assembly, or maybe the relay.
-replaced the small odometer gear, had the typical chipped tooth.

I also bought an 11mm fuel pump from an automatic ALH TDI, which I think will be an excellent upgrade to this engine, but that will not be installed before the trip. Others have reported much better power delivery on similarly modded engines. It delivers 20% more fuel and has a more aggressive cam plate, which should deliver more power, less smoke and lower EGT’s with correct tuning. I think I am pretty much at the limit of my 10mm pump now.

I am AMPED about driving across country in an old audi, its literally been a dream for as long as I’ve been into these cars. Hope she makes it!

Approximate map of trip. I may return a little more south and cruise up through the mountains in West Virginia.

Planning on spending a couple days in Bryce Canyon Hiking on the way out and A couple in Zion on the way back.

Man, that is going to be on hell of an awesome road trip!!

That's going to be a fun trip! I'd love to do that one day, but the wife and kids makes that a tough proposition anymore.

jretal wrote:That's going to be a fun trip! I'd love to do that one day, but the wife and kids makes that a tough proposition anymore.

I have a little bit of a lull right now in life, and its the perfect time to do this before some major re-work starts happening on the homestead.

85oceanic wrote:Man, that is going to be on hell of an awesome road trip!!

that is what I am thinking! Hope to see you and your car there!

Glad that pump went to something useful

If you were traveling through Fort Wayne I'd offer you a place to stay.

Safe travels!!

Thanks for the offer Mike, we will be blasting through your area mid-day on day 2 I think, heading for a campground in nebraska for night 2.

the time for my long awaited old audi roadtrip has come. We leave tomorrow at 0700, and drive towards Vegas for Battleborn and general adventure. Some hiking and camping in national parks along the way. I am beyond excited, I have wanted to do this for as long as I could drive.

I have ferreted out many trivial issues in the last month.
-odometer fixed
-rear diff changed
-all new fluids
-lift pump added
-body work done
-rust fixed
-etc etc etc

A quick tape measure alignment tonight, and we are ready. Car is running strong and healthy, and hope to make it 6000 miles trouble free.

I have spare alternator, spare belts, full size spare tire, tire plugs, compressor, tool kit, coolant repair tape, extra fuel lines, random hardware, extra wire, mulitmeter etc. Should be good to go.