Vanagon progress

[witoke]

Thanks Chris, found 'em. I may have to contact them to figure out what will have the inlet/outlet in the correct place as a lot of their cans don't have drawings in the catalogue. But I'm sure they will have something.

And using Andrew's earlier post about needing about 1700 gpm at WOT it looks like a 250 cfm unit will give a nice margin.

Alex

[Luckypabst]

The model I bought was the G070020 with 3" in and out. It's a pretty big unit and is rated at 190 cfm at 10" water. I gave up on trying to match the air flow rating and figured that the 3" hose size is considerably larger than the OEM intake track and even more so than the compressor inlet.

For that series of air cleaners, you can get either a straight inlet or a 90 degree inlet that you can rotate to point in the right direction. Then you can spin the housing as needed to point the inlet where you need it.

Chris

[witoke]

Well, I've been busy the last few days: installed the Saab all aluminum IC in the drivers side pillar, made a fan shroud and installed a small fan, installed all the IC tubing and adjusted the wastegate almost all the way in to give me about 13 lbs of boost. (BOV disabled ages ago) Fan was done with a manual switch on the dash to avoid the complexity of thermostatic switches.

Hallelujah! In preliminary testing I can now use full or almost full throttle up hill and can barely get the EGT's to go over 1200 with no smoke I can see. It really seems to work. I know, I know, this has all been done and detailed before but it is still a pleasant surprise to test it and verify the result. Useable power at last.

I am taking the camper out for the weekend for a climbing trip so I'll see what it can do on the highway up hill. That was always what bugged me: there was plenty of power to keep a reasonable speed but EGT's would climb too high to use it on uphills.

I need to make or buy a manual boost controller I guess since I seem to max out at 13 psi. My goal is 15 psi. So finish the air intake, get the MBC going and tidy up a few things and I'll be done for now. I am probably going to have to rebuild the turbo at some point soon too since I am getting a lot of oil blowing into the cold side.

A long haul  and a lot of money from the original 1.6NA with it's 55mph max speed on the flat. Was it worth it? Probably not but I'd do it again...

Thanks to all on this great forum for going there first and making my job so much easier. If anyone else is planning something similar and is interested I can post photos once I get my camera back next week.

[blackdogvan]

We always want to see photos!!

[witoke]

Okay, still can't get the photo posting to work here so here's a link to the Flicker set with 8 pics of the van. Unless you want to look at 152 pictures of DC taken by my 12 y/o son on a school trip I suggest you just look at the van set!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26343906@N03/sets/

Did a 350 mile trip this weekend to go climbing. Bad timing for an outdoor weekend as a serious cold front blew through but the van behaved perfectly.

With wastegate screwed in most of the way I can hit 15 psi under full load, about 5-7 psi burbling down the highway at 70 mph (indicated). I can hold 70 up some pretty good hills with power to spare, EGT's seem to max out at 1250/1300 no matter what I do.  The van seems smoother (?) but is very much nicer to drive. Power to spare on the level and the van just feels much more relaxed. I can accelerate up long steady inclines and can hold highway speed without any trouble. Oddly enough given the results of the airflow tests, the fan made no difference to the EGT's. But it was bloody cold.

Engine temps stay low but I have not yet hooked up the oil temp gauge but will report on that once it's done. The trip was at 4000 to 7000 feet and I was able to make it up the rocky, steep and loose dirt road to our campsite in second gear rather than struggling in first as I did before.

Have not yet filled the tank but it looks as if I may be getting better mileage as well. This is what I thought I was getting with just the TD engine but soon discovered that the TD alone needed some help.

BTW I am presently running the intake with the original JX airbox sitting in the passenger pillar and a lot of PVC pipe to connect it all. I think I can use the JX airbox as is if I mount it vertically and run the intake up into the pillar.

So I am amazed at how well this has worked. Maybe a governor mod and then I'll have it dyno'd just to see where it stands. Any bets on 90 Hp?

[Luckypabst]

Nice! I'd love to see what kind of power you're making. My van is on vacation until I can put the interior back together...

Chris

[witoke]

Well this weekend was interesting. Went off for the w/e with a full load of three kids, two adults, water, camping and climbing gear and with a big chainsaw lashed to the Westy's luggage rack. There was a hellova storm front blowing through New Mexico so had to drive the 150 miles down with 30 mph winds. Haven't refilled tank to check fuel consumption yet.

The van was not very happy. I think the power and responsiveness I was feeling last trip must have been pretty close to the max for this little engine as it is currently set up. I had a hard time making 60 on the highway and could easily get EGT's to go above 1250 pushing a bit up hills.

I stayed at 1250 for the max but the van would run at 1200 with 10-12 lbs boost on the level when the wind was at it's worst. Going uphill was more an issue of slowing down and gearing down to cope. Any extra throttle raised EGT's up high again.

Now engine and oil temps stayed pretty cool and EGT's seemed to stall at 1300 rather than keep climbing as they used to pre-IC so it is still worlds better than it was originally. However the winds and the load made me realize that I am probably close to the max without going deeper and deeper into this van. I would still like a bit more if it is possible without too much expense....

Pump is stock and freshly rebuilt, injectors are freshly rebuilt, engine is just getting run in after a rebuild. Exhaust is 2.5 inch with a cherry bomb muffler.  Any ideas for that little extra? I am thinking 2.5 inch exhaust outlet for the turbo rather than the stock outlet necked up to 2.5 that I have now, shorter straight through pipe then maybe some pump mods? But I am unsure if any pump mods can  be done without just pushing EGT's too high again.

The quest continues....

[TurboJ]

Is the I/C getting enough cooling air?
I would look into that. Maybe an electric fan would help? They used to fit those on Saabs your I/C came from!
Water injection would be nice too. It can help lower EGT:s considerably.
And a good downpipe is a must on any tuned VAG TD engine.

[witoke]

I do have a fan, sealed on top of the IC with foam strips but it really doesn't seem to make any difference. It does seem a bit odd that it doesn't change it since previous posters have measured air flow down there and basically not found much, maybe I'll have to re-look at my set up. With the fan shroud but fan not running the airflow must be really minimal since the shroud blocks most of the IC.

Thanks for the idea though, I will need to try it without the fan and shroud and see what gives.  Certainly the turbo to IC pipe is hot and the IC to intake is cool after a good haul down the highway.

Water spray? I have read about it but I would prefer to get it running well without any other added gadgets. I'm hoping to find that ideal balance of fuel and air that will give me the power I want without any other add-ons. May not be possible though.

I'll start with getting the exhaust done and see how that goes.

[Luckypabst]

Exhaust would help, I'm sure. Mine is 2.25 start to end which is the same size as the turbo outlet. I probably should have gone with 2.5", looking back.

Turn up the boost. Give it a few more psi at least. You're not much over the stock setting and if you don't increase fueling, you should see a little less EGT.

Otherwise I'm of no help. Life crapped on me lately and I haven't had a chance to play with improving air flow through the IC yet, but it'll probably involve a low profile scoop to draw more are into the vent - I tried the Home Depot mixing tray but I don't think that's the look I'm after...

Chris

[witoke]

"Otherwise I'm of no help. Life crapped on me lately"

Sorry to hear that Chris but I will keep you posted on what I get going. I needed to re-do my exhaust anyway to put in a flex coupling so might as well go the whole way.

My experience with the fan suggests to me that airflow over the IC may not be too much of an issue when going reasonably fast. And if you're not going fast the IC is probably not having to do much anyway. Baxter in the UK posted that he found a big difference with and without the fan. Bit of a mystery this whole process is....

[Luckypabst]

I'm cool - I'm healing. Going to sleep in some sand dunes at 6am (and the events that lead up to that) yesterday really helped jump-start the healing process...

Women will come and women will go but the van goes on forever...

There's a local desert party coming up in May as a goal to at least have the Westy road-worthy again so things are looking up.

Carry on
Chris

[witoke]

Ah, that kind of problem...

Yeah, they can kick the sh*t out of you can't they.

Alex

[Luckypabst]

There's not much to update here...
The oil cooler and intercooler need help - I've seen oil temps to 270 on the 4000' climb to Horseshoe Meadows and nearly as much climbing Sherwin Grade out of Bishop.

But plans may be changing sometime soon. I put a deposit down on this today:


Chris

[Luckypabst]

Yep...
78,000 miles on it. I might need to find a nicer recipient than what I have on hand, but I would love to have a tuned TDi in my Westy.

I'm losing it - I bought a (hopefully) 50's vintage Monarch 10EE lathe, sight unseen two days ago.

Chris