Vanagon progress

[witoke]

Congratulations on the Beatle. I am beginning to think that the TDI is the way to go for vans, especially campers. Now that it's summer I have discovered that my 1.6 just cannot cope with the heat unless I baby it along. Bear in mind my van now has a IC with fan, oil cooler, rebuilt radiator etc etc. I just struggle to keep temps anywhere near reasonable when the van is under load, like a long pass or a stiff headwind. Drops right back to normal on the downhill slope. I am beginning to think these engines just put out too much heat pushing a van around.

Cooler nights are better but it still has to be driven gently to prevent it getting hot. My opinion, for what it's worth is that the 1.6 turbo in a van is fine for a freight hauler around German cities but it is not a highway vehicle at US speeds and especially not in the south west in summer. When it's 100 F out it is not a happy engine.

I have a few tests to run to see if my oil cooler is affecting oil pressure and to plug the old coolant lines for the oil cooler to see if that helps but I think I may have fried my engine in the early days before I got an EGT gauge. The max hot oil pressure I see is 25 psi, 12/13 at idle. If that's the case I shall probably put it up for sale as is. I have a big 10 year boat-building project coming to a end and just don't have the energy to mess with this van anymore if it is a bad motor.

[witoke]

So the plot thickens: I bypassed the oil cooler to test the oil pressure and got much better readings. Highway speed with the engine at normal temps (mid-point on the gauge) gives me 40-50 psi, idle is the same at about 12 psi, peak at 70 if I rev the nuts off it. But after getting it hotter by doing a good freeway hill at 95 F  outside temp the engine coolant temps went up to the 3/4 line and the oil pressure dropped to the 25 psi level. Need to fit my oil temp sender and gauge and try to correlate all this. After a 20 minute drive back down the hill and through town to home my oil temps were 97 C/ about 200 F. Using an IR thermometer to measure. But a question came up:

Is it possible I am running lean? I wonder if the governor is not cutting fuel as the engine starts to load up with a hill, giving me the high EGT's. I know very little about this motor and IP set-up apart from what I have gleaned on here. It seems to me that as boost starts to rise, the governor starts to cut fuel which would result in the mixture being lean

I have a spare JX pump so I'll practice the governor mod on that and they try mine for real. Anyway as the motor seems to be fine I guess I have to sort this out one way or the other even if I do decide to sell it.

[blackdogvan]

I know the feeling, i'm making th switch to the tdi page this fall... .216's, 11mm pump (on the fence as to send it to Ontario...) GT2056V, bigger IC, 4.57's....

Have itch... must scratch. 

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

[witoke]

thanks for the reply Reiney,

I am taking it back to the shop Monday to have it looked at again. I am pretty dammed frustrated at this stage. I did have the radiator re-cored, all new pipes including the SS tubes under the van, new water pump and thermostat etc. I guess it's good to know that these little 1.6 td motors can work in a van but I am baffled as to what is going on with this one. I know my IC works, it lowers intake air at least 40c but even so it will overheat.

I was on the way to Chama from Abq 2 weeks ago and barely made it up La Bajada with the temp needle all but pegged. Can you run yours for any length of time with EGT's above 1100 without the engine overheating?

Alex

[Luckypabst]

My biggest problem is oil temperature right now. Boosting above about 12 - 13 psi for extended periods results in rapid oil temp rise, to as much as 270 degrees. I need to either go back to the OEM cooler or add a fan to my aux cooler or both.

Second to that is water temp, but only on loooong grades (the 15+ mile grades up the mountainside). Still though, the needle only ever reaches about halfway between the LED and the red zone.

I keep EGTs to no more than 1200 - 1250 under a load. But once the oil heats up, it's the oil temp that keeps me off throttle...

The intercooler needs a fan too so my EGTs could potentially be lower in the future.

Chris

[Otis2]

Lucky, I can't remember, did you delete your stock oil/water "cooler" when you added the oil/air cooler? 

If so, maybe experiment with putting it back on, while keeping the oil/air system in place, too.

Lots of chatter around the web to suggest that the original oil/water cooler doesn't cool the oil much (and mostly acts to warm it on cold days).  However, I did not find that to be the case in my own experiments.  When running only the oil/air cooler, the oil temps were much worse than they were when running just the stock oil/water cooler. 

I'm now running both the oil/water cooler and an oil/air cooler in my van.  In fact, I upgraded the stock oil/water cooler to a much larger one from a Passat PD.  This current dual-cooler system keeps oil temps in check much better than just having one or the other type of cooler in place.

[Luckypabst]

I did delete the OEM cooler. I do need to swap back and see what the difference is - I just haven't been to interested in dealing with the oil hoses. Right now I'm leaning toward a TDi cooler and calling it done. There's not been much drive to work on the Westy lately...
Chris

[Otis2]

Instead of swapping back, consider just adding the OEM (or TDi) cooler to your current air/oil cooler.

It makes a bit of an ugly stack on the oil filter spike, I suppose.  More potential for leaks.  Mine has a slow weep, which I'll get around to eventually, maybe.

Photos are a bit awkward to take in that location, but you get the idea.  Mine is a 15* install, 1.9 TD.

[arb]

Is it possible I am running lean? I wonder if the governor is not cutting fuel as the engine starts to load up with a hill, giving me the high EGT's. I know very little about this motor and IP set-up apart from what I have gleaned on here. It seems to me that as boost starts to rise, the governor starts to cut fuel which would result in the mixture being lean

Only gassers can run "rich" or "lean" from "normal" - they require the gas / air mixture to be about 17.5 : 1 for the engine to run (stoichiometric ratio) . They control power therefore by limiting the amount of air into the engine (and the accompanying ratio of gas.) Less fuel = lean, more fuel than that = rich. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-fuel_ratio

Diesels on the other hand, always allow the max air the engine speed / turbo pressure can pack in the cylinder (except for the newest diesel designs with a throttle plate for emission control). We control power by injecting more or less fuel. If we inject too much too quickly, you get black smoke, inject less and you get less power. Some would say we are always lean.

Your temps are similar to my 1.6 turbo - in IC is not installed yet, but the IC loop is and has some cooling effect.

[Rabbit on Roids]

I would add also, that running "leaner" on a diesel means running cooler.  If you are adequately intercooled, then increasing boost while keeping fueling the same will always LOWER temperatures due to the "leaner" mixture.

Andrew

P.S.  Arb, gasser stoich is 14.7:1

thats what i thought, couldnt remember if it was 13.7 or 14.7 tho.

[witoke]

Thank you for the information, Arb, Andrew and 'roids. There goes that theory anyway but each piece of knowledge I gain helps a little. I'll know more after Mondays exam by the mech. that did all the work originally. But if nothing else I just bought a bleeder valve for boost control so I'll try stuffing 20 psi in there and see what happens.

[witoke]

Turns out that I have a split boot on the intake. On the Jx it's the odd shaped, stepped rubber coupler on the intake from the air filter that just fits between the engine mount and the turbo. And my turbo is also now leaking tons of oil so I need to find that boot, (or some other way of doing it) and get the turbo rebuilt then we can start to play with the other variables to see what is causing the overheating.

Mechanic did check the water pump impeller for slipping, the thermostat  and the water pump flow. All seem to be okay.

[witoke]

Thanks Andrew but since I bought the motor from them originally and was less than impressed by their honesty or the quality of their "good, used engines" I think I'd rather not ever deal with them again. I wouldn't trust them any further than I could throw one of their engines. 

I may have to get someone in the UK to get one for me or just bite the bullet and get one of the Grease Works motor mounts and try it to see if it will give me a straight shot at the turbo inlet.

[Luckypabst]

I do plan to knock out a pile of those brackets but it won't be terribly soon - but I do think the price will be a bit nicer. I need to hunt down an affordable phase converter and one of the second generation engine mounts so I can adjust my jig to work with both styles.

I've seen the boots from time to time on Ebay. Hit up that seller that's in Bonn, Germany - I know I've seen him advertise them on US Ebay several times.

Chris

[Luckypabst]

I'm concerned about clearance between the head of the mount bolt and my angle bracket on the end of the arm. It may work as-is but I need to verify...

Chris