So, I'm working on my injectors for the 100th time and buying heat shields by the gross. I noticed that some of them have been leaking like they never sealed. I believe that I solved that problem by lapping the nozzle face so it was dead nuts smooth. Always looking to improve things, I heard that the mercedes nozzles were the trick set-up. I bought a set from Prothe & installed them. It pulls strong from about 75 mph on up but seems "softer" down below. The stock nozzles seem to have more snap & pull harder. Anyway, I was checking out some mercedes sites and saw that their shields had a bigger hole in them. I have a 300TD lying around the shop (doesn't everyone?) and pulled an injector from it. Sure looks the same to me. Matched the two shields and they look the same as well except for the hole. Do they know something we don't?
Also, just for fun, I pop tested the mercedes and it cracked at 1900 psi. The VW goes at 2245. Both are turbos

Has anyone done a swap?
I haven't ever seen anything on here about this. If you try it out please post results!
How many hp/L or ft-lbs/L does a 300td produce?
What other work have you done to your truck? Why do you think having a bigger hole in a heatshield would be beneficial? Wouldn't it be less effective at it's intended purpose-to shield the injector/nozzle from heat?
I don't believe that the hole diameter would have any effect whatsoever as long as the spray pattern was not affected. since it apparently is not with the smaller hole, then there should be no change with the larger hole. It's not like a depth change either, as the outer ring is the same thickness and is the ultimate travel stop. What I was getting at is the quality of seal on the injector face I have had a few seal failures even though they were properly torqued. That seemed to disappear after I lapped the nozzle faces so the slightest amount of irregularity seems to be enough to cause failure. I was wondering if the larger diameter hole somehow provided a better seal and if so, why not use them instead? I don't have a picture to post but they look even larger than the "ford" ones shown.
I find it astounding that anything has to be lapped as there should be no movement after the initial torque. I could see some smearing form assembly but the marking looks more like erosion related. Nonetheless, it happens and apparently the trick set-up is to get them spiffy smooth so that there is an almost molecular bond between the parts. (see wringing in a machinist book). I have always heard that it was a felony to re-use the seals. I thought that like head bolts, that once used, that was it. I didn't think that there was any spring back and regardless, how would you know? If you ran them & checked again, you would know if they had worked or not but would you re-re-use them again? They're only a buck apiece. There's a point where you can be too cheap. As for annular contact pressure, your first picture shows different contact points so it seems that there is variation between "identical" parts. I agree about the actual psi at the contact point and a smaller hole would have a higher pressure and therefore a better seal. So why does Mercedes use the bigger one. If the V-dub ones are better for the aforementioned reasons, then why not standardize? Now there's a question about heat shielding. (Is it a shield or a seal?) There is an obvious dead air space but how much temperature differential is there? How much change is there between big hole and little hole nozzles? None of the nozzles get high enough to effect any metallurgical changes so is this a detriment? I'd opt for the hotter one myself. Hotter fuel has better atomization and better burning. I run my SVO at 170* and there's no difference in performance but anything below 140* ran like crap.
This may all be invalid if there's an appreciable difference between the two pre-chambers. I don't have that information. Maybe next time I'll just do it and see what happens.
The wringing fit was referring to the face of the upper housing and the cup between that and the injector. Unless the seal were to be lapped too that type of fit won't happen. I tried the ball bearing reset on the shields mainly because I hate to throw out something that can be re used. I used a washer on the backside for consistent distortion and then lapped it to (a) determine how much offset I created and (b) to get rid of the raggedy edge for better sealing. But then I remembered, it's just a buck. I'm not convinced that there is that much of a heat issue. The flame front propagates away from the nozzle and the mixture is incredibly rich in the pre-chamber so that most of the violence occurs at the piston, which it should.