Just a few general questions regarding an ALH

[Smokey Eddy]

I recently acquired the responsibility (and possibly ownership) of my parents very very early 2000 TDI Golf.
It's been babied all it's life. regular dealer services until last year or so. Saw 1 mechanic (when the car went into limp mode due to the EGR) who almost ruined it but after that the dealer fixed it.
It has 235,000km.

It was made in Germany in 1999 but sold in 2000.
The only mechanical work that has ever been done on it are a dead glow plug or two (im astonished at how few) and the intake had to be cleaned out a few times and obviously the limp mode that is associated with that event.

I'm interested in deleting the EGR and any other tips advice that gets thrown at me.
If needed, i'm prepared to do a full tear down and rebuild but of course if its not necessary i want to avoid that.

I'm not looking for much extra power at all.
I'll happily weld a new/bigger exhaust for it. Nozzles and ecu are a consideration and POSSIBLY propane shots just for fun but not likely.
If i do those things I'll definitely add an EGT, boost and oil pressure gauge. I'm not looking to do anything like swap turbos or route a better inter cooler or anything like that. After all, I still have my AAZ to further bastardize.
(which is funny because its currently out of order... again...)

I'm expecting injectors or at least nozzles are a good idea along with maybe lifters?
I'll have to look when the timing belt was done and all that good stuff but im thinking a little more serious. Lifters, injectors, internal pump parts perhaps? Common electrical replacements...

[nathan_b]

Do a timing belt before you do any mods.
Don't do propane injection on a stock engine, it's dumb

[BigVWman]

Nozzles, Programming on ecu and turbo upgrades are usually in the first batch of upgrades. The tdi's seem really quiet so you can just about get away with a straight pipe exhaust. As was mentioned though timing belt first always! Instead of deleting egr you can tune its frequency WAY down in vag com.

[Smokey Eddy]

Awesome! Thanks guys. T belts are easy peasy. It has had them done with water pump every 40k.

[8v-of-fury]

Ed, talk to catlin about injectors. He just ordered a set from Giles, .205's I think. Those along with a Chip/Tune and you'll be well over 130hp and 225tq. For about $1000 total. If you only want to do one of those two, I'd suggest at the the Tune.. As the new software can still make amazing power gains out of all the stock equipment. Might want to do the clutch too if your thinking of upping the torque by %75

I had a convo with Vince on the topic of removing the EGR as I was gonna do it while my motor is mid-swap and I had the intake off the clean it out anyhow... He advised me not to, as it was the sulphur in the old diesel that caused the build up of soot in the intake.. Now on ULSD the build up will either take forevvvver or not happen all together, plus it throws a CEL if you don't have it there.

[coke]

There is an EGR adjustment you can make with VCDS/Vag-Com to effectively turn the EGR off. We did it on my father's 98 and his intake is spotless, after 120k miles.

[Smokey Eddy]

This is all great stuff. Thanks guys.

[8v-of-fury]

Also not that this isn't a great site, but TDiclub gets quite a bit more visitors and action.. Ed you may be better off asking these there as well if you haven't already

[BigVWman]

TDi club is a wealth of info but IMO the folks here are more friendly and easy going, open to new ideas and discussions.The tdi club tends to be a bit "stuffy" !

Just to clarify, that does not mean they(tdi club) aren't knowledgeable as the there are some real knowledgeable folks there, its just they aren't very open to solutions that aren't by the book, or don't use oem parts, or "good enough".