I bought a weird one today

[Smoker]

It's got some problems that I'm hoping are electrical, but it's getting me home, and smelling like fries the whole way. The level of hacked/homemade has me in awe.

[745 turbogreasel]

I bet you can find at least 2 air leaks as well.

It may look  like coblbed home made junk,  but there is a good chance it's part of an overpriced kit made from bottom of the barrel Autozone parts

[Wayland]

That copper heat exchanger's got to be worth a few bucks.

[CRSMP5]

pretty lights..... do they twinkle too?

[ORCoaster]

Oh MY!  Usually it is the mess from the oil itself that makes folks shudder.  Exchanger looks well built even if a bit unconventional.  Pipe in pipe I expect.  Not really saving the heat in the oil that way being on top of the engine when the fan kicks in.  I can only imagine the switches for the valves.  I used a DPDT rocker that went right in a hole on the dash next to the hazard switch.  You have to know what it does to make it work.  I added gauges and a secondary pump to the back tank and I don't think I came close to using that much space.  To each there own. 


Oh and the hose madness is truly a work of art. 

[Smoker]

there is a good chance it's part of an overpriced kit

Nope. He told me in great detail how he pieced it together from stuff he had lying around at work. This guy is CHEAP. When the ignition switch failed... toggle switch. Glow plugs... toggle switch. Secondary tank in the spare tire well? Nope...



Just a one-gallon tank from Walmart stuffed under the hood. I'm tellin ya, it was a hack job.

[745 turbogreasel]

I pieced mine together mostly from spares, but it was all automotive or marine grade.
I had copper tube in my tire well tank filler at first, but it grew green stuff with the SVO, so I changed it to PVC.

[burn_your_money]

I'm a fan of bay mounted wvo tanks. It makes a lot if sense in my mind.

[RabbitJockey]

usually i would run screaming if i went to look at a car like that, but i think a tdi would be worth the hassle

[8v-of-fury]

usually i would run screaming if i went to look at a car like that, but i think a tdi would be worth the hassle

Yup. DI, AIR, and Veggie?! I'd say you bouhgt one hell of a cool car .. not a weird one! Does it all work properly?

[Smoker]

Well it ran like ***. But it got me home... 150 miles. The PO said it started to run bad but when he unplugged the MAF it ran better, so one of those toggles cuts the signal from the MAF to the ecu (yep, you read that right). First step, swap out the MAF sensor. That took care of the misfire (mostly). He said the last time he cleaned the intake mani was 60k miles ago. That is being taken care of right now. He also said that he replaced the turbo with an ebay special somewhere along the way, and ever since then it hasn't had the same power. We'll see what happens after the intake is clean. The car is supposedly chipped with 505 (??) nozzles. I paid $1500, which is way cheap in my neck of the woods if it runs and drives at all. The veggie 'kit' works fine, and smells delicious.

[Smoker]

Side note: I've bought 3 tdi cars over the past two weeks, and told libbydiesel to go ahead and get a pump ready for me... after owning zero tdi's for the first 33 years of my existence. This might be the most aggressive obsession to ever overtake me. Here's the current fleet. You can barely see the dasher behind the green mk3. The vanagon is a syncro, waiting for me to decide what to swap into it

[libbydiesel]

Nice collection.  I'd keep the Syncro, Dasher and the best of the three Jettas.  The other two, of course, would be the engine donors for the Dasher and Syncro.   

[rs899]

$1500...I never get that lucky....

[Smoker]

Wow... just found that the vac line to the ecu was capped my the previous owner. Between the bad maf, clogged intake, and that... hopefully I found my problem.