81 Rabbit LS AAZ (2023: now tdi-m)

[RabbitJockey]

Bought this car with about 80k on it, then drove it for 5 years, and put about 60k on it with lots of maintenance and minor upgrades, gti cluster modded for diesel, h&r springs with bilstein shocks, and a yellow dot pump.  I stopped driving it about 2 years ago, then replaced a bad headgasket so i could sell it, but cracked the original 11mm 1.6 block, so i drove to canada with a really good friend and picked up 2 aaz's,  one for swapping in to my rabbit.

so here is the car, i have clear corners on the front now and some 13" enkei 92's




here is a picture of it from before i actually bought it, still sitting at the garage/junkyard i got it from








REPRESENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RabbitJockey]

the trip to canada took place this time last year.  I met a really cool guy named Aivars(homerj on here) and learned a few things about canada.

first, we got ready for the trip by drinking lots of alcohol the night before, and also eating cheap ***ty pizza, this was a very important step.








The next day involved a lot of driving, and that's about it, but the whole weekend involved lots of learning

firstly, don't laugh when the canadian border officer greets you with "Bon jour" also, when he asks if you have more than 10,000 dollars cash in the vehicle, do not reply with "I wish"  unless you want to hang out in the customs office for a bit



important rule tim hortons rules, stop there often



and there is a lot of valuable information in their bathrooms



in canada it is very easy for your weiner to slip to places you dont want it to be



tolls in canada, are not to be celebrated




canadian hats are the best hats, also if you are in canada you must eat some poutine, it is especially great on a cold day





aivars is a cool guy



two aaz engines in the back of a passat station wagon...




leads to one saggin wagen




On the way back we were stopped by the US border officers, they were a bit more personable, even though they did search the passat.
at the border coming back in to the US

raise it!!!!!!!!!!!

/

lower it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



and here is my brother after we finally unloaded the engines into his garage



now jump to a year later, and here is me after i got the 1.6 out of my rabbit

[theman53]

You and Andy could be twinning

[RabbitJockey]

so here is the old engine and new engine together



AAz swap in to a mk1 is pretty straight forward I want to detail a few things i did to make this swap a little bit simpler

I am going to be running all of the rabbit accessories, so that i can retain the factory air conditioning,  so i had to cut of part of the aaz injection pump bracket so that the alternator can swing up into place proper, i forgot to take a before picture, but it is pretty obvious where i cut it




here you can see how i just followed an edge that was already on the timing belt cover backing plate, and cut out the area where the motor mount goes with a set of red tin snips.  I also cut down the factory 1.6d mount to fit, pretty simple just cut the injection pump part off of it close to the 2 bolts, i had to trim a little off the top as well.

[vanbcguy]

Thus thread wins several dozen epic points.

[RabbitJockey]

Here was one issue i ran into, one of the glow plugs had been cross threaded into the hole, and then tightened down very hard, plus since it was cross threaded, the glow plug never sealed to its seat at the bottom of the hole, so there was a compression leak and tons of carbon build up on the threads.  Luckily i was able to borrow the correct bottom tap (m12x1.25) and was able to clean up the threads, it was very scary because i could have easily ruined the head at that point but with some patients, a steady hand, and triple checking all the angles i was able to get into the original threads with the tap and everything turned out just as great as could be for such a situation



and here is the other:  I started drilling and tapping the exhaust manifold for my egt gauge, when i noticed the #2 runner had a nice hole rusted in it.  I had sourced another exhaust manifold, but i decided to use a turbo and manifold that i had been saving for another project i have.




this is the turbo and manifold i will be using, it's a rebuilt 50 trim t3 compressor on a stock vw exhaust side



this is the stock vw 35 trim compressor for comparison




and a picture of my instrument cluster if that excites anyone..

[Dubdoc]

If this car has an AAZ in it, PLEASE upgrade that cheesy 1.6 NA exhaust. My AAZ developed NO power at all till I got a full 2.25" system on it.

[RabbitJockey]

If this car has an AAZ in it, PLEASE upgrade that cheesy 1.6 NA exhaust. My AAZ developed NO power at all till I got a full 2.25" system on it.

i wouldn't even think of running that exhaust ;^P

[Joshua!]

Great writeup. I just finished a similar journey to Canada to rebuild an aaz. What a difference over the stock NA!

What did you do for an oil feed line? I'm looking to replace the stock line with braided hose...

[RabbitJockey]

i'll just be using the stock feed line, i see no reason to change it.

[RabbitJockey]

finally got everything for the clutch and flywheel.

i will be running a lightened  aaz flywheel, with a clutchnet.com stage 2 clutch and pp for a 1984 gti.  i didn't realize that not only are there 3 different flywheel sizes (190mm, 200mm, and 210mm,) there are also single 7mm pin and dual 6mm pin 210mm flywheels, the difference seems be after 94 they went to a single 7mm pin which is in the same position as one of the 6mm pins on older flywheels(i don't know which one and im not sure that the arrow on the pp in the picture is correct)  so if anyone is doing something similar, make sure you order all the right parts, you can make a single pin flywheel work with a dual pin pressure plate but it's just best to avoid the whole affair by ordering all the right stuff.  also its worth mentioning, that the dual pin setup centers the pp by using the 2 pins, while the single pin setup has extra ears around the pressure plate poking out, which center the pp against the inside walls of the flywheel.

for clutches there are also 3 different sizes 190, 200, and 210, and also 2 input shaft sizes, 16v, and mk3 020's have the larger input shaft.

also another note, i took my flywheel in to be resurfaced, lightened and balanced, if i did this all again i would just buy a complete kit that came with a lightened flywheel because having the work done cost the same as buying a new lw flywheel.

and just an argument i'd like to make after doing some reading on several forums, lightened flywheels benefit both gas and diesel engines for the same reasons, it has nothing to do with how high an engine revs, it removes weight that the engine would directly have to accelerate it, it's like the difference of having your air conditioning on or off.  lightening the flywheel increases both torque and hp IT DOES NOT REDUCE TORQUE.  that misconception comes from the only downside of a lightened flywheel, which is that it can make it more difficult when first starting out in gear because the engine has less inertia at idle.  but anyone who can competently drive a manual should be able to handle the difference.  heavy flywheels are for the millions of people who listen to miley cyrus while driving to and from work.

so here is the pp and clutch disc from clutchnet.com.  supposed to be really good stuff from everything i have read and everyone i've talked to, customer service is not immediate but they are very knowledgeable once they call you back, and they do call you back.




and here is the flywheel cut almost all the way down to the ring gear, it weighs about 8.75lbs

[RabbitJockey]

the clutch net pp, from what i understand is custom built when you order it, the backing plate for it actually says sachs on it, but from what i can tell they disassemble it and install a much stronger spring membrane then reassemble it, and paint the backing plate according to what stage you ordered, mine actually still smelled like wet paint when i got it.

[libbydiesel]

Here's my take...  There is a lot of misunderstanding regarding the relationship between torque and horsepower.  When you add in the factor of the flywheel the misunderstandings are multiplied by that factor...

HP=Tq X RPM

ANYTHING that increases torque for a given rpm intrinsically increases horsepower at that rpm and vice versa.  There is nothing that increases torque but decreases horsepower unless your are not including rpm...and not including rpm makes any discussion about HP and Torque just silly....

A flywheel does not change the torque or horsepower of the engine....

It does, however, store and release power, though.  The storage of power in the flywheel means that the amount of power that is being stored in the flywheel at a given moment is not available to anything that receives power after the flywheel (trans, wheels, etc...).  That means that as the engine is accelerating, power is being stored in the flywheel and so, the power to the wheels is less during acceleration with a heavier flywheel (or heavier rotating assembly in general).  That power is not lost, though, it is passed on (to the components after the flywheel) during deceleration.  Unfortunately, usually you want MORE power on acceleration and LESS power during deceleration and so, less rotational mass is better in that regard.  Heavier rotational mass does stabilize changes in rpm and so will even out the power pulses of the engine resulting in less vibration.  If someone that has a heavier flywheel revs up the engine and then dumps the clutch, they will perceive more torque than someone who does the same with a lightened flywheel because on revving the engine, additional power is stored in the heavier flywheel and when the clutch is dumped, that power is released to the trans/wheels.  Once the clutch is completely released, the heavier flywheel will be storing more of the energy during acceleration and so the acceleration of the vehicle will be less.  The poor sucker who dumps the clutch with the lightened flywheel, will stall the engine...     If both of those guys know how to properly use a clutch, though, the guy with the lightened flywheel will accelerate faster... until the injection pump mounting bolts break from the added vibration...      

[RabbitJockey]

haha.  yes, the whole hp torque thing is something i usually bite my tongue and don't argue with people about.  the sensation most people call torque is really just lots of hp at low rpms.  thats why tdi's feel like a freight train to drive, with a stock turbo they basically have 90hp from idle to red line, where as a rabbit gti with the same hp only has it at upper rpms.  or even to explain the following to someone is nearly impossible for them to understand, say you had 2 hoists one powered by a chevy 350 that makes 300hp at 4000rpms, and one powered by a honda 1.6l which makes 300hp at 8000 rpms.  each engines geared to work the hoist so that it is working at its peak hp.  at the chevys peak hp it makes 394 ft lbs, the honda makes 197 ft lbs.  since both hoists are operating at the same hp they would both be able to lift the same amount of weight in the same amount of time.  time being the important factor.

[RabbitJockey]

and just to pull a libby: the formula for torque is actually HP = Torque*RPM/5252,  come on man get yourself together.