Club 80-90 Forums

Hello everyone! I've been off list for about a year since my 1.9DG blew a piston ring and became illegal to drive due to the amount of smoke bellowing out the exhaust. Its been sat there on the drive ever since looking sad I just haven't had time (or money!) to do anything about it.

My local VW garage quoted me something in the region of 2.5K to put a standard recon unit in, which includes 300(?) for a new exhaust as mine is so corroded it will have to be chopped off. Anyway, for that money, surely I could put something much better in

But to be honest, 2.5K is way out of my budget. That's double what the van cost! I know someone who may have a relatively new 1.9TDi lump for sale. Don't yet know what they'll want for it. But assuming its not too silly an amount, it could be an option. How much *on top of the engine price* would I need to spend make it fit?

What are all the technical challenges? I have no idea and didn't see a full list of that in the wiki. From what I've read so far, it looks like maybe the biggest costs are:
1. converting from petrol to diesel
2. increasing the drive ratios in the gearbox
...is there anything else? Can anyone put a ballpark figure to any of this?

cheers
Vince

Depends on ETDI or MTDI. You should budget at least £3000 if paying someone else to do it. That is without gearbox mods.

It would be much cheaper to buy a known 1.9 for around £400.

just took my 2.1 out and fitted a tdi. bloody nightmare going from petrol to diesel unless you have a doner van. unless the van is a long time keeper i would just fit another boxer engine.

..lee.. wrote:just took my 2.1 out and fitted a tdi. bloody nightmare going from petrol to diesel unless you have a doner van. unless the van is a long time keeper i would just fit another boxer engine.

Was it worth it though ?

You need a lot of expertise to put in a Tdi properly and it's not cheap as everyone's said - then you'll need to budget about £1500 to get gearbox that'll be of the correct ratios -

As Lee said you need to source all the diesel bits.. mounts, bellhousing, loom etc... why not consider looking at the 2E options written about on here? Some folk swear by it...you still need some diesel bits though. I'm pretty tempted to have a go on a mate's van whose engine is also giving up the ghost....

There are other VW petrol engines available giving 100bhp + such as 2e or agg engines are cheap as chips the installaion requires diesel engine bars mounts and bell housing angled sump and loom and ecu .Throttle control is cable a few mods for the exhaust manifold down pipe to the silencer required. A complete mot failure car would be ideal then you can here the engine running and use the car wiring loom and ecu.

thanks for all the replies so far, sounds like the TDI is maybe not such a good idea after all.
I'm quite happy to do all the work myself, as long as I don't need any expensive specialist tools.
I'm more worried about the cost of all the extra brackets, bellhousings, etc that I don't even know about yet!

The 2E / AGG engines sound like a better idea. I take it they do also give better MPG than the standard DG?
I see a list of engines filed under "R4 37-88kW (EA827)" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Vo ... 28EA827.29 which includes the 2E and the AGG and many others, along with a list of cars which have them, but it doesn't say which cars have which engines. Is there a better place to look this sort of thing up?

cheers
Vince

FWIW - anyone else interested in finding this stuff out - http://www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/audi- ... 47412.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; seems relevant too