What is the correct engine installed C/L height?

[silverbullet]

Hi All

Subject says it all - fitted new rjes exhaust, all lovely and soooo much quieter than the previous lash up, but a bit close to the rear valance (8mm ish both sides) Does knock, but can't hear it, noticed this morning. Probably due to crashing along on "pooh" roads.

Since I didn't install the EJ22, thought that I should check that it's sat at the correct height in the shell.

Straight edge across chassis rails and tape measure to crank nose = ?

Hope that we're all ready for Vanfest...
Only going as a day visitor with my porters for my first time around - see you there. Be good to put faces to names!

[RJES]

8mm is closer than it should be. Is the exhaust fitted on an engine installed with an adaptor plate? If so, it will be around 16mm closer to the rear valanve than it was designed to be because of the adaptor plate thickness and the 4mm longer VW bell housing. I have had others fit them to engines installed with adaptor plates, and nobody has mentioned the box knocking on the exhaust.

There is no such thing as a crank height from the chassis rails as such, as the crank CL is not parallel to the chassis rails. However, the easiest place to measure from is the top of (highest point on) the black crank pulley which drives the alternator and aircon. It should be 81mm if the crank shaft centre line is the same as the VW installation. If it's any higher than that, you'll lose a lot of exhaust clearance. Hope that helps.

[silverbullet]

Thanks Richard, good to meet you at long last at Vanfest.
Yes the engine is installed with an adaptor plate, the problem is that the tailpipes are too close to the valance for comfort. Having measured your mate's feuerwehr wagen on Saturday, I now know that my engine is about 25mm too high at the crank pulley end! Might explain my poor gearshift too. Thanks for the dimension - I like hard empirical data, not "something like" advice. I have now made spacers to drop the engine as a fix. See my identical post on brickyard for more info.
Ian

[RJES]

Apologies for not remembering which of the many people I spoke to at the weekend was you. I'm useless at that. I did overhear you talking to Nic (owner / builder of the 2.5 turbo Feuerwehr wagen on my stand) about exhaust heights while I was talking to someone else.

Nic's tailpipes are not at exactly the same height as those on the non turbo exhausts. He works for an exhaust OEM, so got the box and pipes made at work, using my baffles so the box is the same section. Basically he's doing the development and testing of a turbo exhaust for me. The brackets and exhaust mounts are all my parts, so the box is in the same position in the chassis. However, Nic's talpipes exit at the bottom of the box, with just a 90 degree bend, and the non turbo ones exit at the top. Both the distance between and the height of the tailpipes relative to the box will be different because Nic didn't have access to my fixture when welding his together. Therefore using the height from the chassis rails to the crank pulley tip will be a more accurate comparison of the height of the engine. It does sound like yours is quite a bit too high. Does the top of the engine rub the hatch? It must be close.

[silverbullet]

No apology needed - you seemed to generate a lot of interest at Vanfest! Hope that it turns out well.
Still a bit confused about the whole engine height thing. Yes the intake duct does just rub on the hatch, which I thought wasn't good (right behind the throttle housing, it's an early one with all the breather connections below.)
The 81mm dimension - I take it that's to the true bottom of the chassis box section, not the spotwelded flange, which is about 20mm lower and would vary in production anyway. I'm getting about 70mm in that case.
To put it another way, the top of my crank pulley is only about 5mm below the TOP of the chassis rails/air box floors. I can practically put a straight edge right across...
How much lower should it be as the dimension that I took from the van at the show suggested that mine needs to drop about 25mm, whereas the 81mm dim. suggests a required drop of only 11mm.

[RJES]

Sorry - the 81mm dimension was for a Syncro, and yours is 2wd. I'll blame being in a mad rush getting stuff ready for Vanfest when I replied for not realising at the time. I have never actually measured this dimension in a 2WD. In a 2wd the engine is 42mm higher at the engine mounts, so how does 39mm from the highest point on the pulley to the top of the chassis rails sound?

[silverbullet]

Ta Richard,
Looks like I need to drop the engine a good inch or more to get it somewhere near right. Longer bolts and more packers for now, one of your engine bars when I've got some more dosh...
Cheers,
Ian
PS engine getting more reluctant to start when cold (pops and farts, chugs its way up through 2/3/4 cylinders and now drops back to 3 at tickover occasionally when hot- when not running up to 1300rpm)
Coil pack or ignition module going west? I think that I have more than one fault...

[Pepperami]

Try the leads first. They are prone to going US.

[RJES]

If you get a problem with either the ignition module, coil or HT circuit, you will not get any error codes. Watch it somehwere very dark to look for escaping sparks if it's a HT problem. Is it worse in the wet / damp? Also see numer 2 on http://www.rjes.com/html/troubleshooting.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It could just be that the cold start circuit is not connected. This is a 'feature' of harnesses wired by someone other than me. If the engine is fine once it's warm, regardless of whether the weather is wet or dry, that's probably what it is. Especially if the symptoms on starting from cold are exactly like trying to start a car with a amnual choke without pulling the choke lever out.

[silverbullet]

Ta Richard, pepperami,

Engine height now correct to within a mm! So that's a bit less ground clearance too

Will do the "damp and dark" test one evening (no sniggering at the back) and get stuck into the loom problems at the weekend. Haven't been putting the job off, just can't get that far down the list in one go before something else gives up.

Now where was I, Oh yes, that iffy gearchange...

[silverbullet]

Sorry - the 81mm dimension was for a Syncro. In a 2wd the engine is 42mm higher at the engine mounts, so how does 39mm from the highest point on the pulley to the top of the chassis rails sound?

All sorted!
Now on to the next job...

By way of a conclusion to this one, if you're fitting an EJ into your wagen (and haven't yet got some engine bars from whoever) then the critical dimension for a dry build or mock-up is:

295-297mm vertically, from a straight edge laid across the engine hatch/floor at the centre (tailgate latch) to the crest of the crankshaft pulley. You can sight across the hatch to within 1mm with a tape rule.

This then tallys with the dimensions as kindly provided by rjes.

Rather stupidly I didn't measure the crank pulley diameter to produce a meaningful centreline height...

Next E D I T follows