Club 80-90 Forums

Hello all,

Cutting a long story short I have the chance of a very cheap 1998 VW Passat 1.9 TDI 'red i' so am thinking of upgrading my current AAZ setup. My gearbox is a bit too low ratio at the moment so was considering a new box but at ~£500+ for an AAP i thought maybe the TDI with a flipped Passat box might be the way to go.

Does anyone know if some of the AAZ bits (sump, oil return pipe etc) will fit of do I need a whole lot of new bits. Been playing with spanner for a good number of years so will do the conversion myself as a winter project. Can anyone let me know what bits I would need or just tell me its a stupid idea!!

Thanks in advance

As I understand it, you would use the sump, oil pick-up, turbo, exhaust and inlet manifolds, turbo return from your current setup. The flipped gearbox thing is something I've also been looking at, as a way of perhaps getting 6 gears (and if only 5, then at least the box will have been designed to cope with the low-end torque of the TDI) - but you will need to modify the bellhousing, add adapter plates to the driveshafts, adapt the gear linkage, and drop the engine/gbox unit by ~40mm ... and other possible alterations also.

I can't really decide at the moment whether to go TDI with a flipped gearbox, or AGG Gti engine with taller tyres and LPG. Choices choices eh.

dekhelia wrote:As I understand it, you would use the sump, oil pick-up, turbo, exhaust and inlet manifolds, turbo return from your current setup. The flipped gearbox thing is something I've also been looking at, as a way of perhaps getting 6 gears (and if only 5, then at least the box will have been designed to cope with the low-end torque of the TDI) - but you will need to modify the bellhousing, add adapter plates to the driveshafts, adapt the gear linkage, and drop the engine/gbox unit by ~40mm ... and other possible alterations also.

I can't really decide at the moment whether to go TDI with a flipped gearbox, or AGG Gti engine with taller tyres and LPG. Choices choices eh.

the box will have been designed to cope with the torque....but only if you're driving upside down