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Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:08 am

Here's the problem. I did an engine swap a while back in my 89 GLI. It had the 1.8L 16 valve and I replaced it with an 8V and automatic from an 85 Jetta with CIS fuel injection (switched back to standard recently). The problem it's always had it that it starts hard no matter how warm or cold it is outside. Starts a bit hard when it's in the 70's and 80's, starts really hard in the 30's and doesn't want to start at all if it it's in the 20's or colder (like today) unless it's plugged in. When the motor was in the donor car it started right up and ran perfectly. In this body it takes a lot of cranking to get it going unless it's plugged in, I'm talking a minute of cranking when it's really warm out to 10 minutes of cranking when it's in the 30's. It's driving me nuts. When it does start it runs for about 5 seconds and then dies. It will do this 4 or 5 times before it will stay running and it has to warm up for quite a while before I can even think of touching the gas pedal. Once it's warmed up and shut off it starts fine but if it sits for a couple hours it's the same thing all over again. I switched EVERYTHING from the donor car when I did the swap, including fuel pumps, fuel distributor, all under hood wiring, put new plugs and air filter on. My diesel will start in colder weather! My wife's Ford just died and I dug this one back out until we find a replacement and I need to fix the problem ASAP so she can travel to work with it. Any ideas? I'm thinking it might be a fuel pressure problem. I'm going to have to pay my mechanic a visit and see if I can borrow his fuel pressure tester.

Tue Mar 25, 2008 4:08 pm

Here's a video of what it's doing. It's so loud because the muffler is lying on the ground behind it right now. I really need to get this fixed because it looks like it's going to have to replace the old Diesel until I get the motor changed in it. By the way, it's about 32 degrees outside in this video.

Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:25 pm

have you checked all the intake boots for tears, or rips... maybe they tore during the swap... recheck all the vaccuum lines, if thats not it try the cold start injector... sometimes those go bad without warning and intermitantly (SP)...

my 8v rabbit's cold start injector would do the opposite... it would fire when the car was warm, so if it didnt start right away it would flood out... i'd have to remove a vaccuum line off the intake mani to induce air post CIS system... then when it stalled out put the vaccuum line back on. it would only do this every now and then.

Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:21 pm

I'd also pull the injectors out out of the head, and do a delivery test - (bypass the fuel pump relay, pull the boot off over the airflow meter and pull up the flap) and see how well they want to spray.

Wed May 28, 2008 2:30 pm

I finally got around to taking the control pressure regulator off and cleaning it and voila, problem solved.