skadi the syncro

[phlogiston]

since returning from alaska, my free time has been split between working on the van and sorting through all the photos and videos from the trip. but now that i've finally finished writing the trip report, i think it's time to get back to updating this thread. but first, i can't resist.... here is a glimpse of a few lines we climbed and rode.

and yes, camping with a crappy american rental car for 2 weeks really made me miss skadi! maybe i'll drive up next year...

i've spent a lot of weekends at sea level under my van since returning, and the new engine is actually installed now, but i'll pick up this story near where i left off--with the engine assembly.

a few changes had to be made to my engine because it was originally in an automatic transmission jetta. this collector pipe feeds coolant from various sources into the water pump.

i removed the AT version shown above from the engine and replaced it with this MT version from ebay. the part number for the correct pipe is 06A121065AK, but be forewarned--the vendor "eurasia parts" selling these "new" on ebay has pipes that were manufactured incorrectly with a mounting flange welded on in the wrong position. if you'd rather not do any grinding and welding, buy a used one! the oring for this pipe was hard to find, but the part number is 90335302, and the dimensions are 20x3. once i had the part number i was able to locate the oring on ebay and ECS tuning.

here a used MT pipe has been cleaned and painted for installation.

the coolant temperature sensor in the AWP engine has two elements--one sends a signal to the ECU and the other to the dash gauge. however, the resistance vs temperature curve of the dash gauge element in the stock AWP sensor does not work with the vanagon gauge. in order to correct this, i sourced a sensor from a MK3 (ABA) jetta. the part number is 6U0919501B. this sensor has an ECU element that matches the AWP, and a gauge element that matches the vanagon.

if you are trying to verify that the sensor matches the response curves shown in bentley (and don't want anyone to frown at you) i suggest you do not conduct your experiments while someone is trying to make dinner.

the new sensor has a different connector, so i grabbed a square connector from an old wrecked jetta during one of my many trips to pick n pull.

while splicing in the wires for the new connector, i re-routed the wiring for the wastegate control solenoid.

as shown in the previous photo, the turbo inlet pipe has been installed "clocked" 180 degrees from its original position. this is actually the only other direction it can be installed; how fortunate that it seems to work perfectly for this swap! in addition, the removal of the AWP engine mount exposes part of the timing belt. however, the middle timing belt cover from a passat or A4 is larger than the jetta one and covers this gap. (new cover shown here).

side note: my engine did not come with either the heat shield or the little bracket for the turbo outlet pipe shown here. the part numbers are:
bracket: 06A145756
top clamp for bracket: 06A145784A
heat shield: 06A129597H
passat middle timing belt cover: 06A109147F

used part shopping on ebay is easy and cheap when you have part numbers!


as mentioned previously, i replaced the overly fragile and complex plastic OEM breather assembly with a silicone and aluminum assembly from 034 motorsports. their setup uses an aluminum sleeve to join the lower portion with the upper piece that replaces the stock "3 way hose" at the valve cover breather port.

the aluminum sleeve was an excellent fit into the lower hose assembly.

the aluminum sleeve was a terrible fit into the upper "3 way" hose.

i contacted 034 and they were very responsive. they immediately sent me a replacement part. sadly the replacement had the same fit as the original, but they paid for my return shipping to send it back. according to what i heard on another forum, this is how these are made, and people have not had problems with them leaking. i've had so many problems with poor-fitting silicone parts (even from very reputable vendors) that i can only surmise it is challenging to make these parts to tight tolerances.

i added a few wraps of high temperature kapton tape to bulk up the aluminum sleeve where it goes in to the upper hose.

making the connections to the turbo inlet pipe was fairly straightforward. the hoses from the N75 wastegate valve still pretty much fit despite the new location of the turbo inlet pipe.
the breather hose was extended with some 3/4" fuel vapor hose (not an easy diameter to find!).
the line from the evap purge valve to the turbo was extended with an 8mm elbow.
the ends of the metal pipe cluster were bent a little bit.

there is much debate among the "performance" crowd about replacing the dump valve (also variously referred to as recirculating valve, over-run shut off valve, or diverter valve) with aftermarket devices. many of these are very fancy looking billet aluminum parts. some people even install a blow off valve here so that they get the "cool sound" typically associated with shifting gears in a turbocharged vehicle. however, the BOV allows for metered air to escape, and the guy i bought my engine from (who owns a shop that tunes VW and audi cars) told me some horror stories of turbos destroyed by seized up metal aftermarket valves. normally i think this is caused by failure to perform required preventative maintenance on these parts (they require periodic disassembly and cleaning), but i am building a cold weather rig and had additional concerns about about actual freezing due to condensed water vapor, so i went with a brand new 710N OEM diverter valve. this is a diaphragm based valve that perhaps is not suitable for the extreme boost used in some high performance applications, but when it fails it tends to leak boost back into the intake rather than to allow boost spikes to destroy the turbo (as can happen when the metal valves freeze up).

the new valve was connected to its control solenoid by extending the OEM hose and adding an elbow to reach the newly bent metal pipe.

the smallest pipe in this metal cluster (with a nipple just obscured by my trigger finger above) was used for connecting the SAI "combi valve" to its control solenoid. these parts have been eliminated and the pipe was capped and not used.



the old turbo outlet pipe has a sharp bend and is not suitable for this swap.

i'm replacing it with a custom fabbed pipe from SAH.

adding some reflective thermal insulation to the turbo outlet pipe (which sits right above the exhaust manifold and the turbo).

this engine is starting to look like something that belongs in a vanagon!

[phlogiston]

time for a quick break from working on the project to post a few photos of it.

up until this point, there wasn't much urgency, as i was still driving skadi every day. but that could only continue for so long before i made the big commitment...

my buddy kyle came over to help on the big day. we started by doing a compression test on the WBX. maybe the next owner will want to know??

getting this old, simple engine out isn't that much work when you have two people.

an intimidating sight.

my garage is getting more crowded every day!

"working from home" is a great way to make progress on an engine swap!

another day, another call to a friend for help... and the transmission is out. in retrospect it would have been easier to pull the two together, as i have never figured out how to get the WBX out of a syncro without removing the oil filler tube, which is a real pain with the engine installed.

preparing the engine bay... first step is to get a beer and do some cleaning!

the power steering bracket must go. it was a bit nerve wracking to grind through these welds without damaging the unibody beneath. i was surprised to find "factory rust" underneath.

supposedly this tranny was rebuilt not long before i bought the van. kinda makes me wonder that almost every seal was leaking, though... still, after some deliberation, i decided to replace all the seals and put it back in.

why wash this mess at home when the car wash is right across the street from the best beer place in the world?

and now some actual work starts...

[raoul mitgong]

Just because you are in a crappy rental car doesn't mean you have to drink crappy beer!
-d
_________________
84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))

[phlogiston]

[thasty07]

Teach me your wiring ways

[phlogiston]

wiring pictures will be forthcoming... it's been a fun process building a wiring harness for this swap!

but first, i've got to prepare skadi for her new engine.

it's been another summer of record-breaking heat here in the PNW, and it really pains me to be pulling AC components on a hot day. so i did it at night! i want a pop top and in-dash AC eventually, so i'm not going to invest a single minute or dollar in repairing the non functional rear-evaporator AC system.

time for another permanent change--cutting the power steering return line.

i will be slipping a hose over the cut connection, so i tried my best to put a little flare into it. the metal of this pipe is WAY too thick and my flaring tool couldn't deform it. i talked to a few other folks (locally and on here) and the consensus is that this connection can be leak free without a bead or flare.

i used some loctite 518 gasket maker to seal up the connections, and mounted the PS reservoir (a VW Mk3 unit) with a SAH bracket.

i'm also using SAH brackets for the intercooler and coolant reservoir. i placed rivet nuts for mounting these components, as the reservoir mounts through the wheel well and would require two people to tighten a nut and bolt. the intercooler mounts to a frame rail, where it would be almost impossible to attach a nut on the inside.

in the lower right corner of the photo above, you can see the nifty little rivet nut tool that i picked up for this job. it's significantly cheaper (and better for use in tight spaces) than the large 2 handled style, and it doesn't run the risk of spinning the rivet nut in its hole like the the little cheap 2-wrench tools. i'm a fan.
http://www.rivetnuttool.com/


after removing the old air intake, i found a surprise inside the right rear corner. a replacement panel has been welded in here! the bondo work is pretty good on the outside and i had no idea. the inside of this repair was never painted and i imagine when i strip this van down for a repaint in a few years, all this will have to be replaced again. in the meantime, i used the remote nozzle on a can of eastwood rust encapsulator to douse all of it.

i took a few reference photos, labelled a few wires, and removed all of the engine wiring. i'd always considered the little junction box on the firewall to be a rats nest of confusion, but with a glance at the schematics and a few masking tape labels, it all made sense pretty quickly.

i didn't want to start on the new wiring until the engine was in place, so there wasn't much else to do at this point. i probably would have delayed another weekend (in order to finish the PS plumbing... you may have noticed the engine was already in place in those first photos), except my suby-vanagon owning friend morgan showed up and said it was engine time.

all i can say is.... DON'T USE S HOOKS FOR LIFTING ENGINES. i was very lucky to learn this lesson with no harm to human or machine.

i'm pretty happy and satisfied to have reached this significant milestone in my biggest van project to date. but i have a feeling there's a lot more to do.

like, where does this wire go?

[yardbug]

Great build! any updates on the swap?
_________________
'69 Tintop T2 - '86 Syncro - '87 Westy - '02 337 GTI - '99 4Runner - '13 4Runner

[phlogiston]

well as readers of this thread may have guessed, i did in fact complete this engine swap late last summer. and as you may have also surmised, i immediately was distracted from all internet forum activity by a strong desire to drive my rad new 1.8t syncro around. soon, the snow began to fly and all of my free time was dedicated to chasing powder, a pursuit that gave me ample opportunity to enjoy all my hard work from the summertime.

but now i'm hanging up my snowboard for a few months and starting to scheme on more van projects, so i'm going to try to get this thread back up to date. but first, a few obligatory photos...

the deep snow that we missed so badly during the previous season did not deny us again this year. december was one of the funnest months in my recent memory, and with my employer shut down for the holidays and my van running great, i was well poised to enjoy it. (after a few nights in the stevens parking lot, i was seriously thinking about a propex to dry out all my wet gear, though).

springtime at washington pass. i'm always happy when i can get a photo of my van with the line that i'm about to climb and ride in the frame. after a fun night of camping, i went a lot further from the road the next day.

my last snowboarding trip of the season was just a few weeks ago with a descent of the fairly committing north face of mt adams. the drive out there was a bit exciting as well, with a couple washouts to navigate.

alright, back to the engine swap.

when we left off, i had physically installed the new engine and was about to start wiring it in. the jetta engine wiring consists of two independent parts, each with its own large ECU connector. the "engine harness" connects to most of the electronics on the engine itself and includes a multipin connector "T14a" that interfaces with the rest of the vehicle (power input to the engine electronics and signal outputs such as coolant temp and oil pressure switch). the engine harness was left almost entirely intact, still wrapped in the factory loom, and i was very happy to find that the length was pretty much just right to go up the driver's side frame rail to the original ECU location under the back seat. the "engine bay harness" included tons of wiring for the auto trans and other things i didn't need, so it had been almost completely dissassembled.

this was the slightly intimidating mess that i started with. the pink connector is T14a, and this post deals mainly with connecting it to the vanagon wiring.

running new wires to things on the right side of the engine bay--coolant level sensor, IAT sensor, etc. the high temperature rated wire that i purchased was pretty expensive, so i only bought one color (green) and used lots of labels.

routing all the wires down to the front left corner of the engine bay where the connections will be.

as shown previously, one of my goals was to eliminate this monstrosity altogether. modern sealed connectors have eliminated the need for a junction box in the engine bay.

originally, there were two multipin connectors in the junction box. one connects to the engine stuff and the other to lights on the rear of the vehicle. the former was going to need to be completely rewired, so i might as well replace them both and eliminate the box.

the wire in my hand goes to the rear lights. i decided to warm up by simply replacing both sides of this connector.

i chose to use Delphi GT280 connectors because the pins are rated for slightly higher current than the common metri-pack connectors, and the terminal positioning support is integrated into the connector body, rather than requiring a separate piece clipped to the back of each connector.

first the seal slides onto the wire, then the terminal is crimped to the wire and seal. no going back now.

assembling terminals into a connector body.

both of the round OEM connectors have been replaced with 8 pin GT280 connectors, one male and one female. the connector for the rear lights is obscured behind the wires, and the connector in the front connects signals that mainly go to the instrument panel--tachometer, oil pressure light, engine temp, etc.

many an afternoon and evening was spent in this spot. i can't imagine how uncomfortable this job would've been if there wasn't room to sit upright here next to the engine!

things are starting to take shape. two new power circuits have been added to the engine GT connector (the white cable), as i won't be using the black OEM power wire because it is unfused and runs all the current directly through the ignition switch. many of the signals going into this connector come from T14a, which very conveniently ended up in this vicinity when i routed the far end of the harness to the ECU. i could have eliminated that connector entirely, but leaving it in place means that i can remove the engine harness with the engine in the future if needed. most of the T14a circuits connect to the GT connector that is unplugged in the photo.

looking down at the completed wiring before any loom is installed. the GT connectors are secured to the firewall with zip ties. also visible is a 4AWG ground that connects the valve cover to the chassis. the two yellow multiconductor cables feed signals to the new gauges: oil pressure, oil temp, boost, and trans temp.

closeup of the wiring. so satisfying i almost feel dirty!

[flomulgator]

He's back!!
I can confirm this van hauls ass (for a T3)
_________________
She's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro!

[phlogiston]

before i get back to the engine swap details, here's a shot of skadi in action--a video from a weekend trip this spring. we did a night of trailhead camping and then climbed the cascadian couloir on mt stuart (the second highest non-volcanic peak in washington) and enjoyed a spectacular camp high on the mountain.

Link

(vanagon content is only in the first 15 seconds... skip the rest unless you like sunsets and skiing and people falling into creeks).

i decided to reuse the stock ecu location for the new engine computer. it seemed like a convenient place to connect wires coming from all over the vehicle, and there was already a big hole in the body to accommodate a thick wire bundle. not to mention the jetta engine harness was just the right length to put the ECU connector here with no modification.

the engine bay harness coming from the other ECU connector, however, required complete reworking. a few of these wires still go to the engine bay (oxygen sensors, evap purge valve, etc), but most route to the dashboard for connection to pedal sensors and instruments.

in the jetta, all the electrical connections to the rest of the vehicle are made through these connectors in a junction box on the firewall. i was able find pinouts online, which made it easy to label each wire as i cut it free.

i made extensive use of the scrap wires when i needed to lengthen a particular conductor, allowing me to maintain unique wire markings. the insulation seems very flexible and robust on the VW OEM wiring.

to connect the multitude of signals to the front of the van, i made use of some scrap multiconductor cable from my friend's job site. this is plenum wire with insulation that is not designed for the thermal extremes of the engine bay, but i think it is acceptable for the milder environment between the ECU and the dash.

the larger cable has 9 twisted pairs of 22AWG wire--enough conductors for every signal, but that wire is a fair bit smaller than what VW had originally used for the connection to the accelerator pedal, so i decided this critical set of signals deserved its own larger cable and pulled another bundle of 18AWG conductors. the pedal has redundant sensors with 3 wires each for a total of six conductors. signals on the smaller cable include clutch, brake, VSS, check engine light and several for cruise control inputs.

wiring makes me happy.

masking tape holds things in place temporarily as i cut wires to length.

i needed to splice a few dozen connections between the ECU wiring and the cables coming from the dash and engine bay. i decided to run both sets of wires behind the batteries so that each pair of conductors to be joined would be parallel and next to each other. this takes up a little extra space, but if i ever need to change anything, i can do so without messing everything up. it looks a little haphazard because i cut each pair to a different length... but this keeps the overall diameter of the bundle pretty constant rather than having a big bulge at the end for all the heat-shrinked splices.

jetta ECU... now officially part of my vanagon!

[phlogiston]

skadi and i had a fun weekend camping out on the east side of the mountains with a group of built syncros and their resourceful owners. it was pretty inspiring to see so many cool vans with big engines (and transmission coolers!). after some campfire show & tell we went for a fun drive to a fire lookout.

but now.... back to this time last year when i was busy trying to figure out how to get the jetta ECU to work in my vanagon. i had heard that the auto trans ECU (which i had) would not work in a vanagon swap, and i also knew that the chip key immobilizer was going to prevent me from even communicating with the ECU initially. additionally, i knew that with the leak detection pump and secondary air injection systems removed from my engine, some work would be done to eliminate numerous fault codes.

i decided that i had enough on my plate and didn't want to deal with all of this hassle, plus someone must have worked all this out already and be offering it as a service... right? well i dropped off my ECU with a respected local tuning shop, but after a month of waiting, they had not made any progress with it and were trying to farm the job out themselves. weeks more went by (while i was busy with other engine swap tasks) and the best they could offer was to send the ECU to a national company that was going to charge me many hundreds of dollars and would only code out the emissions faults if i bought a "stage 2" tune.

so i went and got my ECU back and did what i should have from the start--got to work!

step one was to pay a visit to my local pick-n-pull for a set of ECU and OBD2 connectors to make a bench harness that would allow me to work on the ECU at my desk. the wiring is pretty simple: a few pins need power and ground, and then there are a handful of connections to the OBD2 port. hook it all up with some leads for a 12V power supply, and now i don't have to sit out in the van in order to hack the ECU!

you can't do much with the ECU until the immobilizer is disabled. the control bits and data for the immo are stored on an EEPROM that is distinct from the flash memory that stores the ECU firmware and maps. in order to access the contents of the EEPROM, the ECU must be booted into a diagnostic mode that allows direct read and write access. this is accomplished by grounding a specific pin on the processor while power is first applied. i initially used a resistor to ground in order to prevent a short if i inadvertently touched it to the wrong pin. the EEPROM contains checksum data that must be corrected any time anything else is changed. fortunately there is a little command line utility available to help with this process. the data is first read from the ECU, the correct bits are modified, the checksums updated, and the resulting binary is then uploaded again. now i've got an ECU that will talk to me when booted normally.

using the compact bench harness, i could work on my ECU anywhere that i could set up my laptop and a 12V power supply. working on car stuff in the living room is nice!

when i bought this engine, there was some uncertainty as to whether the previous owner had an APR stage 1 tune. a casual observer walking by my cubicle might have thought i was doing work, but actually i was downloading the entire flash binary from my ECU. i used a software utility to perform a bit by bit comparison with a stock auto trans binary and found them identical... clearly there was no "valuable" APR tune on this ECU. had there been, i might have sold it and started with another junkyard unit, since most of the "tune" vendors try to prevent access to the ECU by making software changes, scrambling up the map data, and doing other nasty things that are not friendly to the DIY ECU hacker.

skipping ahead a little in the engine swap saga.... when i first started the engine the VCDS software showed a laundry list of faults, some (like the missing ABS controller and instrument panel) will not impact the check engine light or reset the trim values, so they can be left alone. the brake booster pump and trans controller faults are because this is still an auto trans ECU, and as you can see there are some emissions faults related to the LDP and SAI systems that i deleted.

after proving that the engine would start, i replaced the auto trans binary with a manual trans version, essentially converting my ECU to a different part number that shares the same hardware. there is actually a code word that indicates (among other things) whether the ECU is an auto or manual trans version. this code can be changed with VCDS, but (at least for the jetta) it will revert to its original value on the next reboot. this is because the flash memory in the ECU is not large enough to store the auto and manual trans maps, so it is necessary to replace the entire binary rather than just changing this one number.

switching to the manual trans binary eliminated many faults, but the check engine light was still stuck on with stored emissions fault codes. the ME7 ECU used in the jetta includes a few registers that can be set to mask out most any fault so that it will not set the check engine light, but i wanted a more elegant solution. i dug a little deeper and found some other code words that control what diagnostics are run. by changing the correct bits i was able to prevent the LDP and SAI diagnostic routines from ever running at all. i used the demo version of winOLS tuning software to locate and modify the correct control words in order to create a new custom binary that would allow me to run with no stored emissions faults whatsoever.

just finding the correct memory address for this control word was a bit of a hassle, so here ya go, i'll give it away in this screen shot:

before reassembling the ECU the last time, i added a wire so that i can boot it into diagnostic mode without taking the cover off if i ever need to in the future.

the VCDS software has some data logging capability that i made use of in my first few test drives... mainly to determine based on a comparison of boost command and MAP that i had just installed an engine with a blown turbo. but that's another story.

for now, we'll just say that with mere weeks of research and work, i was able to save myself a few hundred dollars. perhaps not all that cost effective... but it was pretty satisfying to accomplish what a few people told me was not possible. and now... well if anyone needs an immo or emissions delete on a 1.8t ECU, send me a note! there is absolutely NO REASON that anyone outside the republik of kalifornia should be running LDP or SAI as these systems offer negligible impact on the emissions at a huge cost to engine complexity. if anyone wants to built a "49 state 1.8t" i'll be happy to share my notes... but at this point i'm not sure i have time to write the whole process up. heck i'm still a year behind on this thread!

[flomulgator]

_________________
She's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro!

[danfromsyr]

quite impressive work for sure.

hows it been running since last year?
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[bstein]