TheSamba.com :: View topic - Vanagon VR6 swap .... it has begun.... weeeeee!

Mon May 14, 2007 11:42 pm

Ok, so I know a few of you are following this, so I decided to make a thread about it... As I write this, its still not done, but I'll update as I have time and make progress (albeit that may be slow cause I'm so damn busy at work right now)

Ok, firstly, let me say that I'm not spending hours upon hours detailing and polishing every little thing cause this thing is going to be going camping and getting muddy and all that jazz, so don't hate me for not taking the entire underbody apart and cleaning it...it will get cleaned up a bit when i'm done, but in the meantime, i see no point is cleaning things only to get them dirty again...

This is where we begin....FU bastard waterboxer!

Caution: Pirate at work.

The workspace. (make note of the nice new engine hoist :-)) (and yes, that is leapord print covering my subwoofer box, it matches the interior of the van, and I was bored at work and got a good deal on those subs, thats why I decided to put 4 12s in a van :P)

Getting down to business. Out with the old.....

Hmmmmm....which would you want?

Getting better....

Making some room for the VR. (opening does not have to be this big, but it makes it WAY easier for getting access to dizzy cap and all the ish on that side of the motor)

New high torque starter....

Adapter plate and custom flywheel mounted to the VR. When I first had all the hardware for the whole adapter/clutch/flywheel sitting on the bench and no instructions, it looked confusing, but after studying things for a minute or two it made sense... BTW, I went with a stage 2 pressure plate and factory clutch disc, all vanagon style. Adapter plate, flywheel, clutch and starter are all from Kennedy.

Needed to trim a 1/4" off the tip of the input shaft, I went slow so as not to heat the shaft up too much. Cut a little, took a break, cut more, break, etc etc...

I realize I skipped some steps, but BAM, the motor is in. I didn't get any pics of the whole mounting process, but I basically dropped the motor in from the TOP, unbolted the front mount from the tranny so it could slide forward and give enough room for the mating process (the adapter plate used studs). After getting them together i put the tranny mount back in and used the hoist to position them where i wanted them, and the correct angle for the motor as well (easiest to determine this by looking at the tranny front mount and making it level).

Ground clearance loss: not that much if at all. I completely forgot to take that measurement before I got started, so I'll never know, but it doesn't really look that much lower, I do plan on fabbing up a skidplate though.

And, this is the result so far....WINNER!!!

To get to this point took me about 2 half days of working. All told it could be done in a day if I had the time and could work straight through, but I'll be modest and say it took me a day and a half.

Next up: wiring, coolant, and exhaust....

I'll get more pics when I can find more time to work on it, I've only been able to walk past it everyday on my way out the door, and I'm really ready to drive it already!

Special thanks to Darren L (fastwagens) for all the tips from his swap. Chris at Fine Tuning for help with parts and some tech help. And my old man for giving me an extra hand when needed.

Tue May 15, 2007 7:20 am

That is going to have more power.
However the loss of sleeping area would be tomuch for me to take..

B-

Tue May 15, 2007 7:41 am

Another Vanagon bites the dust
(..my opinion only..)

Tue May 15, 2007 9:10 am

Looking good! How much higher are you going to need to make the engine cover to get over that?

Tue May 15, 2007 11:09 am

So...how do you REALLY feel about waterboxers? :wink:

Tue May 15, 2007 12:23 pm

Looks great! Keep taking those pictures and posting them.

Waterboxers make great boat anchors. :wink:

Lundy

Tue May 15, 2007 12:35 pm

This van will be more reliable not to mention faster. the performance gains will by far out weigh the loss of sleeping area. Another thing when I installed mine I made the raised lid high enough that now it is even with the rear seat when it is folded fwd. My 7 and 10 yo both have slept back there. Bern If I lived in the PNW I would come piss all over that weak unreliable boxer for you.

props baby

BTW you'll love that starter.

Tue May 15, 2007 6:38 pm

they make taller hinges to make your bench/bed a little taller for the raised engine lid

Tue May 15, 2007 11:45 pm

i don't plan on losing my sleeping area... the decklid will be raised a minimum of 4.5" or so, but i think i may end up putting it closer to 6".... really not that bad considering that when i sleep i'm generally laying down and even on my side will still have more than 2.5-3 feet of clearance to the roof....i plan on building a platform around the engine lid with either compartments or something along those lines so its not a waste of space... and i've seen the hinges that can raise the rears seats, which may be an option.... although, turns out I can make a custom interior too...we'll see what happens... 8)

Wed May 16, 2007 2:12 pm

Nice work. Well illustrated.

I see wire harness in the near future to test your patience.

Keep up the good work :D

Question: Does the rear suspension need to be beefed up to take the extra weight and or torque of the new speed ball being put in?

Wed May 16, 2007 8:54 pm

How do you plan to support the engine?From what i can see you have no mounts left and right.

Wed May 16, 2007 9:21 pm

A couple days before I started the motor swap I went to syncro springs to replace my H&R lowering springs to get it in the air for backwoods camping this summer... I really doubt i'll need to go much further with the suspension unless its for adding more height to the car, but there's a couple things i can do if this poses an issue...won't really know till i get some good wheel time behind the swap and see how things go...

the engine is already supported in there, hence the chain that the hoist was hooked up to just laying on the top of the motor...i have one mount on both side right now, and plan on doing a third, although its quite sturdy in there right now, not much movement, nice and solid...

the mount on the drivers side extends out to the crossbar towards the top of the bend at an angle to support the engines torqueing side to side under acceleration and deceleration.... and the mount on the passenger side will also help support the torqueing but also carries the weight (albeit not all off it, both mounts share the weight about the same)....

Thu May 17, 2007 8:29 am

Did you fabricate these mounts yourself? If so that's pretty impressive for a couple of days work!I have recently completed a similar project (1987 Transporter/1998 GTI VR6)
It took me a few days just to fab. the mounts and narrow the front bracket to meet up with adapter and and block.
Are you runnung the Power steering? i have removed my pump and replaced it with a TDI timing belt tensioner and fabricated bracket, my van had manual steering.

Tue May 22, 2007 11:05 pm

yep, fabricated the mounts from scratch...and i'm not running power steering ( i had it disconnected before cause it was all sorts of leaky and i didn't want to deal with it straight away, plus i wanted to get my arms nice and buff for summer time)....eventually i'll look into hooking the power steering back up...

SWAP UPDATE: i got the engine running today!!! woooo! its been sitting for quite awhile as i initially started gathering parts for this swap almost a year ago... anyway, i finished the wiring today, made a relay pack for the fuel pump relay and the ECM power relay, hooked up all the guages, everything else etc etc....went to turn the key, it cranked over for about 5-10seconds then fired right up! it was loud as hell with only the downpipe on and now exhaust sytem, but it growled and sounded great! after that initial start, it will fire right up in less than a second....i'm super stoked.... i'm fairly good with wiring since its kinda what i do for a living, but when you've got a massive amount of wires like with this swap its a little unnerving making sure you have the right wire and are reading the wiring diagrams for both vehicles properly since bently changed the styling of their diagrams .... and then factoring in that i'm adding my own custom wiring/relays to do everything that the factory van wiring couldn't do...but when it fired and nothing was wrong at all i cracked a huge grin...

anyway, all i've got left is the exhaust and throttle cable, which i'll do tomorrow...

sweet!!!

Wed May 23, 2007 2:58 am

Congrats man :wink:

I wish it were as simple as you make it look. :lol: How are those mounts holding up? Does the engine flex at all when you rev it? You should take a quick video and post it on Youtube.

My 82 is far too precious for me to cut up. But If I came across a cheep water pumper I'd love to try and follow in your foot steps. Not to say your Van is cheep and or not precious.

Wed May 23, 2007 3:44 am

lovedavdubs wrote: Congrats man :wink:

I wish it were as simple as you make it look. :lol: How are those mounts holding up? Does the engine flex at all when you rev it? You should take a quick video and post it on Youtube.

My 82 is far too precious for me to cut up. But If I came across a cheep water pumper I'd love to try and follow in your foot steps. Not to say your Van is cheep and or not precious.

Jay
i have a "cheap water pumper"
:wink:

Wed May 23, 2007 3:49 am

Um... 8-[ ...not that cheep :lol:

That van sill kickin?

Wed May 23, 2007 7:44 am

Cool beans Bern! Where are all the pictures you promised? :D

Wed May 23, 2007 3:08 pm

ok, have a few more pictures...but first, how about a video?

the exhaust is done now, almost everything is hooked up, i do need to clean some more things up, and figure out my throttle linkage...that should be fun...

an issue i just realize i had is that with the stage 2 pressure plate i'm using its bending the clutch slave cylinder mounting plate... hmm...gonna have to add some bracing or something to that....we'll see whats what...

anyways, took this vid a few minutes ago...breaking for lunch right now...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0o_UyeQm8s

Wed May 23, 2007 4:23 pm

:shock: :shock: Holy crap! That sounds bad ass! 8)