Von Westy Honda K24A Conversion Project

[Silverghost500]

Von Westy Honda K24A Conversion

Well…I guess it’s time to let the cat out of the bag since I did a sneak peek video short on the YouTube channel. Von Westy is receiving a Honda K24A engine conversion!

After several conversations and seeing Pchill2’s K24A swapped Syncro I knew this was a conversion path I wanted to pursue. Yes, it would be a lot of work, and perhaps not as cut & dry as some other conversions for the Vanagon platform (yet). I’m either adventurous, or a glutton for punishment.

Starting off, I acquired a running 2003 Honda Accord K24A4 engine for around $500. Seems to be in good shape, but wanted to renew the timing chain components with new OEM Honda parts.

There’s some debate among the Honda K24A conversion community about swapping the oil pump for the lighter weight unit. You can see what a chunk it is here in my pic. But, the one that came with the engine has balance shafts to it that should reduce vibrations, where the lighter weight units from the K24A2 engines do not.

There are some parts that are needed for the conversions, and these are fairly common with Honda K24A swaps in other vehicles. Upper coolant manifold, thermostat housing with an OEM style thermostat. A special fitting has to be added to the thermostat housing to replace the mild steel pipe on it. Other parts are Skunk2 Alpha throttle body, Acuity TPS sensor, power steering pump AN adapter.

Pchill2 and I have had several conversations about the engine mount and engine adapter kit. Kennedy Engineering built the adapter kit to pair my K24A with my Vanagon automatic transaxle. The kit includes the adapter plate, flex plate, hardware, block off plate where the Honda starter would sit, and a manual.

A while back Pchill2 delivered the engine mount system, and it’s fantastic quality! Here’s the engine mount, engine adapter kit, and exhaust kit all laid out on the table getting introduced to each other for the eventual party in the van.

Now, one of the key challenges with the conversion was deciding on an engine management system and wiring solutions. This is where my conversion has taken a left turn at Albuquerque. I decided to go with a brand new Haltech Elite 1500 ECU. That means I have to build my own wiring harness.

So…I set about creating a mock wiring harness out of nylon rope to see layouts, branching, etc.

Haltech sells a premium, unterminated wiring harness, and that is what I’ve used as the base of my wiring harness project. This kit has all the wiring, the AMP 34 and 26 connecters that will connect to the ECU already on, a fuse and relay box already fitted, and wires labeled for what they do.

I set about acquiring new connectors and tools to crimp pins on. Some of these pins and the wires are small and finicky. As is learning about the different types of wires and their roles within these new harnesses. There are wires for AVI, DPO, 12v, signal grounds, shielded cables, etc. It’s been an educational experience.

The wiring harness has 60 pins that have to be crimped for the connectors, and that’s just connections on the engine.

Every so often I pull the harness off the table and check connection fit and wiring directly on the engine.

With the engine connections completed I did a pin test with multimeter on each of the 60 pins. Out of 60, one was bad. It was a shielded cable crimp for the knock sensor. New crimp, tested, and it passed the test.

With this conversion I’m making an engine test stand first. That way I can test the wiring, the ECU and systems to make sure everything’s working as it should before pulling anything out of the van.

ETA for first engine start on the test stand is end of October.

ETA for Vanagon drivetrain removal and readying the conversion to go in is Thanksgiving weekend (late November). With everything removed I’ll replace the radiator coolant lines with stainless steel, and also fit an automatic transmission cooler (with fan) under the van.

Updates to the conversion process will be added here.

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1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia "Von Westy"
Honda K24A converversion-Road Testing Phase
3-Speed Automatic

Von Westy YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbhyZYxJEQrUuLnMbLleeIA

[Vanagon Nut]

Great to see harness details.

Is downpipe to manifold design similar to this VW type with Dounut gasket, flexible joint? Image link:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1925729.jpg
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1981 Westy DIY 15º ABA

1988 West DIY 50º ABA

VE7TBN

[Silverghost500]

Thanks! The harness build has been quite the interesting challenge. Not only does the physical wire assigned to connectors have to be considered, but the wire's assignment for a particular function inside the Haltech NSP tuning software.

The manifold to exhaust downpipes that Pchill2 has designed is similar to the one you have in the picture. Might be slightly different flanges, but the idea is the same.
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1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia "Von Westy"
Honda K24A converversion-Road Testing Phase
3-Speed Automatic

Von Westy YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbhyZYxJEQrUuLnMbLleeIA

[Kdj]

Watching with great interest. I'm slowly gathering parts for this swap also. I think Pchill2's mount is the way to go. What other management systems did you look at before making you choice?

[Silverghost500]

Pchill2 put a lot of thought and time in regards to the engine mount, and it shows. The construction is really great quality. He has one in his Syncro, and it's worked well.

I researched a couple of different engine management systems. I downloaded their tuning software too and played around with it as much as possible without an ECU connected. Hondata was one. Megasquirt was another. I kinda glanced at Link. Decided on Haltech.

I wanted a newly built ECU. I also wanted to have the ECU live in the same spot the Vanagon's current ECU lives. That meant building a custom wiring harness.

One item I had not considered was the type of oxygen sensor I would be using, meaning narrowband or wideband. I've decided to go with Haltech's wideband O2 controller, as it should allow some "self-tuning" capability with the ECU.
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1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia "Von Westy"
Honda K24A converversion-Road Testing Phase
3-Speed Automatic

Von Westy YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbhyZYxJEQrUuLnMbLleeIA

[VicVan]

Great write-up and pics. Following with interest!
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'90 Little Blue Truck, 2WD auto, FAS GenV 2.0 NA (AVH)

[Vanagon Nut]

[jocoman]

Are you mating to a 3 speed automatic? if so, are you using the original VW flex plate?
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'86 Westfalia 2.0L Zetec
'97 Volvo 850 AWD Turbo
" The fun never stops"

[Silverghost500]

I will be using the Vanagon 3-speed automatic transaxle. The Kennedy Engineering kit came with a new flex plate for the K24A crankshaft end bolt pattern and the automatic's torque converter.
_________________
1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia "Von Westy"
Honda K24A converversion-Road Testing Phase
3-Speed Automatic

Von Westy YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbhyZYxJEQrUuLnMbLleeIA

[jimf909]

It's great to see the traction the K24 swap is getting. It seems there's at one completed and two swaps in progress in addition to Bostig's possible kit on the horizon.

I'm looking forward to hearing how the K24 works with the auto.
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- Jim

[Silverghost500]

The rope mock harness idea came from High Performance Academy's YouTube video on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVVcUJY545c&list=WL&index=14&t=397s

Here's the size of most of the wires, pins, and the weather seal part. Over 60 pins for the engine side connections.

Used the multimeter to check all the pins, and found the issue with the knock sensor connector. It's a shielded cable, which has the outer insulation, copper shield, inner insulation, and the core copper wire. I found I'd crimped the pin to the inner insulation rather than core copper. New pin crimped correctly, and it tested correctly.

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1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia "Von Westy"
Honda K24A converversion-Road Testing Phase
3-Speed Automatic

Von Westy YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbhyZYxJEQrUuLnMbLleeIA

[Silverghost500]

Next major milestone of the Vanagon Honda K24A conversion project. First start video of the engine in my makeshift engine test stand!

The Haltech Elite 1500 ECU arrived yesterday. Worked on the base map and configurations in the Haltech software on the PC today. This configuration is using a Haltech WB1 wideband oxygen sensor controller.


Link

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1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia "Von Westy"
Honda K24A converversion-Road Testing Phase
3-Speed Automatic

Von Westy YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbhyZYxJEQrUuLnMbLleeIA

[wesitarz]

[Pchill2]

Very exciting! Engine sounds healthy!
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87 Syncro Westy
Honda K24 swap

[Zac]

Ah yisss, another one! I, too, have chatted with Pchill about this swap, and am in the process of looking for an engine candidate!

I confess, I chuckled when I saw your race panel because Kevin James's iconic racing command from the Daytona 500 immediate played in my head. The engine sounds super good though!

Kudos on the wiring harness as well, as an extremely amateur mechanic, wiring is one of the things I find incredibly intimidating.
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1985 Vanagon Westfalia - Acquired all original, now a work-in-progress

[jimf909]

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- Jim

[Turbod16v]

Awesome!!
thanks for posting all the pics!
gotta reply so I get alerts.

this is same plan for my vanagon auto!
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1971 westy tin top that got a 74 up pop top bolted on

[Silverghost500]

Update on what's going on at the moment with the conversion. I'm still working with the engine on the test stand. Between work and family health issues, I've not been able to spend as much time on it as I would prefer.

With the first start video you can hear a good bit of vacuum sound. That sound is the evap and map sensor ports on top of the Skunk2 Alpha throttle body playing duty as Idle Air Control Valves. Pchill2 found some billet plugs and I've installed them. Idle dropped to 4-500rpm range, and engine would stall out.

The Skunk2 throttle body needs a K20A style Idle Air Control Valve (IACV). A K24A IACV will not bolt up to this throttle body. The way the mounting holes are it's easy to install it backwards, which is what I did.

With the mounting corrected, next issue to correct was the wiring of the IACV electrical plug. This IACV uses 3 wires, but is considered a 2-wire BAC in the Haltech software. The wire order, left to right, is 1. signal ground (black/white), 2. power, 3. control wire (green/brown stepper wire).

There's a good bit of idle control tuning in the NSP software. I'm using Evans Performance Academy to learn my way around the NSP software and how he applies settings for K24A engines.

Now the IACV will activate at cold start and start to dwindle down as coolant temp rises, which is what is supposed to happen. The current issue is that when the coolant temp reaches 171-172 degrees the IACV opens up and starts an idle surge. There may be an air pocket in the coolant system that presents when the thermostat opens.

I'll spend some time this week to try and burp air out of the coolant system to see if that brings more idle stability.
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1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia "Von Westy"
Honda K24A converversion-Road Testing Phase
3-Speed Automatic

Von Westy YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbhyZYxJEQrUuLnMbLleeIA

[Rusted64]

Following along!!!

[Pchill2]

A video of the idle surge would be helpful. The "coolant air bubble" idle surge is very characteristic of Hondas and easy to diagnose based on sound but there are several other types of idle surges that sound different.

The thermostat will need to be open in order to fully bleed the system. Also don't expect the bubble to be pumped out by the water pump because the pump will likely be cavitating until the air bubbles are cleared from the system.

The easiest way to bleed the system is to use a Lisle funnel fixed to the pressure cap. The funnel will need to be partially filled with coolant so the system does not pull in any additional air.

https://www.lislecorp.com/specialty-tools/24780-spill-free-funnel-18-pc

Don't be scared to warm the engine past 210 F during the bleeding process. You'll need to verify that you can achieve steady coolant temperatures before moving forward with your tuning or calibration process. Keep an eye on AF ratio and knock sensor count during this process.

Here is a pretty solid writeup on trouble shooting idle issues:

https://www.k20a.org/threads/how-to-fix-your-idle-surging-dipping-sticking-bouncing-etc.220377/
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87 Syncro Westy
Honda K24 swap