Scooby the 72 bay thats now going TD!

[jp]

wa hey

Sounding good dude lovin the whistle... when do you reckon you'll be test driving it ?
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1971 Devon Bay with 1800 Ford Turbo Diesel Engine (wip)
1983 VW Golf GTI Campaign
1979 Mini 1275 GT
2013 Scirocco TDI GT

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Well the next few days i hope as I need to use it in just over a week!

The last things I am working on is just trimming the folding scoop so it clears what it needs and then a case of put the dash back together check everything is tight and clear out the rubbish!

Ready for bugjam easy I reckon!
_________________
Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Ok I thought it was time for an update now I have done some test driving of the thing.

so far I have done about 200 miles in it and I have had a few key problems.

problem 1 was an O-ring/oil seal major oil leak on the intermediate shaft, I used the wrong O-ring because I didnt have a new one and a beetle flywheel one was the same sort of size with a mildly fatter profile, but worse still was the fact oil seal has split!

So I went to GSF and had a crap experience as they wernt very helpful, selling the oil seal but not the O-ring and then insisting that if they did do it as part of a kit they would sell it seperately, I know that there is a kit for the bottom end of the engine that includes all the O-rings! it was more annoying that I had phoned earlier in the day and initially a guy had said he didnt have anything listed for my engine until i said its standard accross pretty much all the 8v engines!

I ended up nicking a used one out my golf engine for my bug as its not needed, tiny bit of sealer and we are oil tight again!

so then with that fixed i then drive my bus around, took out the kitchen cupboard inside to make way for moving my g/fs flat stuff to her new student house and took it for 120 mile jaunt, its alot noiser without a cabinet on the floor as you get more cabin resenance, to combat this I am going to lay a fibreboard floor with lino on top and hopefully that will help. Generally its quite quiet though, until the exuast brackets broke!

I used the crappy clamps with a home built exhaust cup which didnt hold that tight, then in the middle of the system I had it bolted solid with a welded on bracket thining that it would stay solid with the engine - WRONG! the brack sheered making it mega noisy! the C clips were rubbish so I binned them and made my own heavy duty bolt up clamps and fitted a rubber cotten reel style mount in the middle, I was amazed at how much the exsaust system twisted when you rev it!

so with that fixed the following night i then drove down to my g/fs 35 miles away to start loading the van, man my van was full! it was pretty much on the bump stops I think, slammed is not the word, from the drivers seat back was solid, couldnt see out the back!

Driving the van accross southampton at 10pm at night slammed to the ground was an interesting/grindy experience, the scoop wheels were working alot helping my bus grinder along the road! my new mid exhaust mount settled and came slightly loose making a hell of a racket which was fine once tightened up. funnly enough it drove much better once unloaded lol!

we filled it up with fuel and did the MPG calculations, allowing for the fact my speedo is about 11% out meaning the odometer is 11% optimistic! we think the van is doing about 29.9mpg.

now 29.9mpg isnt great out of a turbo diesel, but this is the combined mpg involving tons of town driving, some motorway and hauling some seriously heavy stuff! the great thing I did notice was that even when the van was full to the top it accelerated as quick as being empty!

it does have funky turbo whistle too although I have been wondering if the exhaust maybe at all restrictive or not, i figured probably not considering its supposed to flow well enough for big lawn mower engines being a mondo!

The only other issue I have at the moment is I cant get full throttle due to my throttle design, im going to modify it so I can get full but I am only getting 2/3 at the moment and wasnt sure if thats why the engine was performing its best (other than having 150k on, it runs sweet!)

so few problems which are all niggles to work out but its good, runs a cool 85c all day long and cant get the fans to come on, in 40 limits it actually cools down!

just doing a spot of body repair at current (rear arch panel) maybe gonna do a full repaint, got a full interior to put in/redo and then its off to bug jam in a few weeks so we can see what motorway mpg is like!
_________________
Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[jp]

That's sound good.. you're always gonna get a few niggles but once they're all sorted hopefully miles of trouble free motoring ahead of you

Enjoy
_________________
1971 Devon Bay with 1800 Ford Turbo Diesel Engine (wip)
1983 VW Golf GTI Campaign
1979 Mini 1275 GT
2013 Scirocco TDI GT

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Right well I am back from bugjam!

The van is all good I think and more and more I am finding I have for the most part got it 'just right'.

So Thursday evening we set off to bugjam after spending the week before off, retriming the interior and replacing the arch panel, which isnt great but its not to bad.

The first problem I encountered was luckily 2 miles from my house, all the turbo manifold nuts came loose! I hadnt used spring washers with them as often exhaust systems dont and golf ones dont tend to, I replaced all the exhaust studs too and one of those worked its way out!

So drove it gentlely home then stressed I fixed it as quick as possible and fitted a bolt in place of the stud and spring washers with new nuts to everything else that was missing them and off I went to santa pod.

on average the van is good for 55mph, 60mph gets a bit noisier and 72mph is as much as I can get, mainly I think because I still cant get full throttle yet! (got about 1/4 left I cant get so need to mod the arm again)

so to pod and back, plus the other run around milage I had been doing meant since filling up I had done 253 miles and used just over half a tank (36litres odd) but the fuel I used included the fact I had been running the van for 15-20 min intervals while working on it and at pod I ran it for 3-4 15-20 min intervals to charge the leisure batteries which died quickly with my cool box (I think I need a more efficient one) and then also sat in a que trying to get out of bugjam for 1-2hours with the engine running!

so 30.8mpg! thats not amazing but the van now has a consistant 30mpg under its belt, my mk3 golf on the other hand has a consistant 28mpg, at the moment petrol and diesel is the same price in our village!

my van may not be fast but its now cheaper to run than my golf and it has leather electric seats and hibiscous flower interior panels, mpg and its cool.

Now all I need is to work on tuning/gearing, I did look into a water called charge cooler at bugjam that a guy wanted 40 quid for but it had a rad cap top to it and wasnt really suitable to fit in the engine bay as obviously its a bit akward to fit an air to air intercooler in the bay! I also want to majorly up the gearing, the tyres are getting low on the back so I have been thinking I might look for the 17" versions of the merc wheels I am running ( i have seen them for sale on ebay) so I can get some really tall tyres on the back, although the 16" rims are 7.5" and the 17" are 8"wide! althought as I am currently running 225s I can whack them on 8" wide rims anyhow, but obviously alot of the new volvo 4x4s and the like come with 17-18" wheels so big profile tyres are easily available!

Onwards and upwards
_________________
Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[richbaker78]

nice one - good to hear your on the road and it has been a succesful conversion!

Asided from the benefits you mentioned hopefully you have also gained reliability too as the diesel donk should soldier on for ages - and thats more valuable than outright power or even MPG as it will mean you can enjoy your bus.

Just one question though....whats the problem with having a cap in the chargecooler?

[Bugsy_malone 666]

well reliability is one thing, my A/C engine in my bus never let me down to be honest other than when it powered my bug and the condensor went which was brand new, other than that no problems that I know of.

Longer term though as you say it'll carry on going for another 150k probably no probs as long as I dont thrash it within an inch of its life and change the oil/filter regular, hydraulic tappets mean no need for any adjustments!

the MPG for me is my biggest killer most of the time, vans are very thirsty and I do use mine for alsorts from pottering about, camping to picking big stuff up, so the fact its actually worked out to be better on fuel than my golf is great!

Heating - thats a god send, currently just full speed and it does the window vents at all times which I could do with being able to shut of (just needs a flap adding)

one other benefit is going to that I can run this engine on veg oil, that was kind of the intention for it, with a restuarant being planned for our office complex, im sure they will use some veg oil then I can have a tax exempt van thats cool does good MPG has heating and free fuel! I can dream at least

The only problem I could see with a chargecooler having a rad cap in my system would be the orientation, I would most likely end up having it mounted at 90deg to how it normally is and while the rad caps are sealed I just didnt want to have the possibility of part of the system that may leak.

Something I was thinking was if I fit an air to water charge cooler, obviously it connects into the cooling system of the van (the heating/core loop) I was wondering would it make a massive impact on my cooling system? or from the intercooler would I have a small bike type rad mounted to help take some of the heat out of the system before it gets back to the main system, obviously in things like subarus they dont have this and have an air to water to make use of the main cooling system but obviously the setup in the van is mildly different with its airflow etc.

still its all good
_________________
Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[richbaker78]

veg oil will be a bonus - as you may know ive been running my Vito on it for nearly 50k miles now using a duel tank set up- initially i used free oil that I collected and cleaned but as time has gone on its got harder to get FOC as oil companies have started paying to get dirty oil back so they can clean and sell it. I now buy it in bulk (1000L) from one of those oil suppliers - it comes ready cleaned and all i have to do is stick it in the van. It works out at 40p a litre which is so worth it for not having the mess or the hassle collecting and cleaning it.

As for the chargecooler i understand why you dont want a cap....but i think you mis understand how it works .

The chargecooler system is always a stand alone system to your cooling system - they are not interlinked so it will have its own radiator and pump which you can have running manually switched or linked to temp or boost. In mine i run a subaru Chargecooler and subaru pump (any decent flow 12v water pump will do) this runs to a pair or motorbike rads - one with massive air flow - one with not so much. The system shouldnt get mega hot like your main engine rad but the cooler you can get it the better performance you will achieve so airflow is still important. The advantage of Chargecoolers of course is that you can put your rad pretty much anywhere yet keep your inlet tract nice and short - so ideal in a rear engine vehicle.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Yeah your right, I think I was missunderstanding how it worked, I have seen air to air and obviously thats pretty simple and so I just assumed that the air to water was much like the oil cooler that links into the engine coolant.

I do have a big 2ft square volvo air to air intercooler I aquired ages back and also a small renault 5 one. The volvo one is a thin core while the R5 is fat.

I think while the Air to water kind of makes sense I dont really want to add masses more weight, more pumps and pipes etc, it would have been ok if it was linked to the main coolant system but because you have to put and almost complete seperate cooling system in, it starts adding alot of weight for the vehicle with rads etc.

What I am more inclinded to do is look at the idea of air to air again, basically in my original idea before I put the engine in the van I was looking at mounting the R5 cooler infront of the turbo with a small scoop on it to promote some airflow, I guess it doesnt have to be huge amounts but obviously more = better. The advantage with thew R5 one is its got a thermostat flap inside so it doesnt open up the intercooler until the engines running at the right temperature.

I think for now I will just look into it, the van goes and I think once I can achieve full throttle with a better throttle arm it will go better, I will add a boost gauge to see what its running and then see what I can do.

Other ideas I am currently thinking about is the rev counter too, because of the alternator I am currently running (which is new) I cant run an alternator based rev counter, also I'm not 100% that the spin speed is factory of the alternator which would throw the reading out. What I was considering doing is getting the vacuum pump from the engine which fits in place of the dizzy, opening one up and doing something to fit the equivilant of points or sometihng similar or a small optical trigger so I could just use a conventional petrol revcounter (like a nice big sunpro or autometer!). Not sure if that would work.

other things to do, tow bar and reversing lights, something thats just practical day to day.

Seems with a van its a never ending project full of useful improvements to be done!
_________________
Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[richbaker78]

as you say there are pros and cons to both chargecooler and intercooler. Be careful with sizing the IC though as biggest is not neccesarily best especially if you also have it mounted a little distance away from the inlet. This is mainly becasue you will increase the volume of the inlet that you have to pressurise to gain in performance - and this could lead to more lag and a less effiecient set up - that said i think at the levels of performance you are looking at it will be negligable.

I was reading the other day that apparently each 100bhp equates to just under 100 pints of air per seccond! so removing a few pints worth on intake volume doesnt wont have a big effect especially if you can gain more by getting decent cool air to it....
So if it makes life easier then in theory you could use long pipes to get the intercooler somewhere where it will actually be cooled.....although there re clearly limits to this idea!!! A front mount intercooler on a van will not work!

Personally i will use the chargecooler because it is more compact and has a greater capacity for cooling and keeps the inlet volume small.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

How annoyed am I, the vans broken down!

basically I have done around about 500miles so far on the engine and its been fine, doing easily 30mpg (which I was slightly disapointed with, I was expecting higher mpg from a TD) and because its been so reliable and fine I decided that with just 6 weeks till my new car arriving (just ordered a new TD golf ) I could probably get away with driving my van daily even down to see my g/f 35miles away.

so last week I drove the bus most of the week, friday night did about 20 miles picking up a head for my beetle, then saturday afternoon I decided to go see the g/f.

hammered my bus down the motorway at 60-75mph (that is hammer a diesel in a bay!) and after about 30 miles I came accross this big hill which i pounded up at about 60-65mph and noticed the temp gently rise from 85-90 upto about 100c, this seems to be reasonable for a little 1600td to be pushing a big brick up hill, strangely the fans didnt come on, now i realise there could be some cooling going on between the temp sender and the rad where the switch is so 4-5deg isnt to much of a problem, I know the fans work off the override switch too. So anyway its ok as soon as I get to the top of the hill and let off a bit the temp eases back to 90-95 relatively quickly showing my cooling system is upto the job. Do another 5-6miles and arrive at my g/fs.

so after stopping the van for 45 mins and having a cuppa we decide to go out shopping in it for some tea, go to start it and it seesm to be a bit harder starting, like its under maybe slightly more compression or its not warm enough to start and needs more heater plugs, but couple of spins and it fires, so we go shopping. We spend about an hour shopping and when we come out i turn on the ignition count to about 30 (the glow plug lights stopped working, the relay clicks and works but the light doesnt seem to be giving output) go to start it and it seems to be cranking a bit hard, normally takes about 1.5 turns now its turning over 3 or 4 turns, which it hasnt ever done.

I'm thinking to myself maybe something needs looking at (other than the oil pressure switch leak that seemed to start happening on the way down) so think maybe I'll get the bus down and go through it and use the golf for work, yesterday evening go to get in the van when it was stone cold after sitting since previous day, count to 30 and turn it over - it doesnt start

so went through the engine, checked fuel, all electrics seem to be kinda working and kinda grey/white/blue diesel type smoke its coming out the exhaust but its not starting, try pulling the cold start timing advance, no change.

Check the fuel which is really yellow but that appears to be what most of the diesel is like from local fuel stations, no water or bits in the fuel and the primer happily pumps fuel out the fuel filter, the injectors also let diesel out when cracked off.

so I try again and still nothing other than some smoke, so I had to give up and take the train home! Tomorrow me and my dad are going to try and either get it running or tow it home, few people on Vzi seem to think it sounds like either 1 or more heat plugs have gone so I am going to take the blowtorch, take the airfilter off and spin it over to draw in warm air (we do it with the tractor sometimes).

anybody think its just the plugs, I have checked as much as I can and everything seems to be working, cambelt is tight and I see no way it could jump a tooth.
_________________
Second Gear All The Way Baby!

Doing Thing Differently.

[Bugsy_malone 666]