The Dirty Diesel MK2 (Take 2)

Started by ranton-inc, April 16, 2023, 03:43:38 PM

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ranton-inc

Well, after quite the hiatus from VASK, VW coupled with a lack of motivation for life in general, I found myself recently reminiscing about things that used to spark joy in life, The crap chat and general banter of VASK and cars was something that crossed my mind, Jumping back on here to find my Login was still alive.

After having a re-read over Vert's Project Zwei thread, Time to pull the cover off the MK2 TDI after it has sat static for the last Two years after a Cracked Gearbox casing and worn out clutch had taken it off the road.

Some Background.
The Original "Build thread" even though I hate the term "build"

But to Summarise

1. Bought a rough 1989 3 Door 1.6 Diesel from some fella in Huntly

2. Swapped a PD100 (ATD 1.9TDI) got the body repainted, quickly realised how slow it was
3. Swapped a LSD and Big Turbo and Injectors
4. Drove it to death managed a 13.2 quarter and then sold it,
5. Bought it back Two years later it had been hardly used but parked out in the hot sun for 2 years (headliner dropped again)
6. Drove it till clutch started slipping changed clutch, not long after a rouge stone bounced up from the road and got stuck somewhere it shouldn't and punctured the case of the gearbox. I took it off the road and decided it was time to put a Ball Bearing Turbo and fix some other crap + install A/C
7. I got busy with Life Work and all the other crap and decided I could not be damned with the Car for the time being and left it to sit for 2 years.
8. Fast forward to today.

Before


First Iteration


Second Iteration





This has always been a rough and ready so don't expect to see pretty welds or polished nuts and bolts.

I will leave the pretty stuff to John  ;D


ranton-inc

#1
With the new turbo setup I have a Garret Turbo found in some Mercedes diesels, Which ones? I could not tell you sorry

Its awkward turbo as the inlet and outlet are immediately above and below each other. However it inspired me to sidewind the fc*ker because not really any good reason... **JDM Paul walker noises**



This is similar to my old turbo however this unit is a Ball Bearing turbo and has Water-cooling additionally

I am hoping the move to ball bearing will cure the Lag that was apparent with the old 2260VK turbo

80 Vert

Damn bro good to see you back at it. Look forward to seeing this come together again.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

RobClubley

Love it! Great to see VASK getting some love.
1985 ur quattro
1992 Ford Courier - the sensible daily

ranton-inc

#4
I thought about what to do with this new turbo or how to attach it, It is also electronically actuated, not Vacuums like the factory units.

From
1. Finding some obscure turbo exhaust housing and getting it machined out to XYZ
    only to make it easier bolt on to some off the shelf manifold which was Moon money...
2. Cut off the inlet and get it hard welded to a factory cast manifold... yuck

After holding the turbo in various positions around the engine bay I ended up hanging the turbo with some rope (sombre I know) in a rough sidewinder position, I thought it looked kinda cool and would work. I mean hell If you can mount a turbocharger in place of a rear muffler and it work, there is no reason you can't mount it off to the side, even if the manifold is a basic run of Steel Pipe .


Ignore the nonsensical AC lines I was playing around with a combination of MK3/4 Lines to see what Fitted nicer, they all fit like rubbish  ;D

So I decided to make a new manifold out of SCH40 mild steel pipe with some newly cut flanges.



With that Zapped up and sitting JDM as f*ck, I sent the Manifold off for Blasting and Coating,



The Oil and Water fittings on this turbo face downward because you know "gravity"



Then got the oil and water lines hooked up under the turbo, these will change slightly but as an an initial mockup test run this will be fine for now.

I need to make some better "up stands" or connection points so they can actually be changed with the turbo in place, I hate things not being "Serviceable"



Also "modified" the shift tower to give some more clearance, very technical modification. Carefully machined off with a angle grinder, much the same way a lot of younger VW Drivers lower their cars when they can't afford "coils/juddys"




ranton-inc

Quote from: 80 Vert on April 16, 2023, 05:10:03 PM
Damn bro good to see you back at it. Look forward to seeing this come together again.

Cheer man! It's been a while!

Nice to be working on it again. I have missed driving it.

le mans

Very creative Anton! Look forward to seeing how this progresses.

ranton-inc

#7
Slight backtrack here,
perks of being a scatter brain with issues, my story telling is all over the shop.

Before the "Dirty Diesel" came off the road and went in to hibernation, I was really wanting to get cruise control working as it is a easily installed function on MK4 ECUs generally all you need is the switch/stalk

At the time I purchased the MK4 Stalk and tried to retrofit the guts of that in to a MK2 stalk, I made a complete mess of it and ended up throwing the stalk out and just getting a normal stalk again. The MK2 indicator stalk just didn't have enough "volume" to it to fit the switch gear/circuit board in it like the MK4 Stalk.

I did some research and found a MK2 CC Stalk on fleabay, however they wanted Moon money for it and for this old girl it wasn't worth throwing 1200NZD at a Novelty.

After hunting fruitlessly for a Wiring diagram for the MK4 Switch (there are plenty of diagrams of where the plug from the switch goes, but none of the inner workings of the switch unfortunately,
I plotted it out and made my own Wiring diagram so I could make my own switch using a combination of junk from Jaycar and a MK2 Switch Blank

The result was passable
The Red Switch is Cruise Control On/Off
the rocker switch is

"I" - Set
"II" - "Resume



and on Paper it worked, under VCDS it was showing all the correct functions and actions, but Cruise control did not work.

Now you are probably asking yourself, Why Cruise control in a Dirty Diesel, well main reason was why not, but the secondary reason is I wanted to Make use of on the Fly Map-switching as I had 3 Tunes for Various uses on the MK2

1. Stock / Street Rain (Low/No Smoke)
2. Track / Drag (+ Lots of Smoke)
3. Track / Drag with Launch control. (Also lots of smoke!) - Some of the initial testing with LC and the "Track" Map

Unfortunately even with a LSD and Pilot Sports this car could become neigh underivable in the Wet, on the Motor way in 5th gear with some moisture on the road she would spin up with ease. not so much the case when changing to the placid map

Up until this Time I was having to reflash the ECU with MPPS every time I wanted to change the tune. This was a 20 Minute damn around every time.

Found a fella who could customise your Map to allow for using inbuilt map switching on the ECU after rewriting some Subroutines on the ECU.Using a combination of Clutch Pedal switch and Cruise control Stalk. This guy wrote it so that the RPM counter would register what map had been selected before reverting back to actual RPM - 1000rpm = Map 1 - 2000rpm = Map 2 etc etc.

How this works is when you depress your clutch pedal if you put the "Set" Button twice it will switch Maps and indicate on the RPM counter. Push it again it will advance to the next map etc after the clutch is released it switches back to normal operation and the RPM continues, this however does not work the same on the MK2 as I am using the original Clocks with no Canbus signal controlling the Tach. So in the end I changed the Base RPM for each Map to help indicate that in cabin

Map 1 - 900rpm
Map 2 - 950rpm
Map 3 - 1000rpm

Video of how it works here - Please ignore the cabin in pieces and hairy legs.

While this worked, Cruise control itself would not, I was going out of my head trying to figure out why it was not working, 2-3 weeks of racking my brain why it wasn't working, It had met all conditions, clutch Switch added, brake light switch upgraded, cruise control switch working.

However, I looked out the window one evening and noticed the faintest glow from the tail lights, The Car had some pretty awful LED Tail lights, Wondering what was up I started going over the electrics with a fine tooth comb wondering what the f was causing this.

In the end it turned out, The MK4 ECU Expects Incandescent bulbs. and when you first turn the Car on the ECU pulses the brake lights to see if there is resistance on the Load line, because it thought there was no bulb in place it was leaving a slight 3v signal on the line in the case a bulb gets connected.

I bodged in a incandescent bulb with the help of some spade connecters on the back of the MK2 Tail light housing and voila, Cruise worked, and the Low voltage signal had gone and everything was right in the world again.

So yeah, 2-Wins with this pain in the arse saga, I can now Mapswitch from Placid to Savage while on the Road and engine running, and I can also just setback relax and avoid speeding tickets with my Speed locked in, When the car is running that is.



RobClubley

1985 ur quattro
1992 Ford Courier - the sensible daily

le mans

How do you get on with the diesel tuning? Apparently it?s backwards to petrol tuning ie you add fuel to make more power and then add air to get the AFR within a safe range.

ranton-inc

#10
Quote from: le mans on April 17, 2023, 04:20:07 PM
How do you get on with the diesel tuning? Apparently it's backwards to petrol tuning ie you add fuel to make more power and then add air to get the AFR within a safe range.

Honestly, I still know very little about Diesel Tuning, But that sounds about right, the More Fuel you can get it the more power (so long as you can back it up with additional Air Volume) From memory The Boost was around 3 Bar on the Track tune,

There is also two camps around weather more smoke means more power,

Then there is the matter of EGTs getting too high and destroying VNT turbos etc.

A guy from the Czech republic who used to be on VASK many moons ago wrote the tunes for me after a bunch of Data Logging and trial and error.

It would be nice to get it Dyno tuned, but then again there is a certain sweetness to the whole Ignorance is Bliss thing.

It goes hard enough for what it is, and it hasn't blown up. I would hate to get it on a rolling road and have someone tell me it's gone "too far" and is at high chance of blowing up. - that said I would laugh and carry on

When asked how much power it makes, My answer is generally "don't know don't care".

I upset many a V8 at the Boxing Day Drags a few years back, only to be beaten by one 60s Mustang that had a massive blower and probably 100k of engine work (and for that much engine work you would bloody hope you bet some sh*thead in a Diesel Golf). sure there were most likely other cars that would have beaten me that day, but the lineup didn't go that way, People laughed at/and loved the fact a Golf painted in a Mazda colour running a Diesel engine with a Cubic capacity smaller than that of a Milk bottle and beat a bunch of V8s and an electric converted Jappa

le mans

QuoteIt would be nice to get it Dyno tuned, but then again there is a certain sweetness to the whole Ignorance is Bliss thing.
Ha ha, that?s the spirit! And good job at the drags. I remember seeing you being interviewed at the time.

I?ve been geeking out on HPA Tuned In podcasts for quite a while. This is a good one on diesel tuning: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/tuned-in/id1579263731?i=1000592767331
If you don?t have an Apple device you should be able to find it on your preferred pod catcher?

ranton-inc

Quote from: le mans on April 17, 2023, 08:52:36 PM
Ha ha, that?s the spirit! And good job at the drags. I remember seeing you being interviewed at the time.

I?ve been geeking out on HPA Tuned In podcasts for quite a while. This is a good one on diesel tuning: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/tuned-in/id1579263731?i=1000592767331
If you don?t have an Apple device you should be able to find it on your preferred pod catcher?

i will definitely have a listen, Currently out of work and pondering life in between finishing my House and car haha

nordschleife

Quote from: ranton-inc on April 17, 2023, 09:41:02 AM
Slight backtrack here,
perks of being a scatter brain with issues, my story telling is all over the shop.

Before the "Dirty Diesel" came off the road and went in to hibernation, I was really wanting to get cruise control working as it is a easily installed function on MK4 ECUs generally all you need is the switch/stalk

At the time I purchased the MK4 Stalk and tried to retrofit the guts of that in to a MK2 stalk, I made a complete mess of it and ended up throwing the stalk out and just getting a normal stalk again. The MK2 indicator stalk just didn't have enough "volume" to it to fit the switch gear/circuit board in it like the MK4 Stalk.

I did some research and found a MK2 CC Stalk on fleabay, however they wanted Moon money for it and for this old girl it wasn't worth throwing 1200NZD at a Novelty.

After hunting fruitlessly for a Wiring diagram for the MK4 Switch (there are plenty of diagrams of where the plug from the switch goes, but none of the inner workings of the switch unfortunately,
I plotted it out and made my own Wiring diagram so I could make my own switch using a combination of junk from Jaycar and a MK2 Switch Blank

The result was passable
The Red Switch is Cruise Control On/Off
the rocker switch is

"I" - Set
"II" - "Resume



and on Paper it worked, under VCDS it was showing all the correct functions and actions, but Cruise control did not work.

Now you are probably asking yourself, Why Cruise control in a Dirty Diesel, well main reason was why not, but the secondary reason is I wanted to Make use of on the Fly Map-switching as I had 3 Tunes for Various uses on the MK2

1. Stock / Street Rain (Low/No Smoke)
2. Track / Drag (+ Lots of Smoke)
3. Track / Drag with Launch control. (Also lots of smoke!) - Some of the initial testing with LC and the "Track" Map

Unfortunately even with a LSD and Pilot Sports this car could become neigh underivable in the Wet, on the Motor way in 5th gear with some moisture on the road she would spin up with ease. not so much the case when changing to the placid map

Up until this Time I was having to reflash the ECU with MPPS every time I wanted to change the tune. This was a 20 Minute damn around every time.

Found a fella who could customise your Map to allow for using inbuilt map switching on the ECU after rewriting some Subroutines on the ECU.Using a combination of Clutch Pedal switch and Cruise control Stalk. This guy wrote it so that the RPM counter would register what map had been selected before reverting back to actual RPM - 1000rpm = Map 1 - 2000rpm = Map 2 etc etc.

How this works is when you depress your clutch pedal if you put the "Set" Button twice it will switch Maps and indicate on the RPM counter. Push it again it will advance to the next map etc after the clutch is released it switches back to normal operation and the RPM continues, this however does not work the same on the MK2 as I am using the original Clocks with no Canbus signal controlling the Tach. So in the end I changed the Base RPM for each Map to help indicate that in cabin

Map 1 - 900rpm
Map 2 - 950rpm
Map 3 - 1000rpm

Video of how it works here - Please ignore the cabin in pieces and hairy legs.

While this worked, Cruise control itself would not, I was going out of my head trying to figure out why it was not working, 2-3 weeks of racking my brain why it wasn't working, It had met all conditions, clutch Switch added, brake light switch upgraded, cruise control switch working.

However, I looked out the window one evening and noticed the faintest glow from the tail lights, The Car had some pretty awful LED Tail lights, Wondering what was up I started going over the electrics with a fine tooth comb wondering what the f was causing this.

In the end it turned out, The MK4 ECU Expects Incandescent bulbs. and when you first turn the Car on the ECU pulses the brake lights to see if there is resistance on the Load line, because it thought there was no bulb in place it was leaving a slight 3v signal on the line in the case a bulb gets connected.

I bodged in a incandescent bulb with the help of some spade connecters on the back of the MK2 Tail light housing and voila, Cruise worked, and the Low voltage signal had gone and everything was right in the world again.

So yeah, 2-Wins with this pain in the arse saga, I can now Mapswitch from Placid to Savage while on the Road and engine running, and I can also just setback relax and avoid speeding tickets with my Speed locked in, When the car is running that is.

Great to see you back into it Anton.

That cruising control system is awesome.  If I ever get my 1.8t working I'll be picking you brain about it!
VW Golf GTI - Track Car
VW Golf GTI - Road Car
BMW ///M5 - Previous Car and looking for another - F10 LCI
Octavia vRS Combi - Wife's Car
VW Golf R32 - Sold

ranton-inc

Quote from: nordschleife on April 17, 2023, 09:56:16 PM
Great to see you back into it Anton.

That cruising control system is awesome.  If I ever get my 1.8t working I'll be picking you brain about it!

Cheers boss!,

Its good to be delving in to the memory banks to recount steps taken a wee while ago.


ranton-inc

I while back I was asking mr Vert about any tips and tricks on what components would be needed to get the AC working in the TDI

The car originally had AC being a Jipper import however it was a weird non VW one that had modified parts, from memory Yanase was the brand or something to that effect.

Any who, I set out and hunted down a plethora of mixed matched parts

MK2 Factory AC Airbox/Blower Unit
Mk3 Factory AC Airbox/Blower unit
MK3 Lines, AC Sensors, Wiring looms etc
MK4 Lines & Compressor since the Accessory train on MK4 Engines likes a Dual sided belt and a AC Compressor that runs in a reverse direction to others.

I pulled the MK2 Screw type AC Condensing unit out and swapped it with the MK3 Unit, and then cut the hole in the firewall to match the Factory MK3 ones, + Installed the Drip Vent in the bottom edge of the Firewall.  (The aftermarket unit had basically caused for a crapload of other holes to be drilled in the FW, so now they are just rubber bunged up)



At this point the Neither the MK3 or MK4 Lines remotely fit nicely, as Vert mentioned in his thread, So new lines will need to be made, Currently I only own an AC/DC Mig Unit, And Im not game enough to try weld thin Aluminium with a Mig, I will need to buy a AC/DC Tin when funds allow.

So this will probably be somewhat of a Copy and Paste to what John has done on his own wagen!..

So far I have found a few other niggles along with this along with Missing a spare Sensor socket for the AC controller, I may end up making my Own Loom and control system for the AC to simplify it even further.

I also note a lack of realestate between the engine and the Radiator as I originally had it setup.

When I had First put the Dirty Diesel together, I had used My Old Small 16V two row radiator which kept the Radiator off to the Passenger side of the engine bay, Originally this gave me the ability to put a MR2 intercooler immediately next to it.

You can see it in this photo which I had already posted earlier


This setup changed when I went to the Bigger Turbo, as I wanted an even bigger intercooler.
The Radiator remained in a similar location however I hinged it out further in to the engine bay to allow for Maximum Clearance for a Intercooler to hide behind the Grill.
Also as seen in a picture posted earlier


The Intercooler as you can see consumed a fair amount of space but got great airflow directly from the vented grill.

This was secured hard to the Slam Panel from the Top and bottom.

It is evident yet again that this will have to change when trying to use a Bigger Radiator, MK4 AC Cooler especially having to hinge the Long Radiator back in to the engine bay. The clearance between the AC Pump and other Ancillaries is extra tight. So back to the drawing board.

I will need to return to running the Rad on an Angle al-la MK2 Factory Spec, and I may need to look at doing a Water to Air Inter cooling setup, Reluctantly so. However I will update this portion of it as I get to it, The Main goal is to get the car running again, even with out AC in the Short term but with as much as possible mocked up.



The above photos was literally a few days ago, seeing what I could recycle of the old intercooler piping to make it all fit, however this is when it became evident the currently Cooling setup was no longer feasible.

Another little sneaky change I have made to both the TDI and the 16V was swapping the 5th Gear out for a longer version.

I purchased extra long gear new 5th for the TDI .736 I think was the ratio, doing so I took the 5th gear from the TDI and swapped that in to my 16V

With the 02A in my 16V the gear ratios have always been annoyingly short, CDA(02A) at 100kmh she would always be screaming her nuts off at 3000 odd RPM,
It has been a welcome change, the 16V now has shaved around 5-600rpm off at 100kmh, it is now more like a 4+E Gearbox (sort of)
I expect it will be a similar change in the TDI once this is actually running/driving again.

Nice little size comparison of TDIs original 5th gear with its new 5th gear on top




ranton-inc

#16
I did recently get a few parts blasted and recoated, because reasons.

Front Cross Member and Slam panel



Also got the Exhaust from the Subframe to the Tail blasted and Coated in High temp Powdercoat.



That and a Set of MK3 BBS Wheels done in Gunmetal, to replace the Multi Spoke MK5 Granny wheels.


80 Vert

With your A/C pipes you can use bits of the MK3 ones and replace a lot of the odd bends in wrong places with straight tubes. Mine uses a real hash of different bits but the pipes are mainly MK3 with a MK4 condenser / drier (because the drier is attached to the condenser) and A/C pump.
It uses a MK3 Cabrio A/C control relay and wiringin / sensors as the MK3 Cabrio for some reason has the most simplified wiring harness.

Re your 5th gear, you have any part numbers for that?
This is one thing I still have left to do, mine also does 3k rpm in 5th, far far more than it needs to so I need to drop that by quite a lot.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

ranton-inc

Quote from: 80 Vert on April 19, 2023, 09:11:11 AM
With your A/C pipes you can use bits of the MK3 ones and replace a lot of the odd bends in wrong places with straight tubes. Mine uses a real hash of different bits but the pipes are mainly MK3 with a MK4 condenser / drier (because the drier is attached to the condenser) and A/C pump.
It uses a MK3 Cabrio A/C control relay and wiringin / sensors as the MK3 Cabrio for some reason has the most simplified wiring harness.

Re your 5th gear, you have any part numbers for that?
This is one thing I still have left to do, mine also does 3k rpm in 5th, far far more than it needs to so I need to drop that by quite a lot.

As for Part numbers I will have to dig that up. however I did just source it from Darkside Dev they have a Ratio selector on their website, was a little steep for some small components but end result was worth it.

I sourced the .622 for the TDI, and took the Stock TDI one out and put that in the 16V.

I will dig up the ratio for that one shortly.

https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/5-speed-02j-02a-02b-02c-02z-592-622-658-and-717-5th-gear-sets.html

https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/products/5-speed-02j-02a-02b-02c-02z-592-622-658-681-700-717-744-5th-gear-sets.html

They omitted the smaller bloody washer from mine when it arrived however, so I got creative and machined it down with my Drill and a File.




80 Vert

What was the ratio of the set you put in the 16V? (The stock TDI one sounds like it would suit mine well with a 5-600 rpm drop)
I have the same MK3 16V CDA box in mine.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration