Dyno time!

Today we made the trip up to the dynojet dynometer at Dan Judy's Automotive in Salem, John in his 85 Vanagon TDI and me in my 93 Eurovan TDI.  It was an action packed afternoon and finally we have some data points:
John's Van: 118hp and 245 ft/lb at the wheels running straight #2 D
Justin's Van: 110 hp and 213 ft/lb at the wheels running straight biodiesel (B99)





To be compared fairly with the posted power specs of the AHU engine (90hp & 155ft/lbs), which are measured at the crank, the rule of thumb is to add 15-20%.  So now the numbers look a little more impressive and that fits with how they both drive down the road:

John's Van: 136hp and 282 ft/lb at the crank
Justin's Van: 126hp and 245 ft/lb at the crank

And here's the correction for biodiesel on my van (5-10% reduction in BTUs depending on feedstock, so we'll call it 7.5%) :
Justin's Van: 135hp and 263 ft/lb at the crank

Also worth noting is that peak HP and torque come on very early, right around 2500rpm, so all that power is there under foot at very low revs.

More pics of our rigs on the dyno:

 Strapping down the Van to the dyno.










                                                                         
                                                                               Yikes that's a smokey beast.

TDI Eurovan power curves, torque on top, HP on the bottom.  The peak for the torque corresponds with around 2200rpm.  Much smoother lines than the Vanagon graph above.

 Dyno tech talk.

 Soot scrawl behind the Vanagon after the smoke show.

 My humble little 93 EV weekender strapped to the dyno.

Strapped, aligned and ready to roll!

 Dyno time is fun time: not quite like fun family time, but quite like fun manly time.

Rear straps secure and ready to go.

Wall of Fame entries

It's been a good and interesting week here at the diesel shop.  We took our latest TDI Vanagon conversion for its first drive yesterday, and today we dove in on two different customer repair jobs that turned out very interesting.

First there was the '02 New Beetle (ALH TDI engine/auto trans) that was still on the original timing belt at 128k miles:

Study this pic and see if you can see where all the chiclets go.  This rig still turned over normally and came in for a supposed inj. pump re-seal or R&R.  Divine intervention is the only thing I can see that kept the pistons from hitting the valves.

  No piston/valve impact, timing just off enough to make it not run any more.  Talk about dodging a bullet.










Next there was the curious case of the AAZ engine with 17,000 miles on it.  This was installed in a Vanagon by some green-type used car company up in Washington.  The pre-combustion chamber (swirl chamber) dropped down into the combustion chamber and here's what happens when that unfortunate event transpires:
The piston was cracked throughout and down to the wrist pin and the rod bent slightly, rendering both unusable.

And this is what a head that suffers this sort of insult looks like.  Also, totally unusable and only good for scrap metal at this point.

Ouch.

Needless to say, this one didn't come in running.










Tomorrow after we finish up these two jobs, it's off to Salem to get do a few runs on a Dyno with my TDI Eurovan and John's TDI Vanagon, so I should have some interesting data to post.

TDIFest 2010 recap

TDIFest 2010 was a weekend long blast and very nice to be amongst true TDI believers.  We spent most of our time manning the booth and playing silly TDI sanctioned games like an A4 belly pan R&R time trial, timed spare tire change, the dolly race, etc.  John spent most of Sun gussying up his sweet 85 Vanagon Westy TDI for the show n shine which paid off:  John took home 1st prize in the TDI conversion category.  Way to go John!!  That's one sweet ass Van...

The TDI EV and a portion of the Grease Works booth at the fest.

Nuff said

Hood up and radiator/grill in service position for viewing.  Lots of questions on that...

The full spread late on Sun. with Bora Parts flanking our R side.

Sweet ALH TDI Doka.  This rig won the people's choice award at the fest.

A few other TDI converted rigs: A2 Jetta, Toyota pickup truck, Doka, etc.








Auf wiedersehen TDIFest 2010!  Me and meine frauliner in front of our booth.

TDI Fest 2010

Come check us out this weekend at the TDI Fest PDX 2010.  We'll have our TDI Eurovan as well as a TDI Vanagon on display along with a bunch of TDI parts and accessories for sale.  This is the first time the TDI Fest has come to the PNW, so come check it out and help us raise the roof at the Airport Sheraton and help keep TDIclub.com funded.

Check it:  TDIFest 2010

Shop musings

It's been a hectic couple of weeks here at Grease Works.  Just after we got fully moved over to the new shop and installed a new lift, we had to move out due to insurance issues.  Wind out of our sails, we moved back over to the old shop and have been getting re-acquainted with the familiar lines.  Just before we left the 'new' shop we got the latest TDI engine installed in a very nice 90 Go Westy Vanagon Westfailia.  This rig showed up with a basically new (30k mile) 2.3l Go Westy engine that the owner was just not satisfied with and commissioned us to breath some life into this otherwise fine Westy.

AHU TDI engine w/rebuilt/re-geared 5-spd trans. ready for install.

 TDI engine freshly installed in the Vanagon engine bay.  Now the real fun begins....










Once we moved over a modicum of tools here to the new 'old' shop we dove right in to the hard work of paying the bills that start rolling in the first week of every month.  Late last week we had a cyl. head R&R and radiator R&R on a very nice 91 Vanagon Westy with a TDI engine.   This was the first time we'd seen a blown EGR cooler, so it's another TDI data point for the shop collective wisdom.  Then the last two days we stepped back in time to our A1/A2 diesel roots and built up and installed a 1.9NA engine in an A1 Jetta (84).  That was a fun project and reminded us of how simple life use to be back before TDIs took over our lives...  That rig drove out of the shop today and purrs like a well fed kitten.