engine swap

My 1982 Vanagon Westfalia was originally fitted with an 1.6 litre 4 cylinder diesel. Not the most powerful of engines (48 hp @ 4200 rpm and 97 Nm of torque @ 2000 rpm), but with a charm of its own.

I drove the van for over a year with this engine, including a memorable trip through British Columbia (summer of 1993), seemingly seeking out the steepest hills to try the patience of the following traffic.

During that trip the oil pressure relief valve stuck in the closed position. This resulted in very high oil pressures at the oil filter when the engine was first started. The result of this was the oil filter blowing off one morning in Manning Park. What a mess! We managed to continue our trip by allowing the engine to idle for 10 minutes before driving off (the high oil pressures at start up are due to the higher viscosity of the engine oil at ambient temperatures).

I suffered with this problem through the winter until April of 1994 when I took the van into Russ Sherman of Autospiel to have a new engine installed. Of course I could have had the oil pressure problem fixed and kept the diesel, but I had driven my friend Stephen's converted '82 Westy and I liked it.

We chose a '92 Jetta's engine that had only 20k miles (~30k km) on it. This engine is a an 1800 cc, 8V Digifant managed motor. The non-cross flow head and the relatively simple fuel injection system injection made it a good choice.

The beauty of a transplant into a diesel Vanagon is that the engine mounts and transmission bellhousing are compatible with most VW I4 engines from the '70s right through the '90s.

I chose to retain the stock diesel transmission (geared lower than both air-cooled and wasserboxer powered Vanagons) for purely economic reasons at the time. I thought that I might change the R&P gears at a later date, but I have not done so. See the discussion on power/torque and gearing in the tech reference section.

The swap has been a great success, reliable and much more fun to drive than the diesel. I have now travelled more than 100k 160 miles (2005) with this engine, with no problems other than a camshaft seal replacement.

June 2005 - added pics of my engine with modified air intake routing and the added late model VW "auxillary fuse box" mounted on the battery. The relay to the right of the fuse panel is for back up lights.