ALH mods suggestions

Hey all, gotta say I really appreciate all the info I've found here. Hopefully can be pointed in the correct direction where to go now.

Bit of a back story, purchased a '01 Jetta with a potentially bad 01M.

Found out, yep, its toast. Did an EGR manual swap on it from a wrecking yard pull. Came with a literally brand new LUK DMF clutch assembly. Should have read more before the install, but eh no issues there so far.

As of yesterday I installed a new to me VNT15 that I cleaned myself, and a freshly cleaned intake manifold. Between that, and a new MAF/MAP, it mostly cured my turbo limp home mode. Only managed to get it on once pulling a steep hill in my area.

I know that since it was an auto I have the 11mm pump. What other mods would you all suggest? Currently running factory tune with factory everything else. Oh, and have a racepipe in pace of EGR valve.

I'm not opposed to tunes, but don't know how to do or who to ask about it. Currently has 321k on the clock and only occasionally has slow down shudder.

Full timing belt job is a nice start. Replace all your vacuum lines, do boost logs on the turbo you installed to ensure it's set up correctly and the actuator rod is adjusted properly. Change all your filters, and engine oil... As for the slow down shudder, you need VCDS to hammer mod the IQ up, that will eliminate it. Then drive it for 5k miles to sort out any issues you haven't found yet.

THEN! You can begin the power modifications process. You want to ensure your vehicle is in 100% tip top mechanical shape prior to power increases, they will only make them worse and MORE difficult to find.

Before running off to do a bunch of mods you're best off making sure that everything else with the car is sound. Suspension? Brakes?

Be sure to look to drain your lower IC before getting too enthusiastic with the throttle.

There's a "Performance" section. Peruse that and you'll likely get some ideas. Get a feel for what you want. Determine what your requirements/goals.

A Luk will hold power from an engine with DLC520s, VNT15 and a Malone Stage tune. It's doing so for me (in the wife's car). I wouldn't push any harder than this: son's car is similar, but with a Malone Stage 3 tune (he never consulted me on the tune) and the Luk is holding (I figure it borderline, too close to risk).

Thanks for the replies. I guess I should have mentioned before doing the trans swap, I did a full tune up. Timing belt, fluids, and all filters, along with all piping cleaned. I did the hammer mod, because I found the IQ was at 1.2, have it closer to 3.8-4 now. Been farting round in VCDS for the last hour, looks like I have injector 3 sticking occasionally by looking at it in group 013. I think that's whats causing my intermittent SDS. I'll check out the performance section

Once you sort out the injectors and get rid of any limp or low power, get a chip tune.
Malone and Rocketchip are popular, there are others. Start a dialogue and see what you need. Rocketchip can be hard to get ahold of

Nero, it would not hurt to run a can of Diesel Purge through the injectors to see if the problem with #3 goes away.Your old IP may have been failing and the injectors were "iffy", but now with a possibly better quality IP that produces larger volumes of fuel and at higher pressure, IIRC, that may be the reason the #3 has shown to be acting up. I just went through having to replace(rebuild) my pump, and while the pump was out I had my injectors gone through; it turned out my injectors had gone south as well so I am glad I had them serviced. Had I of not had my injectors serviced, I may have questioned the quality of the rebuild work done on my pump when I put it back on.

So far two cans of Diesel Purge over two fuel tanks (Purge in tank, not IP) later, cyl 3 injector seems to not stick anymore. I reset the IQ in basic settings to factory, did the hammer mod to get IQ to 3.8-4, and that seems to have taken care of my slowdown shudder. I'll have to test my turbo actuator for adjustment, good thing I have a very nice Mighty-Vac. Thanks for the suggestions all!

Excellent work!

Nero Morg said:

So far two cans of Diesel Purge over two fuel tanks (Purge in tank, not IP) later, cyl 3 injector seems to not stick anymore. I reset the IQ in basic settings to factory, did the hammer mod to get IQ to 3.8-4, and that seems to have taken care of my slowdown shudder. I'll have to test my turbo actuator for adjustment, good thing I have a very nice Mighty-Vac. Thanks for the suggestions all!

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Run your engine on JUST the diesel purge. There's a video around here somewhere...

JDSwan87 said:

Run your engine on JUST the diesel purge. There's a video around here somewhere...

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I've seen the video, it's more out of lazy, plus I'm waiting until after a job interview before doing it, I think it would be silly to show up in a Samurai for one of those LOL

But on another note, just adjusted my turbo, it's amazing how much of a difference that made. I'll have to look at the data through VCDS later, just took a quick jaunt to the store and back, and the boost gauge read normally for once. And that's with driving it hard.

Nero Morg said:

I've seen the video, it's more out of lazy, plus I'm waiting until after a job interview before doing it, I think it would be silly to show up in a Samurai for one of those LOL

But on another note, just adjusted my turbo, it's amazing how much of a difference that made. I'll have to look at the data through VCDS later, just took a quick jaunt to the store and back, and the boost gauge read normally for once. And that's with driving it hard.

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Good luck with the job interview!!

BTW - Do you have any info on-line on your Samurai project? I probably shouldn't ask: I'm not looking for a project, but I figured if there was ever one that I'd do it would be one of these- pretty cool!

Nero Morg said:

So far two cans of Diesel Purge over two fuel tanks (Purge in tank, not IP) later, cyl 3 injector seems to not stick anymore. I reset the IQ in basic settings to factory, did the hammer mod to get IQ to 3.8-4, and that seems to have taken care of my slowdown shudder. I'll have to test my turbo actuator for adjustment, good thing I have a very nice Mighty-Vac. Thanks for the suggestions all!

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Glad the actuator adjust helped, and if you just throw another can of
Diesel Purge in, or similar, do it on a low tank. Get the cleaner concentration up. Or better yet, with that same < 1/4 tank, do the fuel
filter and fill the filter housing with the diesel purge. You probably got some crap in the filter after the results you're getting. Drive it
hard till the fuel light comes on.

My $.02

UhOh said:

BTW - Do you have any info on-line on your Samurai project? I probably shouldn't ask: I'm not looking for a project, but I figured if there was ever one that I'd do it would be one of these- pretty cool!

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I don't have anything online yet. Currently it's still running and drivable with the 1.3 gasser in it. I have an almost complete ALH sitting on an engine stand in my garage I'm building. Trying to decide if I want to go TDI-M or go computer controlled. I'm leaning more towards computer controlled now that I'm feeling the power that mine has (plus I have a spare vnt-15 I don't want to have to adapt.) Needs a pump and injectors, then essentially ready to drop in.

Rrusse11 said:

Glad the actuator adjust helped, and if you just throw another can of
Diesel Purge in, or similar, do it on a low tank. Get the cleaner concentration up. Or better yet, with that same < 1/4 tank, do the fuel
filter and fill the filter housing with the diesel purge. You probably got some crap in the filter after the results you're getting. Drive it
hard till the fuel light comes on.

My $.02

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I guess I've been doing it wrong this whole time, been adding in a 16oz can at every fuel up. I think I'll have some time to do it the correct way today. Hope it warms up at least a little first.

The theory is if it's going to do any good, full strength will get it done quicker.

This may have been mentioned above but if you do it full strength run it for a while to get it into the pump and shut it off for a few hours.

KLXD said:

The theory is if it's going to do any good, full strength will get it done quicker.

This may have been mentioned above but if you do it full strength run it for a while to get it into the pump and shut it off for a few hours.

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That's essentially the same thing I've had to do to my '88 7.3 IDI. Remove fuel filter, fill all the way up, run for a bit, then sit overnight. Technically speaking, couldn't I do the same theory with this filter?


I'm also in the market for getting some new injectors complete. I plan to take the ones that are currently in my car and put them in my project engine, but want some bigger nozzle ones for my daily driver. Should I go with the DLC520? Would it be OK to run without a tune? Where would be a good place to get a set?

That would be more effective than putting it in the tank. If you do it that way do it when the engine is cold so hopefully the fuel is recirculating through the filter rather than going back to the tank so it doesn't get diluted as quickly.

I have no idea at what temp recirculation stops. I'd guess it flows through unless it gets pretty cold.

The DLC 520's are somewhat equal to the European 110 HP factory nozzles, so I am not sure what you are thinking power wise. The DLC520's with a proper tune can flow enough fuel to make around 150 HP so unless you have bigger long-term plans and a bigger turbo, they might work great in your application.

DLC520s will run fine w/o a tune, though a tune is always best (if you go above a Malone Stage 1.5 tune your stock clutch will likely slip- been there done that!). Great nozzles for a bump in power. I tested w/o a tune and found the power increased to be quite noticeable. All three of my Golfs have them (with Malone Stage 2 tunes): but all are running stock VNT15s.

I think I'll go with the DLC520's then, I'm mostly looking for just a bit more bang, at times this car feels like it has no guts to it. So sounds like those nozzles with a 1.5 tune and I'm golden then. Any chance y'all have some spare injectors lying around?

Nero Morg said:

I think I'll go with the DLC520's then, I'm mostly looking for just a bit more bang, at times this car feels like it has no guts to it. So sounds like those nozzles with a 1.5 tune and I'm golden then. Any chance y'all have some spare injectors lying around?

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If you feel that the car doesn't have any guts then I'd address that FIRST before buying and installing any performance bits. Any underlying issues will likely only be amplified with/by performance mods.

Yeah, I have a spare set, but they're used to cycle into other cars (will be looking to have them done up with new nozzles for the daughter's wagon- have FIVE ALHs).

My 2001 Jetta had a Stage 3 tune installed and never slipped the factory clutch once for over 100k miles; this was the second 100k miles I am talking about. The clutch was still tight at over 210k miles, but the flywheel was getting chewed up so I swapped it out. Granted I didn't make a habit of beating the clutch up on a regular basis, but I was surprised at how long it lived none-the-less.

UhOh said:

If you feel that the car doesn't have any guts then I'd address that FIRST before buying and installing any performance bits. Any underlying issues will likely only be amplified with/by performance mods.

Yeah, I have a spare set, but they're used to cycle into other cars (will be looking to have them done up with new nozzles for the daughter's wagon- have FIVE ALHs).

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Damn that's a lot! Gotta say I'm a little envious. They're still a bit of a price over in this neck of the woods, but I'm trying to convince my wife to let go of her B5 wagon v6 and get a TDI, but she refuses to drive a stick, since 01M's are so... well you know LOL

I don't think there's neccesarily an issue when it feels gutless, there's definitely tons of low end torque, but the horsepower is a bit lower than I'd like. Other than possibly needing bigger nozzled injectors now that it's a stick, it drives and runs in my opinion pretty darn well. I did order a set of used factory injectors that came out of a stick ALH off of ebay this morning. Hopefully I'll see them soon. I'll clean the tips up and stuff them in if they pass a pop test.

The 11mm pump with stick nozzles will add a bit more Uumph!, but an 11mm pump with .205's could be a real blast to drive especially after a proper tune. In my situation a Stage 3+ tune is really my favorite for all-around driving; I have 22PSI at altitude, plenty of power and I can still crack 50MPG on the freeway. I have a few different bada$$ Stage 4 tunes; although they have significantly more power the reduced fuel economy just isn't worth it for me right now.

I have an 11mm pump feeding a set of stick injectors currently, but the tune is actually a Malone stage 3 that is set up for a set of Sprint 520s that I had to pull back out to send for rebalancing.

Even with the stock injectors in it, the tune and 11mm pump give it a solid boost in performance, and likely decent MPG, if I could keep my foot out of it..


That said, when I swapped the pump in, someone had already hammer modded it somewhere along the line, and it was set richer than normal. I was only able to adapt it down to an IQ of 2.2, until I finally resorted to beating on it myself.
That was a wild, but oh so smoky ride, while it was running in the IQ 1.8-2.0 range! If I so much as looked at the throttle for too long, I got a shove in the seat, 22 psi indicated on the Torque boost gage, and a block long dark gray cloud across two lanes of traffic. It also resulted in a tank average of 35mpg, when the pump and tune were only on the car for the last half of the tank!


As to using Diesel Purge, for what it costs, I take the time to run it at full concentration for the ~30 minutes that it usually takes to use it up.
It's not difficult, and it only really takes a couple of lengths of hose and a container to run it out of. You can even run it out of the can, if you're careful to keep from running it all the way empty and having to re-prime the pump and injectors.

My first experience using it was on a MB 300SD, and I just used a rinsed and dried Gatorade bottle, so that I could see the fluid level. (Oh did that car ever smoke, when I ran Purge through it! Ran a good bit smoother afterward though.)

Taking the IQ down numerically raises the amount of fueling available; you might want to take the IQ up to 3.5 or 4.5 and see if that fixes the coal rolling issue you are having.

Nevada_TDI said:

Taking the IQ down numerically raises the amount of fueling available; you might want to take the IQ up to 3.5 or 4.5 and see if that fixes the coal rolling issue you are having.

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I have already adjusted it, it's now around 4.8, and much more mild mannered (until I put my foot in it and keep it there...)

As it sits currently, it will leave a haze behind if I bury the throttle, but that's it.
I'll have to see what it does once the 520 injectors come back from being re-balanced and the pressure set correctly. They were initially from a 190bar equipped car, and they were left there when the nozzles were installed. With this car wanting 220bar injectors, they were opening early, as well as having less efficient atomization of the fuel.

Well found out I had a bunch of garbage injectors. Pop off pressures were 2500psi 2800psi 3000psi 2700psi, and #1 bled down BAD. In the clear now, looks like my timing is a little advanced on the graph, IQ staying at 4.0, IQ cylinder balance is staying steady. All I had to do what adjust and clean literally everything haha but now I have a set of 706 nozzled injectors installed and everything looks just perfect.

As for tuning, I think at some point I'll go with a 1.5 or maybe a 2 at most. Yay/nay? I would also like to get the EGR turned out, along with the immo.

Nero Morg said:

Well found out I had a bunch of garbage injectors. Pop off pressures were 2500psi 2800psi 3000psi 2700psi, and #1 bled down BAD. In the clear now, looks like my timing is a little advanced on the graph, IQ staying at 4.0, IQ cylinder balance is staying steady. All I had to do what adjust and clean literally everything haha but now I have a set of 706 nozzled injectors installed and everything looks just perfect.
As for tuning, I think at some point I'll go with a 1.5 or maybe a 2 at most. Yay/nay? I would also like to get the EGR turned out, along with the immo.

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Just to chime in here; My '02 Golf has almost 300K, Southbend Stage 2 Daily, VNT-17, DLC764, and a Malone Stage 4, dyno'd @157HP & 294tq, and still 52.554mpg @ 75mph on stock gear 5-spd. (Stopping bits have been upgraded also) Looking to upgrade my clutch, tune, and IC after Summer 2018 and try to squeeze about another 10-15% more power but not get too much coal.
It's fun, very fun! Way better than stock need to check my IQ this weekend and do some other Maintenance stuff, but...
I think you're in for a treat. Nice work so far, keep it up!