DC's 1756VK-assisted B4

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
  • SBC Stage II Endurance upgraded to a DC Stage IV clutch - Feramic disk on both sides of clutch plate, larger rivets, stronger support bolts for pressure plate, more robust pressure plate
  • 14 lb flywheel - Two sides to this coin. I'll explain later, possibly with video
Ok. So small update. I never took the time to look at a few things under Adaption in VCDS and I noticed today that group 1 was adapted to 32686, aka, the lowest value possible for this group.

My IQ was sitting at ~1.4, though occasionally 1.2 and 1.6. At this level of fulling I produce a mild haze in 5th gear, WOT, going up a moderate grade.

Well, setting this back to stock, 32764, almost killed the engine with an IQ of 0. Hammer modded it twice. First time was with no adaption and an IQ of about 3.4, but there was a noticeable loss of power. It's now at 2.0-2.2, though I'm going to run a tank with adaption pushing it to 3.8-4 to see if it'll help a little on economy.

Anyhow, I noticed a nice side effect of the fuelling reduction. Previously, when moving from a standstill, the car liked to kick or buck for a rev or two just before it was moving appropriate at idle. Holding the revs at 1500 RPM and moving from a stop helped, but the kick was still there. I figured this was from the lighter fly wheel. However, this kick is no longer present with the higher IQ :). Now, I see no reason to not have the lighter flywheel.

Unfortunately, I won't take the time to dyno it with the 14 pounder vs a 21 pounder, but if someone wants to sponsor the swap to a 21 lb and then back to my 14 lb, I'll pay for the dyno to see if it really makes a difference.

PS - Our region is known for some particularly strong east to west winds doing a solid 40 mph, but known to reach gusts in excess of 60 mph. They decided to start up tonight right after I finished adjusting my fuel pump so I didn't run logs.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
Yeah it has been a while :). Aside from my bad math, I started looking at building a custom intake manifold and an air to water to air intercooler setup. See this thread for the conversation I started. Life has calmed down a bit and finances are coming together. I need to balance a few things before I start up again.

In the interim, like today, I am pulling my driver's side front wheel and the wheel well cover to see if some dremeled vents with an appropriate splash guard will help with air flow to cool my SMIC down faster.

I'm about 1K away from an oil change and I need to replace my oil cooler o-ring. I'm not upgrading the oil cooler because I still have more than a half dozen large oil filters for my 1Z left. Even with our other B4 in the family, this amount of filters will last us a couple more years.

Now I need to change my fuel filter too and I'm toying with the idea of moving over to the CAT 2 micron set. while I'm there, it'd be wise to change over fuel lines to some clear ones and I'm going to talk to a couple people as to how large of a line I can run from the tank to filter and/if it'll make a difference. I want to see how large this cavity is too because this is one possible path I may have the water lines run for the heat exchanger I mention in the A2W2A setup.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
In about 6 weeks, time and money will conspire for me to put into action what I wish to do about my iddy bitty intercooler. This will be done in tandem to a water+meth injection system too.

It is possible that I'll be changing out pistons, rods, and associated bearings with an cylinder overbore near late July, early August. With this being only a question of time, it'll mean that I'll be tromping the pedal quite a bit more.

I'll probably be wanting more top end power too by raising the redline. In order to go to a higher RPM I need to change out the valve springs, but I'm wholly ignorant as to the specs I should be looking for. In the Fall I'll be looking at doing my timing belt and since I'll be putting in a Colt Stage 2 cam, which requires lifters, I might as well tackle the springs.

The other concern I've seen expressed when raising the red line is the injection pump's longevity. Most people at this point retrofit the 11 mm IP, but these days I see several suggestions of upgrading the stock 10 mm pump with an 11 mm cam instead. I'm over here in California, so sending the pump out to DFIS in Oregon would be ideal. Do I need to find a donor 11 mm pump, or will they be able to do the upgrade for me from parts on hand? If a stock 10 mm pump won't handle the higher red line, would they be able to make the necessary hardware upgrades?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I'm writing all of this out, I'm realizing that If I'm going to the extent of doing valve springs, I'm not that far away from tearing open the rest of the engine and doing the pistons and rods. I should just do all of that at once, right?
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
TDI
'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
I would definitely replace rods. You're on borrowed time (and boost) already.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
I would definitely replace rods. You're on borrowed time (and boost) already.
I try and behave. Usually I'm not pushing it past about 22-25 PSI if I want to pass someone. Typically I'm driving under 15 PSI. Especially in this heat.
DC, what i/c did you end up with?
I may need one next week.:eek:
I'm going to purchase the large hardware in about 2 weeks; intercooler, radiator, reservoir, pump. If you saw my other thread about air to water intercooler sizing, I'll be going with the smaller one. I'll be picking up a set of fans on Amazon, blades spaced asymetrically (though if you cut the fan in half they are symetrical) and I'm still looking into radiators/heat exhangers right now.
 

flee

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Location
Chatsworth, CA
TDI
2002 Jetta GLS wagon
I'm going to purchase the large hardware in about 2 weeks; intercooler, radiator, reservoir, pump. If you saw my other thread about air to water intercooler sizing, I'll be going with the smaller one. I'll be picking up a set of fans on Amazon, blades spaced asymetrically (though if you cut the fan in half they are symetrical) and I'm still looking into radiators/heat exhangers right now.
I'm curious about the 'locally sourced' i/c in your build thread.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
Hey Lee,

Sortry I haven't replied. Any activity here has been while I'm at work. I haven't touched my home computer for several days. Here is one seller for ~$100 for the small or medium ones:
CXRacing 3.5" x4" x14"
CXRacing 5" x5" x15"

The other one is DNA Motoring aka DPT Motorsports on Ebay

Looks like it too a bit longer than expected to track down the latter store and they are out of stock of the A2W IC.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
Alright, now that I'm nearing the time to upgrade the rods with my timing belt, I'm looking at pistons and rods upgrades.

Despite taking the head off, I'm not going the...

...route

If the cylinder walls are fine, I'm going to do a drop in piston just to strengthen everything up. I was originally under the impression that ASVs would work, but I've been told 'no' by a couple forum members I've asked and have been pointed to ARL/ASZ pistons.

Rock Auto has them, top two and bottom two, but there are interesting options. Obviously I was the ones with the "cooling duct". The bottom two are about ~$43 more and that price difference is by the inclusion ring carriers:


I don't recall ever seeing anyone on the club saying ring carriers were needed so I don't know which piston to go with. I know a few have purchased pistons from Rock Auto and they're genuine parts so I'm looking for some help from you knowledgable bunch to possibly save a few $$$ on pistons.
 
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Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
While I bide my time until November for the rest of the upgrades, I spent a bit of time with unix-fu and converted my image files of previous dynos into data sets so I could graph them all on one set of axis. Check the first post if you want to have a look.

Mind you the best one shown is a 4th gear pull. I'm eager to get back on a dyno with a strengthened engine and a few other tricks up my sleeves to see what the engine can do.
 

temporaptor

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2009
Location
Upland, CA
TDI
00 Jetta TDI 11 335D M-Sport
my car liked 4 gear on the dyno too. I think its due to the amount of torque we produce with diesels.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
Just finished parts ordering. Third full week of November the car is going down to have the pistons and rods swapped out. Since I'm there I'll be swapping over to a Colt Stg II cam and new lifters. I've ordered support hardware and planned for downtime in case there is accelerated wear etc. I'll be doing a timing belt as well. The new hardware will be:

Colt Stage II cam + Lifters/Followers
+0.5 mm ARL pistons + rings + pins
Rosten's rods + hardware
Sputter bearings for rods
Intake & Exhaust valves + seals + valve guides (J.I.C.)
Crank sprocket (J.I.C.)

The only other thing that I didn't decide upon are uprated valve springs, but I have some time to pick them up if need be.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
If this were my car, I would invest in a clutched alternator pulley to reduce the forces applied to the crank pulley by the rotational mass of the alternator.
I COMPLETELY forgot to mention this!

I installed a Gates 37010P clutch pulley, when I replaced the timing belt 10k miles ago. This pulley can be had for a VERY reasonable price from Amazon.

That alone really seems to reduce the oscillation in the serpentine tensioner. Which, I think, translates to reduced oscillation in the timing belt, reducing wear and forces negatively impacting the crank snout/timing pulley failures.

Tony

Mirroring the above sentiments, I've wanted to pin my crank sprocket for a while since my car is still young. At the same time, put on a clutched alternator pulley. These two will be on that long list of things to do while the car is down :)

Oh, and before I forget, I wanted to note something. A bit more than a month ago I picked up the majority of the parts for a timing belt and since the price was comparable (~$10 ea. + tax), I picked up 1Z lifters, all from the dealer. Well guess what, the lifters have a nitride coat on them now:
 
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markd89

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2009
Location
Los Angeles
TDI
1978 VW Bus 1Z TDI
Lots of good stuff!

You'll be taking the block to a machine shop to have the cylinders over-bored right?

Mark
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
Yup. There is a shop that is housed in the came building of a Car Quest that used to be a Graves automotive parts shop back in the day. Nice guys. Family has used them for years and they're like 5 min from the house. Already talked to him about bringing it in.

Should I have him look over the crank too? I'm ~18K miles with the upgraded power and use at least a bit of it at least once a week. I hearing its in best interests to do on a rebuild regardless.

When I get everything sorted before dropping things in place, I'll be posting more pics.
 

vanbcguy

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Location
Vancouver, BC
TDI
'93 Passat - AHU mTDI with GTB1756VK
Alright, now that I'm nearing the time to upgrade the rods with my timing belt, I'm looking at pistons and rods upgrades.

If the cylinder walls are fine, I'm going to do a drop in piston just to strengthen everything up. I was originally under the impression that ASVs would work, but I've been told 'no' by a couple forum members I've asked and have been pointed to ARL/ASZ pistons.
Regarding the ASV pistons - are you trying to get away without any machine work? Just curious. I have ASVs installed in my AHU block right now.



I got my block bored as it was worn to about 50% of the wear limit, no point in trying to save a little only to end up spending a lot. They did skim the deck for me too - it was kind of crusty after sitting with the head off for a bit. It is also necessary to skim it to have the ASV pistons work properly as they are a bit shorter.

I went with the same rods as you... :) They fit great.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
I've tried to avoid posting every decision I've made on here so that's a valid question. I caught that detail on your thread previously as I like to read, research, and see what and why standard operating procedures are.

I went with +0.5 mm pistons. I have to have it bored. I'm heading the warnings of a friend who's been around the block, no pun intended, a few times with rebuilding TDIs. Though I don't have any symptoms of engine trouble as far as I can tell, the possibility of having and scarring on the cylinder walls has pushed me over to this. I *could* buy pistons once I get he head off, but with international shipping, that could be a wait longer than I have time for. I cannot afford 2 sets of pistons so I just bit the bullet, too bad it's not bit the billet ;), and bought 80 mm pistons and just decided to overbore regardless.

I went with ARLs over ASVs as the bowl is larger and the engineering wisdom is that this is the proper way to reduce CR. I'm running a 29 PSI tune, *might* go a little more, and this seems to be the threshold for when CR should be reduced some. The purely theoretical math puts me at a CR of ~18.8-18.9:1. Win win?

As for wear, we'll see where mine is. How miles were on your block? I'm 192K on mine, 18K with greater than stock HP/TRQ.
 

vanbcguy

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Location
Vancouver, BC
TDI
'93 Passat - AHU mTDI with GTB1756VK
Yeah - I thought about lowering the compression a bit, but I found too many stories of people with smoke when cold. I'm in a colder climate than you for sure... Not so much right here in Vancouver but once you go towards the interior much cold mornings are pretty much a given at this time of year.

My boost will probably be in the same ballpark as yours - I started following your thread as I have the same turbo :) I think if I lived where you are I'd probably go the same way with the ARLs.

My block apparently had 232,000km - so less than yours. I got it as a pile of engine though, not out of a running car so the only thing I have is a scribble on the timing cover claiming such mileage.
 

Digital Corpus

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Location
Ontario, California
TDI
'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
I read up on that too. Looked like problems happened at lower than 18:1. Though extended glow plug pre-glow or double cycling the pre-glow were effective solutions for some in your climent until it got lower than 17.5-ish, if memory serves.
 
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