Tdi in a hiace van??

To make a long story short I got the engine running for a bit but it was misfiring a bit. So I added an in line pump to help build fuel pressure but now the engine won't run at all! I've repeatedly bled all the lines out and checked that there was fuel at the filter, and each injector line. All lines have fuel coming back out yet the engine still won't run and I'm not sure why it isn't running. The engine ran before I put the line pump in and now nothing. What else could it be??

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You're getting fuel to the high pressure lines to the injectors when cranking, but no start?

Injection timing in the ballpark?

What's the temperature like? Are the glow plugs working?

Glow plugs are working, injection timing hasn't been messed with since I took it out of the golf. Ever since I added the line pump to act as a lift pump I've been having problems. I've bled the fuel lines to the filter, past the filter, and primed the injection pump and it'll fire on like one cylinder for a while then die. I think that lift pump is interfering too much with the fuel system so I'm gonna take it out

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So I removed the line pump, bled all the lines again and it started to run really rough with tons of black smoke and quickly died again. I had it going a couple more times and it was running really rough. Any time I added a bit of throttle to it it died again
I have no idea what's going on or why it's running so poorly. When I took it out of the golf it ran well and when I first started it up it ran ok albiet with a misfire.

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Is the EGR system connected? Is the MAF sensor connected and located such that it reads the correct amount of air? No boost leaks (all air passing through the MAF sensor is making it into the engine, and all air going into the engine is passing through the MAF sensor)?

Bear in mind that the MAF sensor is really an air-velocity sensor ... it has to be located in a duct the same diameter as stock, and oriented in a way no differently affected by swirls or turbulence in the air stream than stock. If the MAF sensor reads higher than the actual amount of air getting into the engine, it will command the EGR to open to try to reduce the amount of air getting into the engine, and you'll get black smoke and no power.

Is the anti-shudder shutdown flap (looks like a throttle) operating properly?

I've gotten rid of all of that stuff and had the ecu flashed to match. I had fast forward automotive do up a stand-alone harness and ecu tune to get rid of the egr and maf.
The engine ran ok the first time I started it with a bit of a misfire so I decided to add a line pump to help keep air out of the lines but ever since I did I've had nothing but problems

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So I got the thing running with an intermittent idle and with theine pump working. I've installed a clear fuel inlet line to make sure there wasn't any air getting into the pump. After it started running a little better I changed out the intake manifold gasket and tightened up all the intake and charge piping to attempt to fix the intermittent idle and now the engine won't run at all!
No air is getting into the system, all injectors have fuel to them and all the intake pipes are good and tight.
I got a p0101 code from the ecu and Malone tuning is going to send me new chips for the ecu so I'm really hoping that will get the engine running. Otherwise I have no idea how to fix the idle. Any insight would be greatly appreciated

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How long has the engine been sitting since you pulled it from the golf? The engine in my samurai ran fine when I pulled it from the beetle but it was left sitting for a few years and when I put it in the samurai I had hard starts. Ended up being the injector pump.

I had it out for about 2 months before I got it running again. I thought that the pump might be the issue as well, but I never cranked it without fuel in it

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So the engine is running again for some weird reason. It has the occasional sputter but I'm feeling confident enough to take it for a short drive sometime this week.
My power steering pump is making a ton of horrible noise though and the fluid is pretty gross looking so I'm going to flush it out tonight and see if that helps. I'm using the prober chf stuff in the pump as not to wreck it. I heard that if you use the wrong fluid in the pump it can be pretty bad for the pump.
I also got some new chips for the ecu from Malone tuning last night that should hopefully correct the maf signal problem and hopefully it'll help the engine run smoother as well. Maybe I'll take some time to actually clean the van out too haha

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Took the van for short drive and it completely died on me.
The engine ran really smoothly after changing out the ecu chips and replacing the vacuum pump seal but then started to misfire again and eventually I couldn't get it started.
I had to flat tow it home and throw a charger on the battery and tried cranking it over again. Only after about 5 minutes of solid cranking(stopping to let the starter cool off mind you) fid it start again. The ecu is not throwing any dtcs other than glow plug light open circuit, but it is showing multiple misfires.
What could cause these misfires to show up? This keeps happening and its aggravating as hell. I don't think the injection timing is off as it does run cleanly sometimes, I've bled the injector lines multiple times and there is fuel there.

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what ecm are you running? maf-less?

Yes maf less Malone tuned ecu. Just did a compression test and the numbers are grim:
Cyl 1: 400psi
Cyl 2: 360psi
Cyl 3: 60psi
Cyl 4: 220psi

I don't have a leak down tester, but I suspect a broken head gasket between cyl 3 and 4

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HiaceTDI said:

Yes maf less Malone tuned ecu. Just did a compression test and the numbers are grim:
Cyl 1: 400psi
Cyl 2: 360psi
Cyl 3: 60psi
Cyl 4: 220psi

I don't have a leak down tester, but I suspect a broken head gasket between cyl 3 and 4

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yikes! that does look bad.

I'm hoping it's just a head gasket, but just to be safe I'm going to have the van towed to a vw shop here in town to have it looked at. They'd be able to do a proper leak down test and hopefully get it fixed properly. I'm not a mechanic, just a dope who had a crazy idea

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HiaceTDI said:

I'm hoping it's just a head gasket, but just to be safe I'm going to have the van towed to a vw shop here in town to have it looked at. They'd be able to do a proper leak down test and hopefully get it fixed properly. I'm not a mechanic, just a dope who had a crazy idea

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you should really do this yourself, I would go ahead and pull the head because it's got to come off anyway.

There's a lot of vw specialty tools for this that I don't have. And again, I don't have any of the diagnostic equipment that the shop would have. I could get through the entire process of doing the head gasket only to find out after it were all completed that it was a bent valve or something. Also since I'm no longer running the vw flywheel I can't determine tdc without some kind of runout guage which again I don't have.
I'm not above asking for help when it comes to the more complicated aspects of this build. That's why I had the wiring harness done for me: I just don't have the experience with it

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If you don't do the work yourself, find a trusted TDI VW mechanic and avoid the stealership.

1.9ZOOK said:

If you don't do the work yourself, find a trusted TDI VW mechanic and avoid the stealership.

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Yep. There's a vw Audi Subaru shop in town here that does very reputable work. They do a lot of work on diesel swapped vanagons and westfalias too so dealing with a mid engine hiace shouldn't be too bad. I even bought my golf tdi off the former owner. Now the engine ran fine in the golf, I'm not sure what I've done to it to get the compression that low but hopefully it'll just be a head gasket

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So due to the placement of the engine I got quoted at 6 to 8 hours to remove the engine and diagnostics so I've taken the engine out, bought a timing tool kit and will be taking the head off this weekend hopefully. I checked the bottom end for bent rods but everything looks normal so I'm gonna look at taking the head off

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Yeah the pistons are ****ed.
Not going to bother rebuilding this one just yet, as I've found another rebuilt alh for sale that I'm gonna put in the van

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so what was in those 2... thats #3 & 4...

I have no clue. Mechanic said it could have been carbon deposits knocked loose when I took the intake manifold off but I don't think carbon would do that to the pistons. I honestly can't think of what could have gotten in there

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To make a very long story short, I've replaced the engine with a newly rebuilt alh with some kinda performance cam and got it into the van. I've also redone the engine mounts and did a full camper van conversion. I've been way too busy building the van to post on any of my forums but for now the van is running quite well, minus a small oil leak and some cold start issues(mostly due to the performance cam I reckon.)

That's about it for this build thread, now it's time for adventures

I'd love to see a final round of pictures to send off the thread! How is the 4x4 system working? Do you think you'll want to regear?

Danielg42 said:

I'd love to see a final round of pictures to send off the thread! How is the 4x4 system working? Do you think you'll want to regear?

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4x4 is indomitable in the snow. Even better than the big trucks since it's got a much shorter and narrower wheelbase. I actually did re gear it from 4.88 to 4.10 to get better highway performance. When i first got it driving on the stock gearing, I found the engine would be revving at around 3400 rpm at 100kmh. With the 4.10 gears and taller tires I can do 110kmh at 2900rpm which is much easier on the engine.

Heres some shots of the inside

there's gonna be a 12v isotherm fridge in that space once it clears the border







I've probably put around 15,000 km on it since the swap and have gone on lots of adventures. The low range transfer case in this thing is crazy good too. I've been in some really snowy situations where the bigger trucks were getting stuck left and right, but this thing will just slowly putt on by

and of course



The ALH itself sitting in a mid-engine configuration in a japanese minivan.

what a crazy-ass thing to do

so cool and a great story of persistence! Love the pictures