DC's 1756VK-assisted B4

vanbcguy

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'93 Passat - AHU mTDI with GTB1756VK
Oh, and based on what you guys see here, would an upper limit of ~140-150 whp be a general safe limit for a 1Z without strengthening?
You are doing rods and pistons - there's not really much else that needs any attention in the bottom end. The crank is plenty strong. You could do main studs and a girdle if you really wanted to but that's more of an excuse to spend money than anything. The bottom end will go 250+ HP without issue if everything is in good condition.

On the 1Z the pistons were the big problem really.
 

storx

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over on gasser world.. people use the tdi block with tdi crank with custom rods and pistons to make an 2.1 to 2.2 stroker engines and i have seen them exceed 900hp on stock crank...
 

john.jackson9213

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Marks in the cylinder bore bother me. When you run you finger nail over them can you feel them. And what matches the mark on the pistons??? Been told by tool and die makers the finger nail test is good down to a tenth of a thousandth. But those were German Tool makers.

But the block is getting overbored as we speak. Still want to know what caused the marks.

Did you get some plastigauge to measure bearing clearances??
 

Digital Corpus

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I may not get the block back until Monday or Tuesday. I haven't picked any up yet, but I have more travels to come. Right now we're off to get some rivets to replicate this tool for compressing the valve springs.
 

Digital Corpus

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I do not know what is wrong with my server, but it died just before 20:00 PST. I'm holding off on posting more until I figure out what is causing the crashes and the fix for it.
 

Digital Corpus

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okayyy. Everything is back to normal. Somehow a power supply/wall wart/power brick for one of the network switches in the house causes a bit of a problem with the linux server...

No internet for anything else in this room and I get the rest of the house functioning properly. Time to find a generic brick replacement... Apologies on the photos not working the past few days.
 

john.jackson9213

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Starting Friday, I have 18 servers and workstations to unpack and set up. Some time next week, I get the network switches. Once all the cables are connected, we start installing software. Should be done about Christmas time. Depending on vacations. Maybe later. Oh yes, the engineers have to figure out the temporary power cables for 13 DCUs while on our test floor. We are testing the control system for a waste water plant, prior to instalation sometime next year. No power supply sure screws things up.
 

Digital Corpus

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13:09:02 PM Digital Corpus: ***? Where did you find that gif?
13:09:07 PM Jon Fettig: lol
13:09:16 PM Jon Fettig: I saw it and knew I had to post it somewhere
13:09:32 PM Jon Fettig: there was no talking me out of it, lol
13:09:48 PM Digital Corpus: okay, so it is the epitome of random...
13:09:56 PM Jon Fettig: you're welcome
 

Digital Corpus

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In relevant news, I'm going to test out the homemade tool for valve spring removal and then clean up the head if it all works. I'll see if I can drop it off at the shop to have it looked at too.
 

Digital Corpus

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'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
So, here are my old pistons! They spent a day in the bath and I brushed them down with a brass brush. Chipped off hardened carbon with the back of a razor blade.

Bath


Final drying & prepped for weigh-in


Results of weigh in:
Code:
	Meas 1	Meas 2	Meas 3	Meas 4	Avg.		StdDev
#1:	1506.2	1506.2	1506.3	1506.1	1506.2		0.0816
#2:	1507.5	1507.2	1507.1	1507.2	1507.275	0.1732
#3:	1505.3	1505.1	1505.1	1505.3	1505.2		0.1155
#4:	1499.2	1499.0	1499.0	1499.1	1499.075	0.0957

Overall StdDev:	3.674
Anyone have any idea why there is so much pitting on pistons 2 & 3?

Piston #1


Piston #2


Piston #3


Piston #4

In the previous, in-cylinder photo of this piston, there was some glint that I mistook as bare metal. Must've been gunk similar to that of the intake manifold...

Photos of bearings and camshaft are forthcoming, which are "interesting" and I wish I had a macro lens.
 
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john.jackson9213

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DC, Any weights on the new pistons and new rods? That number 4 piston and rod weight seems out of range. What do you have going on Saturday? I have a 96 wagon tailgate in a local pick your part yard I am going to try and salvage with all the electrical wires in one piece. Plan is to strip the wires out of the tail gate and put them in a white tail gate I got a couple of years ago from Jeremy. Unfortunately, Jeremy ran out of time when saving the tail gate, he cut all the wires going into the roof. The tail gate I got from Jeremy is near perfect sheet metal, better than mine by a fair piece. If this gets done early Saturday, I may head up your way to inspect progress. Got your phone Thanks, let me know if you need a truck over the weekend.
 
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Fix_Until_Broke

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I believe you'll want to replace your cam/lifters at some point. Mine looked similar when I rebuilt my engine - I kept the lifters/lobes matched up and ran them another 10k miles before changing the cam/lifters. They didn't look appreciably worse after another 10k, but they were not going to last another 100k (next timing belt) in my opinion either.

Your lifter on #2 left side of picture is more concerning (it's not rotating) than the #4 lifter with pitting in the center.

Very nice macro pictures by the way...that's tricky to get them to turn out well.
 

Digital Corpus

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FYI, these are ordered from left to right as 4, 3, 2, & 1. This photo and the one following are the only 2 I've taken in this orientation.

Upper connecting rod bearings


Lower


So, some high heat? Yeah, though I don't suspect that this wear it a direct result of my power output. If any of you recall my previous build thread, you'll recall a blow turbo. Reasons why it was blown are irrelevant. Anyhow, for the sake of time it was decided that we drive the car back to the builders house.

Here's a small map. The turbo was blown driving from A to B. On the remaining oil we drove to C. Over filled to ~5-6 qrts of oil since the turbo was hemorrhaging was we had, and drove over Colima where we basically coasted with an idling engine back to the house. Though the oil alarm never came on, we billowed smoke going over and this event is what I think caused the bearing wear you see.

I'm not sure if this same event could have produced the cylinder wear, which shows on the piston rings (that I haven't photograph) and/or if the pitting on the pistons is related.
 
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Digital Corpus

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DC, Any weights on the new pistons and new rods? That number 4 piston and rod weight seems out of range. What do you have going on Saturday? I have a 96 wagon tailgate in a local pick your part yard I am going to try and salvage with all the electrical wires in one piece. Plan is to strip the wires out of the tail gate and put them in a white tail gate I got a couple of years ago from Jeremy. Unfortunately, Jeremy ran out of time when saving the tail gate, he cut all the wires going into the roof. The tail gate I got from Jeremy is near perfect sheet metal, better than mine by a fair piece. If this gets done early Saturday, I may head up your way to inspect progress. Got your phone Thanks, let me know if you need a truck over the weekend.
I have a truck for transportation for all but Sunday, which doesn't affect any of my plans. My dad, who's been eyeing my parts and aided in advice since he's been into cars since long before I've been around, wanted to go to the LA Auto Show, but we're both too busy to do so. If you want to stop on by, hit me up and I'll let you know what my day is like.

I believe you'll want to replace your cam/lifters at some point. Mine looked similar when I rebuilt my engine - I kept the lifters/lobes matched up and ran them another 10k miles before changing the cam/lifters. They didn't look appreciably worse after another 10k, but they were not going to last another 100k (next timing belt) in my opinion either.

Your lifter on #2 left side of picture is more concerning (it's not rotating) than the #4 lifter with pitting in the center.

Very nice macro pictures by the way...that's tricky to get them to turn out well.
I have new lifters from the dealer, special thanks to Fixmy59bug, and they happen to be nitrate coated. This will go in with uprated springs, guides, seals, valves, and a colt stage II cam. I picked up sputter bearings for the connecting rods, too btw.

That lifter in the #2 pic turned out to the subject of this thread if memory serves.

Oh, and thanks for the compliment on the photos, though I'm just posting a near 100% crop.
 
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Digital Corpus

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DC, Any weights on the new pistons and new rods?
Overall, the new rods are supposed to be ~600 gm. I weighed an unopened piston (with all hardware inside) and a rod in its bag and got ~1475 gm. I'm not weighing everything right now since handling them can/will remove the oil on them used to prevent/impede corrosion. Monday evening or tuesday I'll begin that task of weighing and matching everything.
 

Matt-98AHU

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Awesome progress, Michael! It's a time-consuming process, but if you're methodical about it, not all that hard.

I still haven't gotten a ride since you put that monster turbo on it... :p
 

Digital Corpus

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Thank you, sir.

I would offer, but you know how fast this car moves. Right, you cannot even tell it's a TDI ;). I'll send you a PM so we can talk details. I do need to give Jeremy a ride in the car too...
 

Digital Corpus

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Oh, and based on what you guys see here, would an upper limit of ~140-150 whp be a general safe limit for a 1Z without strengthening?
I think there are people on here who say 140-150 is about the limit, but I have also seen 180 tossed around. I am at neither one yet (~130), so I'm not worrying about it yet, but it's a good question.

I would have expected to see any soot burned off or carboned on harder with running it. That looks like it's loose soot that would come off easily.
Please consider the power level redacted since I forgot the teeny detail of failed turbo = tiny metal meteors treating my pistons as a Moon and leaving craters.
 

john.jackson9213

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Please consider the power level redacted since I forgot the teeny detail of failed turbo = tiny metal meteors treating my pistons as a Moon and leaving craters.
If the tiny metal meteors came from a failed turbo, I would expect some similar marks on the head, as it is also aluminum. But, I am guessing you did not clean the head prior to sending it to the shop.
 

john.jackson9213

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With regard to power level for the IZ pistions and rods IndigoBlueWagon was reporting 180 hp for 100K miles with the rods stretching .002, So with stronger rods and pistons, I would expect something else would fail first with more power. I would suspect the next point of failure would be the transmission. Might want to look at doing the 5th gear oiling mod while your trans is out of the car. I had Matt Whitbread inspect and clean up a used 5 speed then install the .622 5th gear before my last clutch job. This is the same transmission I converted to the EuroTuning 6 speed. So I am reasonably comfortable with the transmission condition.
Based on the above, I think your fresh block will be good for more than 100K if you keep the boost below 30/32 and don't use it too often or too hard. Do you have an exhaust gas temperature gauge? That would be something to add right now. Or at at least drill and tap for right now. We have spoken before about using water injection with high boost pressure to lower the exhaust gas temperature. Turing on H2O injection at 25 psi would be a good move to extend component life (and clean the carbon off the combustion chambers). Might also allow higher boost pressures than 30 psi safely.
Not sure there is a whole lot of difference between the power Jeremy has (380 ft/lb) and the 325 ft/lb you are getting on the street.
 
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Digital Corpus

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'97 B4 w/ 236K mi body, 46K mi soul
If the tiny metal meteors came from a failed turbo, I would expect some similar marks on the head, as it is also aluminum. But, I am guessing you did not clean the head prior to sending it to the shop.
I’ll be stopping by tomorrow to see how things are with the block and crank. Depending on their workload, I may take it to a different shop since I didn’t decide to get it machined until yesterday. C’est la vie.

With regard to power level for the IZ pistions and rods IndigoBlueWagon was reporting 180 hp for 100K miles with the rods stretching .002, So with stronger rods and pistons, I would expect something else would fail first with more power. I would suspect the next point of failure would be the transmission. Might want to look at doing the 5th gear oiling mod while your trans is out of the car. I had Matt Whitbread inspect and clean up a used 5 speed then install the .622 5th gear before my last clutch job. This is the same transmission I converted to the EuroTuning 6 speed. So I am reasonably comfortable with the transmission condition.
Based on the above, I think your fresh block will be good for more than 100K if you keep the boost below 30/32 and don't use it too often or too hard. Do you have an exhaust gas temperature gauge? That would be something to add right now. Or at at least drill and tap for right now. We have spoken before about using water injection with high boost pressure to lower the exhaust gas temperature. Turing on H2O injection at 25 psi would be a good move to extend component life (and clean the carbon off the combustion chambers). Might also allow higher boost pressures than 30 psi safely.
Not sure there is a whole lot of difference between the power Jeremy has (380 ft/lb) and the 325 ft/lb you are getting on the street.
I double checked, but the rods bent a bit, though I know what you’re getting at. I want this engine to stay with me until 500K. I do quite a bit of cruizing, and in terms of how time I drive, relatively little hot rodding. Either way, right foot makes it easy and comfortable to merge onto a freeway @ 25 PSI spike, 20 sustained so I think I’ll be okay.

Thanks for the reminder for the lubrication of the 5th gear. Took me a bit, but I found the threads again: Initial mod for 02J/02A
and the Part from VW, and this is something I was planning on doing.

EGT is installed, but I need to get a gauge. EMP will follow. If I had an EMP gauge we would have identified the spool up issue sooner. I was at a 2.9-3 mm gap for the vanes when fully closed. At 1.5 turns from being flush, I’m at a 1.2 mm gap. For the GTB1756, I’ve seen a few suggestions from 0.7 mm to 2 mm and this happens to be a middle of the road number, by chance. We’ll see how things go from there.

Water/Meth injection is a whole ‘nother story and it’ll be sometime before I revisit it.


Now, time to finish getting broken bolt-outs and seized screws out of the exhaust manifold...
 

Digital Corpus

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So, while its a quiet Sunday night and I have time to kill until the block gets back from the shop, I decided to break out the dremel! Bolts came off, one way or another, and then I got to grinding down some sharp transitions between the exhaust manifold outlet and the turbo adapter plate.

(click any photo to embiggen, as usual)

Before porting. Ignore evident exhaust leak. Never could tell over the oil leak...


Oh, btw, this is that nub from earlier I was talking about:




Previously I port matched my 17/22 to the AFN exhaust manifold. In order to figure out which one needed rounding out, I used hot glue as a temporary gasket. Running the numbers from the old ID to the new one for the 17/22, I gained about 20-25% cross sectional area.

Exhaust manifold to adapter:
(the "lips" are caused by the adapter not being seated with all bolts, fyi)






I cannot tell you what the original ID was, though if someone has a spare AFN manifold handy and can measure it, that'd be awesome. Anyhow, the flatter edge you see if where the wall is already thin so I didn't want to go thinner than the majority of the structure.

There is a bit of a lip to catch exhaust to go up the EGR port, but I ground that out too.


As for the adapter to the turbo's hot side
 
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Digital Corpus

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The more pressing porting job, for me that was, happens to be the outlet of the turbo's hotside.

First some details on the turbo in case anyone wants to do something similar. The exhaust opening is a 48 mm ID. The GTB vane assembly has a bit of a, um, "pipe" that sits around the turbine and extends into the exhaust cavity. The end of this "pipe" sits 14-15 mm from where the flange for the downpipe would mate to the turbo. I assumed 14 mm since I didn't tighten any screws down for measurement. I used the soot deposits as a general mark for the area I can cut out. Turns out that the diameter of a crank sprocket between teeth is ~60.1 mm, or the ID of a 2.5" OD, 16-gauge exhaust pipe.

Now, to backtrack a little, the ID of the "pipe" of the vane assembly is 40.2 mm and the OD is 47.4 mm. This ~3 mm thick wall created a bit of a transition. Since I didn't want to risk stripping the torx bits to remove the "pipe", I decided to leave this untouched. Now, if I ported all of the way down to this edge, it'd be a steep transition from outlet of the "pipe" to the porting I'd create. To ease up on that I decided to only grind down about 10 mm of the 14 mm depth.

(click to embiggen any photo)

First pass, cell phone pic


Initial shavings


After notching the angle and depth of the final cuts


Broke out the big camera and better lighting

You may notice in the top right of the housing that there are some score marks. the furthest 2 are from metal rings for sealing the "pipe" to the hot side, and then I made on for 14 mm and 10 mm.

Test fit so see if I'm cutting enough/too much


Final result


The final angle is between 26.6˚ and 31.0˚, fwiw.
 
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