ALH Samurai

A

aksportsman

Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2020
Location
Washinton
TDI
2002 ALH 130,000 going into 1987 Samurai
Hello all!! I recently acquired a 1987 Sami with 80,000 original miles. Super clean, for $500. Then I found a 2002 Jetta TDI fully loaded with 130,000 on it for $1200. The transmission is even good so ill probably make money by parting it out. The best part was he included a spare low mile 11mm injection pump for free ;D. So these two now need to be married :-* and I need some guidance. Ive found several good threads on the same build, but have a few questions... I want to just do the bare minimum for lift as I just want a good solid daily driver, not a wheeler, so 3" suspension and just decent a/t tires. What gearing should I use with this swap? Also was considering using a Toyota tranny over the Sami one. Just got to look at lengths and such. Can anyone speak of a good tranny suggestion for this application? Also I found a good forum for the wiring harness to get rid of the unnecessary stuff, but any suggestions would be great! Also I keep seeing conflicting forums on whether the various conversion companies make motor mounts for this application. Can any one confirm which company sells what? A lot of the posts I found were old, so some things may have changed. For now I am going to try and keep the current injection setup, until I get to frustrated with the wiring harness and go to m-TDI(I actually think it will go alright. Reason being is that this is just a daily driver not a wheeler so I want to keep a lot of the sensors and still keep the ability to chip 8). If anyone has done something like this, or knows of good suggestions on where to take this post, I would GREATLY appreciate it.
Thanks,
Jeff
 
Last edited:
M

ManicMechanic

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
I'm running a W58 toyota in mine. It has a good overdrive and is about the shortest of the toyota transmissions I looked at. I would stay away from the samurai transmission with an ALH. The samurai clutch is tiny. I would stick with 4.10 gears or higher because with short tire (under 35) you will be holding it at or above 3k to hold 60 mph with any lower a gear. As far as motor mounts I never found any that would work with the ALH in a samurai off the shelf. I made mine myself. Wiring an ALH is easy. If you take a look at my build thread there is a picture of the ECM, relay board, fuse holder that fits under the dash where the stock samurai ECM goes.
 
A

aksportsman

Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2020
Location
Washinton
TDI
2002 ALH 130,000 going into 1987 Samurai
ManicMechanic said:
I'm running a W58 toyota in mine. It has a good overdrive and is about the shortest of the toyota transmissions I looked at. I would stay away from the samurai transmission with an ALH. The samurai clutch is tiny. I would stick with 4.10 gears or higher because with short tire (under 35) you will be holding it at or above 3k to hold 60 mph with any lower a gear. As far as motor mounts I never found any that would work with the ALH in a samurai off the shelf. I made mine myself. Wiring an ALH is easy. If you take a look at my build thread there is a picture of the ECM, relay board, fuse holder that fits under the dash where the stock samurai ECM goes.
Click to expand...
.


Man that is quite a build! You did EXACTLY what I want to do. I sent you a message if you could respond :)
 
R

Rroutfitters

Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2020
Location
Utah
TDI
Golf
aksportsman said:
Hello all!! I recently acquired a 1987 Sami with 80,000 original miles. Super clean, for $500. Then I found a 2002 Jetta TDI fully loaded with 130,000 on it for $1200. The transmission is even good so ill probably make money by parting it out. The best part was he included a spare low mile 11mm injection pump for free ;D. So these two now need to be married :-* and I need some guidance. Ive found several good threads on the same build, but have a few questions... I want to just do the bare minimum for lift as I just want a good solid daily driver, not a wheeler, so 3" suspension and just decent a/t tires. What gearing should I use with this swap? Also was considering using a Toyota tranny over the Sami one. Just got to look at lengths and such. Can anyone speak of a good tranny suggestion for this application? Also I found a good forum for the wiring harness to get rid of the unnecessary stuff, but any suggestions would be great! Also I keep seeing conflicting forums on whether the various conversion companies make motor mounts for this application. Can any one confirm which company sells what? A lot of the posts I found were old, so some things may have changed. For now I am going to try and keep the current injection setup, until I get to frustrated with the wiring harness and go to m-TDI(I actually think it will go alright. Reason being is that this is just a daily driver not a wheeler so I want to keep a lot of the sensors and still keep the ability to chip 8). If anyone has done something like this, or knows of good suggestions on where to take this post, I would GREATLY appreciate it.
Thanks,
Jeff
Click to expand...
May I ask where you found the wiring harness forum as I’m doing the same thanks
 
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