IBW Gets a New Engine

puntmeister said:

Piston/valve contact could/would occur if the lifter presses the valve down, then, due to no-oil, gets stuck, not allowing the valve to come back up - the valve is stuck down, and then gets smacked by the piston.

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This is what we think happened. And chill thinks a valve head broke of in cylinder #4, which stopped the engine. But as I've posted, we can't pull it apart to inspect because it'll void the warranty. We'll find out when the supplier tears it down.

Just look in the ports......

Will do. Easy enough, once the manifold comes off.

Well, look on the bright side Peter... At least it's getting great fuel economy! Infinite miles per gallon...

nkgagne said:

Infinite miles per gallon...

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I don't think you understand infinite!

And it's forcing me to drive my Golf. Maybe I'll finally bond with it.

IndigoNothinComparesTo02BlueWagon said:

And it's forcing me to drive my Golf. Maybe I'll finally bond with it.

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Fat chance.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

And it's forcing me to drive my Golf. Maybe I'll finally bond with it.

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Jetter_Sprinta said:

Fat chance.

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Stranger things have happened. I have been driving the Beetle more than the Jetta because I CHOOSE to.

Man, super sorry to hear about the motor(s).


You are kind of making me glad that I stuck with a VNT-15. I was very close to a 17, but liked the way the golf drove so much that I just re-created the same setup you have except I chose a different tuner.

Any update on this?

Not much. Just spoke to Chill, he hopes to get the new engine in next week. He had other work scheduled after the failure and knows I'm not in a big hurry, even though I miss the car. He says that this time he's going to pull the pan and prime the oil pump (even though that shouldn't be necessary) warranty be damned. I'm with him on that.

I'd be interested to know how he plans on priming the pump with the pan off.

Probably take the sprocket off, put the pickup in a cup of oil, and use a drill to spin the pump.

Yup that's what I did with mine.

Boy, it's been a long time, but IBW is back home.


Chill got it running on Monday, ran it for about 4 hours today, no problem. Drove it to my house this evening and I took him back to his shop. No issues. Engine is very quiet, very smooth. Not a ton of power, some of which I attribute to the low fueling ALH ECU that's in the car. I have the ASV ECU with RC3+, that will go in tomorrow or Friday. It's probably not making a ton of compression, either, given it's got about 60 miles on it.

We ended up putting (another) new turbo on the car for fear the Garrett on the first replacement engine may have been damaged by oil starvation. It never made boost and it was primed with oil, so it might have been fine. But now the car has a Mahle turbo on it. Test subject. See how it does running 19.5 PSI.

I'm thrilled to have the car back. After driving the Golf for a couple of months I was beginning to wonder if I'd like going back to a 12 year old 300K mile car. No problem. It's just as nice as ever. Now for break in.

Congrats.

Yay! Let's drive it to the Cape to test drive the BMW 328d wagon!


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IBW is back new motor clean body and paint work well done.

bajan

Wish I knew about the rust warranty.

Rust warranty I believe is still active for 02 models

bajan

red16vdub said:

Rust warranty I believe is still active for 02 models

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Doubt it. Most '02s were built by June or July of that year. So we're past it. My car was built in March, I warrantied it in March. However, I could have also argued for date of sale since I bought it new in May of '02.

Just drove the car into Boston and back. Lots of holiday traffic. Runs great. I'm happy I switched to a SBC Stage 2 Daily clutch, engagement from stop is easier and smoother. And boy is it quiet. Filled it up this AM, but I don't have great expectations for first tank fuel economy.

The SBC daily is nice. I had one install in July this year and its silky smooth BUT with just over 9000 miles she's slipping in 3rd,4th, and 5th so I'm having second thoughts. Hopefully SBC warranty covers it. Chill install pp520 and Rc3 with vnt15 but I'm sure that's a non issue because I never had any slippage the OEM dmf setup.

bajan

That's odd. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like.

Hi Peter,
I agree with you. The a4 Jetta wagons when set right are hard to beat.
I hope to keep mine for as long as i can. I would put the money into a new engine rather than get anything else i see right now.
Good luck.

Filled it yesterday. First tank, 41 MPG. All local driving, lots of idling, fuel leak for a bit (tired return lines), and tires with 32 PSI in them. Aired up the tires and drove it 300 miles today to western MA and back. Nice fast run back, lots of it at 80-85 MPH. Showing 7/8 of a tank at 300 miles. So it's getting better FE this time.

Checked the oil, no usage. And it's not black. What's up with that?

rings are still tight , don't allow soot in the oil

it should loosen up after a while

Yup, clean new engine + tight new rings = very little soot going into the oil.

Update: It just keeps getting better

It's been almost a year and over 20K miles since the engine swap was completed, and it's running great. I drove to the Appalachian Auto Works GTG in NC last weekend, about a 2,000 mile round trip. The car ran perfectly, and was as happy as ever to run at 80+ MPH on the freeway.

The big surprise was the fuel economy. I left the house with a full tank, filled in VA on my way down, and again yesterday in Harrisburg on the way back. One tank was 51 MPG, the other was 52. I hit 800 miles on the first tank just as the low fuel light came on. Lots of traffic, rain, and wind on this trip, and I was trying to drive as fast as traffic would allow in the way home since I did it in one shot.

IBW has received new control arms, rear axle bushings, Koni Reds, brakes, a wheel bearing, A/C recharge, front seat swap, and new Michelin Primacy tires since last year. The tires are probably helping FE. The other stuff just makes it fun to drive.

I just crossed 100K miles tracking FE for the car on Fuelly. Used to see a lot of low to mid-40s in daily driving, with high 40s on trips. I'm now up 5 MPG from when I started, give or take. Nice.

thanks for the update and congrats on the engine.

That's some pretty stellar fuel economy for 80+ MPH.

The Passat returned 47.4 MPG at mostly 70-75 MPH driving on the trip back from the west Michigan GTG.