Samurai TDI swap

Well after months of gathering parts and information I am finally starting my swap. The plan is to add a 2002 ALH into the truck in the next couple months. I am also redoing my custom dash layout and all the trucks wiring with the hopes of having a stand alone engine harness, dash harness and chassis harness.

I have some down time in the office so for anyone that might be interested here is a history of my zuk.


I bought it the zuk in 2008 and it was originally for my wife to drive around

The day we picked it up it was spring over with stock springs and rancho white rocket shocks. The truck rode like a POS and the wife quickly realized she was not happy about her new daily driver



So... the fun started. I quickly swapped in some yj leafs and some decent shocks to get it to ride nicer. While I was in there I also swapped in some 85 toyota axles and 35" tires. A friend sold me a 1.6 16 valve motor out of a Suzuki X-90 so that went in aswell with some 6.5 to 1 tcase gears. At this point it was now my truck haha



The combo worked great except with the 6.5 Samurai tcase gears comes a 20% high range reduction that apparently doesnt like spinning a million miles a hour on the freeway every day and this happened

So the next summer I sold a rock buggy I had and in the deal I ended up with some custom toyota housings and a 22re with dual tcases.

With the help of friends it quickly turned it this

Johnson Valley 2010


The trip was a blast but I crunched up the rear quarters panels pretty bad

Later that year I found a great deal on coil over shocks and went at it again. The body was pretty beat so it was decided to cut off the rear half of the truck and start over lol. We also redid the rear frame doors back to make it easier to fit the 4 link suspenson. All the fab work was hand built after work and on the weekends so it took a little over a year to get it ready to drive again





Then last week I pulled the motor. This is what it looked like with the 22re under the hood. It was really busy under there and I hope to get it cleaned up a bit this time around



Here is a before picture of the dash for future reference. I am going to try really hard to get the TDI cluster to fit in there nicely

I have always dreamed about having a diesel in my Samurai but this idea really took off when I found a 2002 TDI motor on craigslist for a great price. The guy had been in a wreck and did not have collision insurance so parted out the Jetta. Unfortunatley he hacked the harness to bits when pulling the motor but I was able to bring it home for $500 so wont complain to much.

So far I have a 1749va, PD150 intake with race pipe and egr delete with a bunch of new gaskets to go in. I pulled the injectors last night and am getting some HFLOX warp 4 nozzles from Malone and a stage 4 tune with IMMO delete. I was able to get a Acme toy flywheel from jimbote and a friend is making me the adapter plate on his water jet. While I am waiting on the adapter plate the plan is to tackle the gaskets and smaller things on the motor while it is on the engine stand. I also started pulling out the trucks wiring to get the engine bay stripped down to the basics

Cool project. I do love me a sammy.

Glad to finally see this thread, will be following closely! Good luck

subscribed.

nice rig!!

Thanks guys

I am starting to get the motor ready to drop in while waiting on the adapter. The timing belt looks to be in great shape and the water pump looks new but since I dont know the history of the motor I am debating buying the timing belt tools and switching to a brand new belt. This would also allow me to switch on the Non-AC accessory bracket that I grabbed from RyanP.

There are also white paint marks on the 3 main pulleys so it looks like this belt was down with the mark method. I rotated everything to TDC centre though and all lines up perfectly.

I really like the shock tower brace over the engine, nicely done. You'll have room to spare in the engine compartment once you swap in the Tdi, they're much smaller then the 22re motors.

Jaysin

Well like most of us with projects life has been getting in the way of my garage time. I slowly plugged away at the motor after the kids were in bed the last few weeks and its now ready to drop in. Next on the list is to get the engine compartment stripped down of the old motor mounts, rad mount and all the extra wiring that is still there. Once that is done I can modifiy the firewall for rear engine clearance and get to work on the new motor mounts

The motor needed a bath so I started with some degreaser and that lead to me stripping most of the stuff off and cleaning it up right. I have a powdercoating line at my work so painted what I could as well. I swapped on the non-AC bracket and also did the timing belt. Motor ended up with PP764 nozzles setup by Drivbiwire and a 11mm injection pump.

So sweet! Love Sammys and love diesels. Perfect match.

BCZuk
This is so true on the personal, I have a 86 zuk that I have been doing a frame off. almost to the point of the last tear down. It has been a great project but adapting all of the stuff, all toyota running gear, Yj springs, full cage along with full body massage. Very little rust but getting it just like I want it, then a media blast to make sure it would be ready for primer and final paint. That is where it sits now want to start up the TDI before I tear it down for the last time making sure all of the issues are at bay. Final note I hope to have it painted this summer and going soon there after it has turned into a three year project with all of the interruptions. Hope to see yours going soon. Skip

I have seen that samurai in port kells a few times when I worked there. Looks awesome. I'm in mission too with a 1.6td idi in my sidekick. Can't wait to see the updates.

47coeman said:

Final note I hope to have it painted this summer and going soon there after it has turned into a three year project with all of the interruptions. Hope to see yours going soon. Skip

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Sounds like a great Sammy

sdubfid said:

I have seen that samurai in port kells a few times when I worked there. Looks awesome. I'm in mission too with a 1.6td idi in my sidekick. Can't wait to see the

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Thanks, maybe I'll see you around and get to check our diesel swap out
It's been slow progress but I have ripped out all the wiring on the chassis for a fresh start. A friend of mine who is really good with wiring is doing me a huge favor and taking on the challenge. He is going to strip the harness, make a separate dash harness and also one for the chassis. The wiring was originally done by me and while it started off clean and well thought out it quickly turned into a rats nest
I have my adapter almost ready to. Bell housing side went perfectly so now I have to get the engine off of the stand to make sure engine side is right

Bczuk said:

Sounds like a great Sammy

Thanks, maybe I'll see you around and get to check our diesel swap out
It's been slow progress but I have ripped out all the wiring on the chassis for a fresh start. A friend of mine who is really good with wiring is doing me a huge favor and taking on the challenge. He is going to strip the harness, make a separate dash harness and also one for the chassis. The wiring was originally done by me and while it started off clean and well thought out it quickly turned into a rats nest
I have my adapter almost ready to. Bell housing side went perfectly so now I have to get the engine off of the stand to make sure engine side is right

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how much would your friend charge to make me an adapter plate for a 98 ahu tdi engine? great build btw, plannin on starting mine soon if i get the motor

There are pictures of the cad drawings easily available through google if you want to go that route. We dont plan on cutting any more.


I decided to sell my Marlin 1600lb clutch and went with a new ACT clutch. The clutch is supposed to be very streetable and good for 350 ft/lb. Since the drivetrain is such a pain in the ass to take in and out of truck I thought I might as well do it now and hopefully not have to worry about it again

http://www.advancedclutch.com/t43-xtss

My brother machined my new turbo flywheel for me

Bczuk said:

There are pictures of the cad drawings easily available through google if you want to go that route. We dont plan on cutting any more.


I decided to sell my Marlin 1600lb clutch and went with a new ACT clutch. The clutch is supposed to be very streetable and good for 350 ft/lb. Since the drivetrain is such a pain in the ass to take in and out of truck I thought I might as well do it now and hopefully not have to worry about it again

http://www.advancedclutch.com/t43-xtss

My brother machined my new turbo flywheel for me

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i looked but wasnt able to find anything, i have access to a plasmacam, but honestly, couldnt find a cad drawing for the plate, would you be able to provide a link?

I just googled "toyota tdi adapter plate" and it was on the first page of google images. It is just a jpg of the drawing. You would need to make your own program. D some searching around and you will find all the info and drawings you need in an old yotatech thread

I also have an Acme Adapters toyota flywheel that I bought and didnt use if you are interested.

Bczuk said:

I just googled "toyota tdi adapter plate" and it was on the first page of google images. It is just a jpg of the drawing. You would need to make your own program. D some searching around and you will find all the info and drawings you need in an old yotatech thread

I also have an Acme Adapters toyota flywheel that I bought and didnt use if you are interested.

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oh wait, you used a toyota transmission, thats why i couldnt find it, i thought you were using a sami trans, question, how hard is it to convert to the toy transmission anyways? did you have to cut the tunnel or firewall in anyway?

It's a bit involved but not that bad. If you click on my build thread link in my signature there are a few links showing my 1st build which has some info on how I did it

Bczuk said:

I also have an Acme Adapters toyota flywheel that I bought and didnt use if you are interested.

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how much do you want for the flywheel? pm me plz

Finally have a few things done.

Clutch on


GTB1756vk from RyanP


ARP studs installed

The sun was shining so the zuk came out of the garage and I was able to finally get the motor bolted up to the tranny. Overall the fitment is great except the PS pulley wants to be where the panhard bar goes. I had switch the accessory bracket for a non AC bracket from Europe which moved to pump from above the alternator to below so I might have to switch back and make a something up

Way more room to work with compared to the 22re. The tdi is 18.5" back to front of crank pulley


I took a healthy chunk out of the firewall to make room for the back of the motor. I might have to relocate the Mojave heater to the passenger side but small price to pay if I can keep the drivetrain where it is

Panhard issue

Looking good, jealous of your 1756vk...like hens teeth these days. Looks like you'll have lots of room for a JDM type-wowza intercooler in there

I looked into the ACT clutch before I did the CTX-107 pressure plate and DTX-136 disc.... ACT may do something special to the plate but they start out the same for sure....lookin' good man and I'm interested how the VK turbo works out for ya'...I've had one on the shelf for awhile now but I really want to what others impressions are before I start axing my current setup.... as for your rear engine clearance, what's keeping you from moving the drivetrain forward a couple of inches?

Drivetrain is pretty set where it is since I built all the suspension around it. Ideally if I would move it back another inch which would fix my panhard bar issue but will work around it.

I hope the clutch works as good as they claim. Its the biggest I can go with my tranny

There has to be some issues to make the swap more interesting

Any updates?

I have been slowly making some progress. Motor mounts are done and just finishing up my rad/intercooler/dualSpalfans setup. I will post up some pics soon



A while back my wife and I bought a 01 Jetta tdi for a daily driver. It has a 11mm pump and some upgraded nozzles so the last couple weeks I have been learning how to use VCDS on it. Also installed some street coilovers from WRD and scored some Craiglist rims. Needs a tune now for sure.

I love these TDIs

We need more pics.

I have a few pics I can share.

I started with making my motor mounts. I tried to make them nice and simple. First I made templates and cut out 1/4 plate and sleeved with DOM where needed to make a nice flat service to work from





With the GTB turbo the vacuum actuator was really close to my shock tower so I have to cut it away and add a new piece of tube.



This is before it was finished but you get the idea