ALH/5spd to Ford Windstar Swap

duwem said:

Turbo or PCV system. Some have done catch cans for the PCV.

Turbo, I would pull the suction hose off and feel for excessive play in the shaft which would be a sign its going south.

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thanks, will check.

40.5 mpg!

Wheres that Like button!

Congrats!

Growler said:

Wheres that Like button!
Congrats!

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thanks - it's fun dialing this project in. I can't wait to see what replacing worn injectors does for my mpg.

meby said:

40.5 mpg!

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don't forget that when you drop a tire size you have to calculate the change in odometer readout ... ie: smaller tires will give you more "miles" for the same distance, larger tires will give you less ....in my swap i'm running larger tires and this changes my actual mileage by ten percent so i have to compensate when doing mileage calcs ....

Windex said:

How did you mate the driveshafts?

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meby said:

Custom bushings welded to half of each the jetta shafts and winstar shafts. Pictures soon.

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meby said:

On a side note, we broke a weld on the driver side axle. It happened close to home and it was an easy fix. Not to bad for the first 7,000 miles.

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Just a thought, but have you considered getting aftermarket shafts of the same brand (likely to use the same parts for the CV joints) for Windstar and Jetta, disarticulating a CV joint in each, and re-assembling so you have a non-welded assembly that fits Windstar on one end and Jetta on the other?

Turbo change: I finished putting in the new (used low mile unit from a friend) one tonight at 10 pm and took it for a short test run to check for oil leaks etc and WOW! It confirmed what I suspected that the old turbo hadn't been quite right for years. The engine is responsive like it hasn't been since maybe when I first bought the car in 08' 150,000 miles ago. I can't wait to see what happens to my mpg!

rwolff said:

Just a thought, but have you considered getting aftermarket shafts of the same brand (likely to use the same parts for the CV joints) for Windstar and Jetta, disarticulating a CV joint in each, and re-assembling so you have a non-welded assembly that fits Windstar on one end and Jetta on the other?

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If I understand what you are saying, I don't think that could work as the axle shafts are different lengths - the Windstar with an auto trans had much shorter shafts than the Jetta manual shafts.


First tank of fuel with the new turbo: 41.5 mpg


Edit: Oh, and the swap is officially a year old and we've got 20,000 miles on it already. Fuel savings over the stock version has saved me $1971 give or take a few. There are still a number of electronic and cosmetic items to wrap up, but color me happy.

Hope to see more updates in the future, I have 6 kids so we own an 8 passenger minivan and a suburban. I have already put a duramax in the suburban and now want to convert the minivan to diesel. I think a nicely tuned ALH will do the trick. I love driving my jetta and love diesel engines. Good luck.

Growler said:

you can look into the shifter cables for a 1993-1995 Eurovan 5 cylinder.

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Eurovans don't have shifter cables....

I'm looking for part #'s on the stant superstat. I saw a discussion once on a stant thermostat that raised the operating temps a little, but can't seem to find the thread. Does anyone have those #'s handy? I'm still having a takes forever to warm up problem if the ambient temps are below about 65 degrees. I've changed out several stock t-stats and I think i'd like to try something different.

thanks

Are you thinking about the hybrid t-stat thread? It talks about combining Stant 13379 and 13352.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=3319279&postcount=52

Are you still using the coolant lines off of the engine to cool the intercooler? If so that could be where your heat is going. Also this is heating the charge air, not cooling it.

glenn1179 said:

Are you thinking about the hybrid t-stat thread? It talks about combining Stant 13379 and 13352.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=3319279&postcount=52

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Thanks. I guess I missed the obvious when I read it the first time that its not a manufactured part, but a hybrid.
I talked to my friend who helped build this vehicle and we're thinking that a stuck/sticky thermostat is less likely the culprit seeing I changed it out for a new one less than a year ago. We think maybe the long warm up times are a combination several things.
1. The Jetta heater core is quite small - probably a lot smaller than the Windstar heater core and theorize that its bleeding heat at a faster rate even when the fan blower is off. ( I haven't seen a core yet, just pics.)
2. The engine compartment does not have shields for the bottom and sides of the engine compartment like the Jetta did. All that extra air flow is likely costing heat loss too. I've got a notion to find a sheet of cloroplast and fashion a large shield for the bottom of the engine compartment and see if that helps. Couldn't hurt air drag either, I reckon.
3. When we stripped the wiring harness of all the extra stuff and installed it into the van, I don't think we ever verified that the coolant warm up assist glow-plugs were still working. I guess we should hook it up to vag-com and verify that they are working.
I did put a ball valve on the rear heater core function and closed that loop earlier this summer. I figured I was loosing a lot of heat there and closing that loop did help warm up times quite a bit.
The coolant lines are not looped through the air/water intercooler anymore either. I changed that last winter sometime. The concept worked somewhat, but not quite good enough. I had the inlet of the cooler hooked to the returning colder side of the heater core and the charge air stayed cooler than thermostat temps, but obviously not as cold as a separate loop system.
I am currently running about 85% of the radiator blocked off with cardboard.

Check this out guys! Farm Show Magazine did an article on my van. They didn't get all the details right, but who cares.
http://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=28678

You posted that van in Farm Show Magazine. Nice van.

That's a great swap. That's why I'd like to swap in a larger 5 cylinder VE into my F-150. My conversion thread is going nowhere so far. Glad yours worked out. It's so easy to mod the ALH and I bet the 5 cylinder VE TDI is too. Too bad we never got them over here.

Oh, and while i'm updating this thread...I put a TDI sticker on the back.

Are you using the stock windstar radiator? If so I would use the original trans cooler lines for the intercooler. You would need to source a pump, but that would give you a seperate system that should be pretty efficient.

HiSPL said:

Are you using the stock windstar radiator? If so I would use the original trans cooler lines for the intercooler. You would need to source a pump, but that would give you a seperate system that should be pretty efficient.

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I am using the ford radiator and thats a great idea.

Update: We put a lot of highway/distance miles on this last tank. We generally don't do a lot of long distance and/or freeway driving, so I figured I'd give a report. The first part of the tank was about 280 miles of our normal local rural driving at 0 - 10 degrees probably 20 -30 minute trip averages and a fair bit of idling. The second part was rural driving non-stop about 200 miles at about 40 degrees. The last part was 120 miles interstate driving 70 - 75 mph at about 45 degrees. The tank average was 35 mpg. I'm pleased with that considering a little under half the tank was freezing cold temps and a good bit of idling. The van has plenty of power to run down the interstate at 75 mph in case anyone was wondering.

One of the next items to be done on the van is installing a belly pan under the engine compartment. I found a local surplus store that has 4x8 sheets of aluminum for $65.

Also, does anyone know if the a pillar on the Windstar is the same as the ford trucks? I have a boost gauge sitting here and thought it would be nice to install it on the pillar.

i doubt it, but concidering what you have managed already, i bet you could make it work

Added to the TDI conversion list

G60ING said:

Added to the TDI conversion list

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Sweet!

I love swaps like this. My fabrication buddies make fun of my angle-iron-and-plate-steel motor mounts, but you know what? I'm not building a show car. They're cheap and they work.

ksmoker said:

I love swaps like this. My fabrication buddies make fun of my angle-iron-and-plate-steel motor mounts, but you know what? I'm not building a show car. They're cheap and they work.

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It's funny you mention that. I get asked all the time about performance on the van. This swap had/has one primary purpose - hauling me and my family with cargo while getting great fuel mileage. We certainly could have made everything pretty or increased power to make it more speedy, but that mostly falls outside the parameters of the swap. Function is what I needed and function it does. It has enough power to go 80 mph down the freeway (proven, not theoretical). Thats enough power and i'm saving 2 grand a year in fuel to boot.

Just to put it out there though, the van as it is currently set up does 0-60 in about 17 seconds.

Progress made!

I got tired of running two ignitions to run the van, so I wired up the relay I had sitting on the shelf for that purpose for the last 4 months or so.

I had the second ignition below the column.


Putting in the relay let me put on the lower cover. Makes it look a bit less like i'm driving a stolen van.

More progress...

I made and installed a belly pan today. I've been wanting to do it for some time, but it took me a while to find a sheet of aluminum at a good price. FYI, if your local to the northern Indiana/southern Michigan area, there are rv surplus places that have sheets of aluminum really cheap. I found a sheet 49" x 76" I think fifty thousands thick for $35. Its thick enough that its tough to cut with a tin snips. I cut around a several bolts, narrowed the sheet by the wheels and notched around the exhaust. I also cut an oval for the oil drain so I don't have to drop the pan to change the oil. The hole also happens to be the lowest point, so if water gets inside it will drain out.

The goals with putting a pan on were that it will reduce road splatter on engine components, and reduce airflow/turbulence through the engine compartment to aid winter warm-up time. And just maybe it will improve the vans under-body drag cd a bit too.

Belly Pan Update!

Don't underestimate how much turbulence/air flow affects your engine temperature/cooling/warm up times!

I made a run today in the van and about a half hour into the 100 mile trip I noticed the heat gauge was at about 210/215 degrees. I still had the the entire radiator blocked with cardboard as I have had nearly the entire time since the swap (1.5 years/30,000+ miles now). The only time previously I had to remove the cardboard was with ambient temps at about 90 degrees in stop and go traffic. Today I had to remove it at 63 degrees.

I guess I have a quick answer about whether or not it's going to help winter temperature and warm up times.

Turn signal indicators work! I'm on a roll now. On these vans the turn signals are constant hot (key or no key) with an interrupted ground. In order to get the jetta turn indicators to work properly I had to wire a pair of relays. Maybe i'll have all the electronics finished before the swap turns 2 years old.

On a side note, I pulled into a gas station today and when I shut off the van and pulled the key, the radio stayed, and the fan blower and the headlamps and marker lights came on, but everything turned off as soon as the ignition was turned to the run position. After an hour and a half of studying the 5'' thick owners manual and a great deal of stress trying to figure out what the heck was wrong, I stumbled across a bad fuse to the REM (one of at least three main computers this van has). Problem solved.

Wheew!