TDI Sidekick

I've been a long time reader of the forum and decided I'd join it and share my TDI swapped Sidekick. It's a '95 that originally had a 1.6L 8v engine and 5 speed transmission. With the oversized tires it would do 0-60 in about 20 seconds. Mileage was around 25mpg. I averaged about 37mpg after the swap. My best was 39.5 so I'm pretty confident with taller, skinnier tires or a gear swap it'll do over 40 next summer. It has an AAZ exhaust manifold, turbo and non-EGR intake from my parts car, pp520 nozzles, and Malone stage 3 tune with EGR delete obviously. The non-EGR manifold looks better than an EGR manifold and block off plates. Bought the engine with a busted timing belt planning on using the crank in an AAZ so I'd have the D shape sprocket. After tearing the engine down and finding the bottom end was fine I decided to scrap the AAZ plan and go TDI. The head was rebuilt with all new (not Chinese) parts and has ARP studs. My first time taking an engine apart. My dad and I assembled it ourselves with a borrowed valve spring compressor. I wish I had a picture of the head after it had been cleaned. It looked awesome. So clean. Anyway on to the pictures.

Engine and Toyota W56 bolted togther with the Acme adapter which I later found out sucked.



3" exhaust because I can. I know there's no performance benefit.



Built a bracket to hold the fuel filter. Got the base thing from one of my dad's scrap semis. Overkill but same price as a new OEM filter. Bracket has cracked and I gotta make a new one a bit stronger.



Here's my modified oil pan to clear the front diff. Took a few days of trial and lots of error.



Modified pickup tube using a combination of the stock AHU, stock Sidekick, and big block Chevy aftermarket pickup. You can also see the modified windage tray. Got it in one of my AAZ parts cars so figured I might as well use it.



Engine during test fitting in the parts truck. Top rad hose came from my '93 Passat AAZ with a couple bends cut off. Fits perfectly.



Big eBay intercooler. When I opened it I was a bit concerned it would be too big to fit.



Thankfully it fit just fine with minor cutting near the passenger side headlight.



Here's the best pic I have of the intake setup. Has a much better filter on now drawing air from inside the passenger fender. From the turbo it goes down to the bottom pipe of the intercooler. The straight sections are 2" stainless milk pipe my dad got as scrap metal. Really awesome living on a scrap yard. This was still testing fitting phase. Clamps were added for the actual swap.


Radiator was given to me by a friend. Came out of a scrapped 2nd gen tracker. Notice a trend with the scrap parts? I don't have a picture of it but I got a thermostat housing spacer to avoid the U bend coolant hose by the driver side motor mount. Got the spacer drilled and tapped at a local shop to fit the VW fan switch. It runs so cool the fan never came on and it never overheated.

I see them when I click on them.
Bet it scoots along pretty good now with the stage 3.

I don't see a thumbnail, link, or anything else to click on. Just blank spaces where I put the pictures. Not sure what's going on. Definitely goes a lot faster than it used to. I have a lot more pics to upload this evening.

I delete the http:// in the photo bar and then paste,that works for me for some reason.

I figured out how to get a thumbnail to show up. Better than nothing.

The rear end is from an '81 Toyota pickup I think. Also scrap parts.



First time taking a differential apart too. Used a solid pinion spacer instead of a crush sleeve because that just makes more sense to me. Set the pinion preload by feel and backlash set to 0.008".



Redrilled the axle to 5x5.5" so my wheels still fit.



Here it is reassembled with the leaf spring perches gone and links and coil mounts welded on. Using 1" wheel spacers to bring it back to stock width.



Modified e-brake setup uses stock Sidekick cables not the goofy Toyota setup.



Brakes are way bigger than they used to be. E-brake works so much better than it used to. Pretty sure only one wheel works right now and it holds just fine. Disc conversion is still a consideration.



Got the Toyota driveshaft retubed and painted. It's pretty heavy compared to my original. Front one is unmodified but has a 1" spacer to get more of the splines engaged.



New engine and trans combo is a lot heavier than stock so I used longer coils from a scrap '00 tracker. Sits at the same height and rides the same as it used to. These coils are often used for a 2" lift.



Transmission crossmember needed slight modifications. It now sits underneath the brackets on the frame instead of on top because the new trans/t case is taller.



Still pretty much even with the bottom of the frame. No body lift or hammering of the tunnel required.

The Toyota trans uses a hydraulic clutch instead of cable. That was the biggest headache of the swap. Eventually I realized a master cylinder from my '93 Passat parts car would work. Don't think I have a picture of the clutch fluid reservoir. It came off my neighbors beater civic that didn't run anymore.



Had some clearance issues between the bellhousing and the oil filter. Cut that off in a few seconds and the oil filter fits great. The Wix filter is gone. Canadian tire brand now. Gonna order Mann filters from rockauto for my next oil change.



The wiring I didn't find hard at all. It was time consuming tracing the wires all the way down the harness to figure out which plug was what. I didn't pull the engine so nothing was labelled when I got the harness. Lost the pictures of the wiring that was removed when my phone died. Oh well here's what was left. The round plug at the back/side of the head gave me limp mode for the first week I had it running. It had the same amount of power as the old engine but mileage was way better. Once I realized that the connector was bypassed and removed.



Wires were way too long. They're just looped a couple times under the dash.



Decided to use the pedal from an ALH because there was no way that big AHU sensor was gonna fit nicely under the dash. Apparently not all those cars have 6 wires on the pedal. All the cars I looked at had 4 wires. Had to order the pedal online. It fits great.



I think the old engine actually had more wiring than the TDI. This is just half of it.



I'm kinda proud of my ground wire. Sounds lame but it's an awesome ground wire. It's 1 thick wire that goes from the battery, to the body, to the frame, and to the engine. Battery had to be turned around for it to reach but I like the idea of having the positive post farther away from the body. Ground wire also came off one of my parts cars. I think it's from the '94 Jetta.



There's a loop on that wire. It's pretty hidden. The loop came off a different parts car.





Yes I installed gauges. Oil pressure, boost, and pyrometer. Didn't want to spend the money on the oil temp gauge because the exchange rate was horrible. Wouldn't have fit anyway. The gauges were installed months before the swap was even started. Just not connected.

I do have a picture of the reservoir.



This was after the swap was complete showing the minor cutting to make the shifter fit.



This was Saturday night after putting it all back together. The test fitting took a year and a half and I took a week off work in April to pull my motor and get it running as a TDI. Couldn't drive it for the first week because I didn't realize adjusting the booster pushrod was important if you swap master cylinders. Brakes would lock up and smoke until I cracked a line.



Engine fits so well.



Then in early July this happened. Was not impressed. I heard a weird clicking noise while driving so I drove it very slowly trying to figure out what it was. After a couple blocks it just quit driving. Thought the input shaft broke.



Clutch springs bottomed out too. I've been told this is normal but I'm not convinced.



After I bought the adapter I started hearing about the issues with it so I was kinda prepared and knew what to do next. Take a spare trans apart. I'd never had a transmission apart before either. Just took out bolts and snap rings and it slid apart. Not too bad. Even got it back together without spare parts.



I just needed this part.



Managed to fit the dial indicator inside the bellhousing to get some measurements. It was over 0.040" out of alignment. Ruined the pilot bearing and input bearing in the trans. Thankfully I had a spare trans in much better shape.



And here's the freshly doweled adapter. Got it to be 0.004"-0.007" out. There was a tiny bit of slop but it was under 0.010". Once I was done I heard people saying it's supposed to be under 0.005". It's been holding up so far. No input bearing noise still. Slight rattle at idle but I'm assuming/hoping it's just the clutch. The dowels are a 3/8" bolt with the threads cut off.

Novac says anything under .010 is acceptable,mine is between .003 and .005
and no clutch chatter or input bearing noise.

Other sources say the needle should move a max of 0.010" when going around. Meaning 0.005" out of alignment. I've noticed recently my trans doesn't sound very healthy. There's the noise in neutral and a fluttering that's most noticeable in 3rd and 5th but not there in 4th. Not the same as the input bearing noise I've had before.

Does the noise show up when traveling 30+ mph and you depress the clutch?
and in limbo,between acceleration and deceleration?Mine did this when it was
.018 out before re-doweling it...

It's noticeable at any speed. Loudest when downshifting without rev matching during deceleration.

Very cool drivetrain swap. My Ranger will get a similar do-over once I have all the parts and time to do so.

If you do decide on rear disc brakes, have a look at Mustang GT rear calipers, they have a better setup for the e-brake than the old Eldorado calipers that most people use. You'll need to make new caliper brackets to mount to the axle. I'm not sure what you'd use for a rotor with your application, Mustangs are 5 on 4.5" (possibly redrill a Mustang rotor.)

I'm looking at Accord rear calipers. Not the best e-brake setup but I've heard they're very well balanced to match my upgraded front brakes. They have a 34mm piston for the coupe and sedans. The Mustang calipers are 38mm. For a caliper that size I'd use mk4 jetta/golf/beetle calipers. Looks like a better setup than the Mustang. For rotors I'd use factory 2dr Sidekick rotors. I have the 4dr front brake upgrade. It has bigger rotors, calipers, and pads.

so happy I stumbled onto this thread, this is very neat! still have the sidekick? do you happen to have the missing pictures from post #7 https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?threads/tdi-sidekick.483627/post-5348174

xekon said:

so happy I stumbled onto this thread, this is very neat! still have the sidekick? do you happen to have the missing pictures from post #7 https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?threads/tdi-sidekick.483627/post-5348174

Click to expand...

I haven't been keeping up with this thread as you can tell. I do still have it but almost everything has been changed since I did it in 2017. You're looking for the pictures of the doweling process? I changed how I did the dowels. I've done it 3 times now. Last time was when I had to remove the AHU and put in an ALH. My block cracked from overheating when the rad failed.