2000 tacoma bhw swap

Hey guys. this is my taco im working on at the moment.

Has a sas and rear 4 link with 12" ori struts. Currently has an aaz I rebuilt with a giles pump and holset he220wg turbo on a g60 intake. Turbo failed within 400km (plus was way too laggy). Think I may have forgotten sealant on the oil squirters which resulted in low oil pressure. Hoping the motor is salvageable and I can get some money back out of it.
I picked up an 05 passat tdi bhw with 270,000km on it with a blown tranny for $500. So far I've made about $900 parting it out and still have the leather seats to sell. Definitely helping to fund the motor swap.

I got the motor on a stand, disassembled and cleaned everything and got it all buttoned back up last weekend. Intake and intake ports were pretty gunked up with carbon from the egr. got the valves as clean as I could, hope whatever is not in reach wont effect performance much.

here's a pic of the balance shaft delete I installed.

Havent had much time after work during the week but ive got the oil filter side motor mount ready to go in other then some cleaning with the flap disc and paint


Will make the turbo side mount tomorrow night
I've left the part that bolts to the mount off the plate for now, i'll fine tune the height when its in the truck. planning on a pretty basic mount off the frame. Flat plate sitting on the top of the frame coming into the engine bay with a gusset underneath
Here is the harness I modified a couple weeks ago

and all the junk I cut out

Motor will be getting full emissions delete and a stage 2 Malone tune.
Hoping to get the aaz ripped out of the truck and the bhw back in this weekend. will post pics as interesting stuff pops up.
heres a few more shots of the truck if anyone is interested. I recently installed 5.29 gears so the engine is going to be screaming on the highway but it is what it is. not going to daily drive it and it starts to shake itself apart above 125kmh so its not the end of the world.

Looks like fun! How did you adapt the engine to bell?

I'm running an acme adapter kit for the r150f. I pushed the tranny forward like 3-4". Picked it up fairly cheap off eBay a couple years back. Had to have driveshafts made anyways so it wasn't worth the extra coin for the DCS adapter for me

Got the motor in on its own weight this weekend.

Heres some pics of the motor mounts


Plan is to slowly button everything back up together over the next couple weeks then send the ecu off to Malone for tuning and deletes. Should hopefully have the truck back on the road early march.

made some progress after work. I got the rear coolant lines hooked up and replaced my broken coolant flange on the rear of the head. also got the starter in, replaced the valve cover gasket and installed a new oil filter and oil. I made a couple egr block off plates. the one on the exhaust side I tapped for my egt probe. Still have a bit of fiddling with the intake. Don't have a ton of clearance from the firewall so ill need to make a flange with a 90 degree bend on it. not 100% sure if I want to mount a air to water intercooler by the brake booster or a fmic infront of the rad.

Spent most of the day in the garage but made very slow progress.
Got the turbo clocked to a better position

Also finished the intake and mounted it. Made 2 blockoff plates for the intake flap and egr. Mounted the iac/map to the intake flap plate and then mounted the map sensor for my external gauge to the egr blockoff plate. unfortunately I broke the tip off my gauge map sensor when taking it out of the plate to paint. Not sure if I can figure out a way to mount it as is and will probably have to order another sensor. I'm still getting the hang of welding and my "Race pipe" is pretty ugly and im not sure if its going to hold pressure or not. May have to revisit that at some point.

Not a ton of clearance for the intake piping but it just clears the firewall

I think im going to go with this intercooler. it will fit perfectly in the back corner of the engine bay and make intake piping super easy to deal with.


I've been trying to put off the wiring until the end but im running out of stuff I can do. I need to order a v band ring to modify my old down pipe and theres no point In mounting the rad until the wiring is done for easier access to everything. I may start throwing the harness into the truck tomorrow.

Got the wiring harness in and like 95% finished. Just gotta wire up a relay for the rad fans and hook power to the ecu connector



Anyone know offhand how many amp fuse all the fat power wires to the ecu should be hooked up to?

Mainly just need to make a mount for the throttle and put the rad\support back in and finish the rad hoses and order parts for my intercooler.

I picked the ecu up from Malone this afternoon. Jerry rigged a bit of wiring and tried to start and nothing. Cut the input line to my inline fuel pump and rigged it on manually and turned key and nothing. Found a wire with a fuse I forgot to hook up added 12v to that and nothing. Run new ground wires to fees the ecu relay and nothing. Try another relay and it fires a couple times while cranking. Look under the truck and there's a puddle of diesel ?*. Fuel line split going into my lift pump and it wasn't pumping fuel. Fixed that and it fired right up ? turns out I can read wiring diagrams and make a harness. 1 or 2 more good days putting everything back together and it'll be ready to go ?

Didn't get too much done this weekend but modified my downpipe and got the exhaust hooked up. It's a bit louder then the aaz with holset, not 100% sure if I'm gonna keep it straight piped or put in a resonator or something.

Also picked up my awic. Fits nicely in the corner of the engine bay. Should have the rest of my couplers and will pick up some 2" pipe to get it installed next weekend.

Got the throttle mounted today.

Also managed to get the rad supper welded back in and the rad in as well as the intake finished. Need to track down a 1 3\8 to 1" reducer for the lower rad hose not much left to do other then clean up some wiring and finished a few odds and ends

Looking good, you are making fast progress. At this rate it will be on the road before long.

Be interesting to hear the difference you find in performance between the BHW and the AAZ, you're switching from one of the least stout VW TD 4-cylinder engines to one of the strongest running, in one jump.

My aaz was pretty built it had a Giles pump and holset he220wg turbo pushing 27psi. Peak HP was plenty but it was loud, Shakey, smokey and the power band kinda sucked as it didn't make max boost until like 3000rpm. Expecting peak power to be somewhat similar but this setup will hopefully have a massive improvement in driveability and towing. I have a 2000lbs 17 foot ski boat and the aaz really struggled with 1st and 2nd gears. Wasn't that it didn't have enough power just didn't have enough bottom end to do it smoothly without full throttle and high rpms.

Should have it on the road this weekend for its first test drive. Will update then

Finished the truck on Saturday. My vane actuator is smushed and oy allowing like 1\2 travel so it's not making much boost. New one will be here tonight from amazon.

Here's a walk around video of it idling. Pretty happy with how the install went. Definitely my cleanest engine swap so far.
https://imgur.com/a/FuP1v7n

Nice!