1999 S10 ZR2 BHW Swap

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
So I had some time today to modify my dash to fit the Silverado cluster. Just some trimming with a hot knife to prevent making a mess with a dremel, so the cuts arent the cleanest but I think it looks pretty good. I got it sitting at the factory angle too =D

Some cuts on the lower part of the dash.



Gonna either epoxy the factory tabs or some 3d printed mounts to keep it held in place (though the surround holds it still once installed)



Final result



I also went to visit my grandparents in PA over the weekend and scored some sweet aluminum side steps (nerf bars/running boards?) off a ZR5 we found there! only $21 too!!!!

 

TLOHM

Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2019
Location
Springfield, Missouri area
TDI
BHW Engine Swap
How did the torque converter choice work out? I'm working on a similar project with a BHW and 4l60e automatic in a cruiser and will need to decide what to install soon. I was actually thinking a lower stall speed would be more appropriate.
 

[486]

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Location
MN
TDI
02 golf ALH
How did the torque converter choice work out? I'm working on a similar project with a BHW and 4l60e automatic in a cruiser and will need to decide what to install soon. I was actually thinking a lower stall speed would be more appropriate.
magic of a lockup converter is that you can have a ridiculous high stall converter to spool basically any turbo, and still cruise at idle just by locking the converter
 

PickleRick

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2017
Location
Greenville sc
TDI
05 GLS BHW sedan 5 speed conversion. BHW Carver SantaCruz in progress
You can get a 1000-1200 stall converter for your 4l60e

The BHW is a peppy little motor that revs pretty good for a diesel so it might do just fine with the gasser converter
 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
How did the torque converter choice work out? I'm working on a similar project with a BHW and 4l60e automatic in a cruiser and will need to decide what to install soon. I was actually thinking a lower stall speed would be more appropriate.
I haven't gotten that far yet, but now that its warming up ill be trying to knock some stuff out faster.

From my current understanding I think the stock converter should work fine, and I can tune it a little bit with HP tuners by modifying when it locks up. Line pressures will also be increased with the shift kit.

If it runs like crap then I'll get a custom one made, though as PickleRick said there are tons of options out there already that you can order online.
 

PickleRick

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2017
Location
Greenville sc
TDI
05 GLS BHW sedan 5 speed conversion. BHW Carver SantaCruz in progress
Isn't stock stall 2000 to 2400 depending on year/vehicle application of the donor transmission?
 

evguy1

Vendor
Joined
Feb 8, 2014
Location
Erington, BC, Canada
TDI
2000 Jeep Cherokee TDI, 2008 Jeep JKU TDI
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d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
So not a whole lot to update, hope everyone is staying safe right now. I'm considered essential since we work on emergency backup generator controllers.

I can finally say that I've finished all the welding on the cab and straightened everything up as best I could.

We flipped the cab on its back last week and what I thought was surface rust turned out to be a big hole, so today I took care of that and finished welding the front of the roof.










Also used the original roof support to add some reinforcement in to the back of the sunroof under the seam



I also scored a deal of the century and picked up a few extra BHWs for cheap with a TON of other parts that I'll probably end up selling, and keeping all the bits that I was missing.







Think now that I have a spare engine I might try my luck at rebuilding one and beefing it up. That will likely be after I finish the truck, I gotta to make sure everything works with a stock engine first. Definitely keeping one as a spare regardless tho, since a lot of these parts are becoming harder to find.
 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
One of my buddies is a machinist and he recently helped me make a pilot bearing spacer for my Passat to use an Audi B5 RS4 clutch with Matt Whitbreads Flywheel. He was asking about if I ever made a drawing for the crankshaft adapter. I never really finished the model so I had some fun with solidworks last night and got it done.



He said he has the material already to make one, not sure when he will get around to it but it'll be sweet to see this machined out of metal!
 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
Wow it's been a while. Life has been pretty hectic lately but I've finally got filler on the dang cab. I have a few progress photos to show for now but I still have quite a bit of sanding to do, my air DA killed itself so I got an electric DeWalt one, hopefully it holds up for what I have left to do. I have a 3 day weekend coming up so hopefully I can get all the filler done and start priming this thing in. The roof looks like it might need a wee bit more filler to have a real nice looking transition. Overall I'm pretty happy with how its coming out...slowly but surely.

Also a Harbor Freight fordable trailer with their trailer dolly makes moving this thing in and outside of the garage a breeze lol



















 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
Sand, fill, sand, fill, sand, primer, sand... :)
You're not kidding lol

I finished the roof this weekend, I'm pretty happy with how it came out, If I was painting it with normal paint I would give it a layer of glazing putty but I'm content with where it sits. The epoxy primer is pretty thick and then the raptor will hide the rest.

Still have to sand the sides and some other areas.







 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
Dang so I've been neglecting TDIClub for a little bit haha sorry guys, I get a lot more hits on s10Forum but I think having this information on both sites is useful.

So Long story short (please see the s10Forum thread for more info and carnage pics) my passat's engine had a timing belt failure, which took it out for a while. I swapped in another engine with a new colt cam, new injectors, the works, and am now close to having it ready for the road but I think there's a headgasket issue or something because the cooling system is leaking once it gets hot and its building a bit of pressure after running for a while.

This means Passat will be on hold for the foreseeable future (but it's not going anywhere).

So to be able to de-stress a bit and not be scared about making it to work or not, I bought a used CPO 2018 Canyon Duramax All terrain with an extended warranty. It just rolled over 30k miles.



Don't fret tho, this project is not going anywhere. This is a big goal of mine that I set out to do, any really want to accomplish it.

At least now I can breathe a little bit. Relax, recharge, and sort everything out with no stress. Should something happen to this Canyon I can just take it to the dealer get a loaner and let them deal with it.

So once I get everything cleaned up again and back in order I'll fix the intake gaskets on the manual s10 to have a backup vehicle for both me and my roomie, and then get my butt back to work on this one.
 

[486]

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Location
MN
TDI
02 golf ALH
careful towing anything with that, the frames like to kink right behind the cab where the huge hole is cut in it
 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
So as we all know by now life is fun and unplanned...but I'll spare you the story, I'm back at it in the garage, with no more medical issues (knock on wood).

Definitely have neglected this site but seems like there are not too many GM fans here lol (my Canyon has been a great truck and no the frames don't kink just because you saw one fake facebook picture 😂)

Here's the latest from my s10forum log

So been screwing around in the garage playing with where I want the engine to sit. I want to keep all the stock emissions equipment and use as many stock parts off the Passat as I can to make my life easier, so I think I'm going to move the drivetrain forward about 2 inches to have the stock intake clear the firewall. It also gives me much more room to work on the engine if I need to replace the coolant flange/tandem pump or anything back there. Here are a few pics of how everything will sit. Ill need to shorten the front driveshaft and Ill probably get a long bed s10 one piece aluminum driveshaft to shorten rather then lengthening mine.









I'm hoping to start making brackets and mounts soon to actually have everything bolted in, once the engine and everything is home I'll start getting the front suspension mocked up. I got these weld on shock towers from Barnes 4x4 that I think are going to work out perfectly with stock Canyon struts. (the eibachs I had are installed on the canyon now and would probably be too stiff for the lighter truck so hopefully the stock 2nd gen diesel springs are not too stiff).





Slowly but surely a plan is coming together, trying to have a roller soon! Power steering will be all set too, got a hardline kit for the pressure lines from driven diesel for a silverado duramax and it actually fits perfectly with a smidgen of adjustment to the tubes. (Holley LT4 Banjo adapter was a nice find that worked out as well)







 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
Good to see you're back at it and making some progress.
Thanks! Feels good to be back in the garage.

Have made some progress on the engine mounts. Got all the frame side pieces cut out. Still need to figure out how to modify the trans cross member to mount it further forward. Going to try to weld the frame side of things in this week or coming weekend. The stock angle of the 4.3 is 3 degrees down from crank to trans output right? Also I read that the centerline of the 4.3 is 0.47" to the passenger side, would it matter if I'm centered or off less than that to the driver side? Isn't the rear diff centered regardless?

Also found out that an intercooler from the 2.8 Duramax my canyon has will fit just nicely in the S10 core support, and one of the pipes actually works well for both sides and looks rather clean. I think I'm going to do just that and wire the duramax temp sensors to some analog gauges/scanguage to have pre and post intercooler temps to see how well it's working.

Taped em on to snag some pics they are not 100% lined up















More than enough room now :D (I'm gonna try to angle the heater core hoses 90 degrees down)



Thanks for reading!
 

Alberta 7.3

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 11, 2017
Location
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
TDI
CBEA Ranger under construction
Big thing with angles as far as transmission output and diff input is they should be as close as possible to each other. Basically they need to be parallel. Say if the engine/transmission output is 5 degrees, the differential should be as close to 5 degrees as possible as well. When the angles are different, the shaft essentially occilates due to different acceleration/deceleration rates, causing vibration. Easiest thing to do is get the engine and transmission where it's sitting happy in the truck, then measure the output angle, if it doesn't match the differential angle, you can buy wedge shims to add between the leaf spring and perch to adjust. The 0.5" offset of the centerline won't hurt anything since the flanges are already parallel in that plane. Little bit of an informative vid on driveline angles.
 

d0u8l3m

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Connecticut
TDI
B5.5 Passat
Big thing with angles...
Nice video! I knew the angles were very important for loading and such but that definitely helps understand why. Good to know the offset wont matter, now I just need to find what the factory spec is, or measure it on the rear diff but I'm pretty sure I read its 3 degrees. In searching for the document I think I got it from I found an updated version with some good details. For some reason on the updated version the trans cross member isn't shown so it doesn't label the engine centerline offset.





 
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