VNT-20 Westfalia Syncro photo and details

Hasenwerk · Jul 30, 2006

Well, I have 5km under my belt with my 1986 Syncro Westfalia with my low compression TDI engine. I'm calling it a day for today so some photos for everyone.

Top Shot:

The seemingly manditory VNT-20 Turbo / manifold shot:

As I was saying there is only 5km on this installation so there is some neatening and finishing up to do, so forgive the stray wires, missing clamps on the intake system, missing bracket on the cat and missing tail pipe from the exhaust system.

Engine Details:
- ALH block and head – all rebuilt.
- Bosch Race Nozzles.
- Pistons machined to 17.5:1 compression ratio.
- ARP head studs
- 11mm “automatic” injector pump.
- Diesel Inside custom software.
- AHU exhaust manifold.
- Custom adapter for turbo.
- “701 C” VNT-20 Turbo from an Audi V6 TDI.
- Custom 2.5” intake manifold.
- External oil cooler sandwich adapter with 110C thermostat.
- Audi V8 oil cooler – total oil capacity is 6L.
- Neutered EGR system.
- Dawes Device.
- Senders for Pre Turbo Exhaust Temperature, Manifold Air Temperature, Manifold Pressure, Oil Pressure, Oil Temperature, Water Temperature.
- 2.5” mandrel bent exhaust, catalytic converter and 3.0” tail pipe.
- Water cooled intercooler on its own radiator system.
- PVC pipe intake system with cyclone prefilter / snorkel.

The engine at this point isn’t perfect. There is more than ample power but the injector nozzles are not behaving correctly – too much fuel quantity deviation between nozzles – so hopefully after a bit of a drive they will “break in” and the deviation between them will become less. I still have to work with Mark to get the software tweaked a bit better and I still have to connect my digital engine monitor to make sure that I won’t be melting anything in quick time.

More details and news as it comes in!

Cheers!

michael. · Jul 30, 2006

Way too cool.

The wife and I would thoroughly enjoy a TDI Eurovan.
m.

TDIMeister · Jul 31, 2006

Tsk tsk tsk you're not using G12

owr084 · Jul 31, 2006

Why the dual radiator overflow containers?

Mark@MaloneTuning · Jul 31, 2006

owr084 said:
Why the dual radiator overflow containers?

The second one is for the air/water intercooler.

xsamx · Jul 31, 2006

wow! look at the timing belt access! Going to be an easy job to change it

Nice work..

Hasenwerk · Jul 31, 2006

TDIMeister said:
Tsk tsk tsk you're not using G12

On a serious note... Why G12 and not the 50 / 50 "phosphate free" glocol and water mix that I am using? There there some huge reason to use the red stuff from VW?

G60ING · Jul 31, 2006

Fast_Forward said:
On a serious note... Why G12 and not the 50 / 50 "phosphate free" glocol and water mix that I am using? There there some huge reason to use the red stuff from VW?

I agree with Fast Forward. I too am a user of Siera coolant that is Phosphate free in my G60s and I've never had a problem

Hasenwerk · Aug 5, 2006

Well, here's a Saturday morning update with Gandalf the VNT-20 equipped Syncro Westfalia . . . .

Over the past couple of days I have been doing some creature comforts to the engine and tweaking it a bit as well as getting my camper interior back in there. The first thing I did was tighten the VNT actuator rod about 2 turns to get the boost happening a little faster. I also installed one of my digital gauges so that I can see how hot things are getting. I also got the water pump system running for the intercooler and got all of the air out of the system as well – what a royal pain in the ass that is with almost 6m of hose and a massive radiator at the front of the van!

I think tightening up the actuator rod did a lot to help the performance of the engine. Boost builds up quicker now, although not as quick as a VNT-15 does. By about 2000 RPM I am making about 1.0 bar (15 PSI) of boost with the pedal 3/4 of the way down – farther and I get too much smoke. The maximum boost that the engine produces is still 1.7 bar (25 PSI). Now that the rod is adjusted tighter the turbo is really starting to sound like a turbo, before it was rather, well, wimpy. Now when you go above 1.0 bar of boost it really makes some rather different sounding turbo noises than I am used to. For me, I am used to the high pitch VNT-15 spooling noise. The VNT-20 doesn't sound like a VNT-15 at all - it's a lot deeper of a note. It is sort of hard to describe what it sounds like other than a Boeing 737 that is engine braking after landing. I think I will give the rod another turn to see what happens – definitely no boost spike as this point.

I have decided to go with the PP764 nozzles from Kerma as the Bosch nozzles that I am using have too much deviation between them in measuring block 013 for my liking. As the engine is run more (only 45 minutes on the clock at this point) they are coming closer together, but bowing to peer pressure, I will go with the Bosio nozzles.

Today’s run was up Airport Hill and towards 10 Mile Lake, which is about 10km of 5 to 8% up hill grades, I put the van in top gear and floored it and held it there for the entire run. Damn this is one fast ride! I got the van to 3800 rpm which is 147km/h - this is definitely the fastest this van has ever gone. Remember, this van weighs in at 1990kg right now and it is also a high roof version of the Vanagon so it has the aerodynamics of a pregnant elephant. Gearing is 4.86:1 final drive, 0.77 4th gear with 215/85R16 tires which are 30.4” tall, stock tires on these vans are 25.5” tall and there is also a 0.85 4th gear to help with acceleration - with the original 112hp wasserboxer this van was a total sloth that would achieve 120km/h on the flat with a strong tail wind with the same gearing and tire size. Maximum temperatures for the run were:

905°C EGT (pre turbo)
80°C post intercooler
92°C water
97°C oil
13°C ambient temperature

So, really quite respectable temperatures to say the least! At full load there is quite a bit of smoke with these Bosch nozzles. So with 1.7 bar of boost there is still too much fuelling happening, so it is hard to say what will happen with the PP764s – I think the boost needs to increase as I have the 17.5:1 compression ratio, 3 bar MAP and head studs to support that. This should also lower the EGTs a bit too which is a good thing. We’re still on revision 1.0 with the software so there is definite room for improvement there.

I am happy with the water cooled intercooler that I am running too. I really thought it was going to be too small, but I have to agree with what others say and that is that a water cooled intercooler is much more efficient that an air cooled one of the same element size. Yes, it did hit 80°C on this run but it was there for a very short period of time. Normally on the flats with boost around 0.5 bar the temperature was 30°C and doing hills and not sparing the cat food with the boost would result in 60 to 70°C temperatures with a very quick recovery time. Also the ultra short high pressure hoses are another big plus. Yes, I think I would do a water cooled intercooler again even though it is a lot of work to make it happen.

So now I wait for the PP764s and then get get a dump of measuring block 011 off to Mark so that was can get revision 2.0 of the software happening.

TDIMeister · Aug 5, 2006

Congrats, Dave. The G12 thing was just a joke as that was the first thing that jumped out at me when I saw the picture. I'm a stickler for details, and if VW moved from G11 to G12 and recommends the latter, who am I to question?

The EGT numbers are great and tells me you're right near optimum with regards to fuelling levels. A bit more boost and a remap will certainly alleviate most of the smoke issues, but I also suspect that changing the piston bowl lip geometry contributed to some extent to the smoke...

I believe the PP764s will make more smoke for the same mapping, but I also believe the combination of both -- replacing the current OE injectors and remapping -- will be beneficial.

What ever happened with the cams you were working on? Surely this would be an excellent candidate, no?

I also think there is a scope for optimizing the gear ratios for the TDI, but granted you're limited with what's available for this particular transmission.

TDIMeister · Aug 5, 2006

I am totally confident that if you can find taller gears, you can achieve higher terminal velocity at the end of that same stretch of road, and lower EGT.

GotB100 · Aug 5, 2006

Dave, I haven't been tracking the entire saga, so excuse me if this is a dumb question but....... how did you handle integrating the ECM with the existing wiring harness and instrumentation?

akmike · Aug 5, 2006

Very neat!

Hasenwerk · Aug 5, 2006

TDIMeister said:
I am totally confident that if you can find taller gears, you can achieve higher terminal velocity at the end of that same stretch of road, and lower EGT.

There is no need for me to go faster. 100 to 110km/h is all I need as if I go any faster I will get a speeding ticket. Also with 36cm of ground clearance at the lowest point it is pretty darn scary over 130km/h.

0.70 is available for these gear boxes, but right now I am at 2600 rpm at 100km/h so I think that is a pretty respectable engine speed for that highway speed.

Cams.... wasn't me working on any cams.

I think another revision or two of the software and I'll have a very nice setup indeed!

Hasenwerk · Aug 5, 2006

GotB100 said:
Dave, I haven't been tracking the entire saga, so excuse me if this is a dumb question but....... how did you handle integrating the ECM with the existing wiring harness and instrumentation?

I did all the electrical work myself. Sort of a specality of mine. See http://www.fastforward.ca/electrical/default.shtml for details on that. Takes me about 8h to do a complete ALH harness with immobiliser for the Vanagon – this includes stripping out the unnecessary stuff, bench testing, key matching and making everything lengthwise. This particular harness was a little more involved as I have totally removed the N18 / EGR valve, N239 / Intake Flap valve, relocated the coolant glow plugs to the front of the vehicle and have also removed the instrument cluster / key combo in favour of an immobilizer defeat box. Also, the eight function digital gauge required a fair amount of wiring to tie in all the engine sensors that I added. The only electrical work I didn’t do was removing the ROM from the ECU – Mark at Diesel Inside did that for me, he is also doing the chip tuning as well. The rest of the work like the custom intake manifold and the custom welding was also done by me as well.

TDIMeister · Aug 6, 2006

Fast_Forward said:
There is no need for me to go faster. 100 to 110km/h is all I need as if I go any faster I will get a speeding ticket. Also with 36cm of ground clearance at the lowest point it is pretty darn scary over 130km/h. 0.70 is available for these gear boxes, but right now I am at 2600 rpm at 100km/h so I think that is a pretty respectable engine speed for that highway speed.

Cams.... wasn't me working on any cams.

I think another revision or two of the software and I'll have a very nice setup indeed!

Touche regarding driving any faster.

Put another way there would be also some benefit to fuel economy with taller gears, but methinks that too is a relatively low priority for your, as you once described, fridge on wheels.

As for the cams, I think I had you mixed up with the other Dave in BC (Passenger Performance). Sorry bout that.

Hasenwerk · Aug 6, 2006

TDIMeister said:
Touche regarding driving any faster. Put another way there would be also some benefit to fuel economy with taller gears, but methinks that too is a relatively low priority for your, as you once described, fridge on wheels.

Do you think I would get better fuel economy with a slower spinning engine? It seems that every factory Syncro T3 had a 5.43:1 final drive and the majority of the gassers has 4.86:1 so the Diesel engines were revving faster at highway speeds perhaps this was to compensate for a weaker Diesel engine at the time? Here's a break down of 0.77 and then 0.70 4th gear with my van

SPEED 0.77 0.70
80 2050 1870
90 2310 2100
100 2570 2340
110 2830 2570
120 3080 2800
130 3340 3040

My fuzzy logic on this is that I want to use 4th gear for both primary and secondary roads. As there is really no power below 1800 RPM it doesn't make sence to me to walk the line of the start of power band at 80km/h. Fuel economy is important to me, but not having to row the van up a hill is important to - this is what I call the action of going between 3rd and 4th gear to get up a hill. At this point to swap transmissions with one with different gearing will also involve down time and firing the money cannon at his project once again. I'm running out of ammo and the cannon is very got.

TDIMeister · Aug 10, 2006

Very sorry about the delay in addressing your question, Dave.

Yes, I am very confident that taller gears will help. By how much, I don't know right off the bat, but it can be determined from the equation below that I first posted in another thread in the Fuel Economy forum:

Energydemanded = Powerdemanded*time
={((mvehicle+mpayload)*g*(fR+sin(atan(gradientroad)))+(ei*mvehicle+mpayload)*ax+0.5*rho*Cd*A*V^2)*V}*t

where:
mvehicle = obvious; unloaded curb mass
mpayload = obvious (passengers, cargo, etc.)
g = acceleration due to gravity (i.e. 9.81 m/s^2)
fR = Rolling resistance coefficient
gradientroad = road gradient in percent, expressed as decimal (e.g. 10% = 0.1)
ei = mass factor due to inertia
ax = longitudinal vehicle acceleration (e.g. m/s^2)
rho = ambient air density (e.g. 1.2 kg/m^3 @ STP)
Cd = aerodynamic drag coefficient
A = vehicle frontal area (e.g. m^2)
V = vehicle velocity (e.g. m/s)
t = elapsed time (e.g. seconds)

Uponblocks posted this very useful graph which shows BSFC as a function of RPM, engine torque and horsepower.

If we take your Syncro Vanagon, for example, and the cruising RPM data you provided for the two gearing cases for a given speed, say 120 km/h, and plug in some very rough numbers into the equation above, (I put a quick Excel sheet together, which I can send to you and you can play it it) then I get a power requirement at the wheels of about 38 kW. Accounting for drivetrain losses (I estimate 15%), that would put the demanded power from the engine at 45 kW or 60 HP.

Now, if we consider the case where with 0.77 gears, the engine is turning at 3080 RPM, on the above graph we plot a point at the intersection of 60 HP and 3080 RPM. Then we do the same and plot a point intersecting 60 HP and 2800 RPM for the 0.70 gear. Then we read off the BSFC differences between the two operating points (by my eyeball estimation I get 225 g/kWh for 0.77 gears and 215 g/kWh for 0.70 gears, resulting in a reduction in the instantaneous fuel consumption of about 4.6%.

You might note that I am using a stock ALH TDI map, not accounting for your heavily modified engine, but it doesn't matter, because at part load the BSFC curves will exhibit the same general shape if not the exact same values. The idea is sound.

4.6% might not seem like much, but maybe in combination with a lower-revving engine and quieter cruise might be worthwhile to you.

jnecr · Aug 10, 2006

60HP for 120km/hr?? really? that sounds like too much to me, and that equation has too many numbers for me to pluck out of my head and guess on for me to deal with right now...

So do you have the numbers that were used, I'm guessing... yes... namely, what were the Fr and Cd used to come to the 60HP figure?

TDIMeister · Aug 10, 2006

60HP @ 120 km/h might seem a little high until your realise what kind of vehicle this is: a T3 Syncro Westfalia.

I had to work with some guessed numbers but which I think are reasonable ballparks for this vehicle (I used a drag coefficient of 0.48, frontal area of 2.7 m^2 and rolling resistance coefficient of 0.012), and others that I had read from fast_forward's posts about this project. I had somehow recalled a curb weight of 4800 pounds in one of his other posts, but I have just noticed that he stated 1990 kg above. I made the calculations based on 2100kg (4628#) plus 150kg for driver and other misc. payload. Nonetheless, changing the curb weight to 1990 kg doesn't affect the numbers significantly, and you can see the results of my initial calculations below. Dave, let me know if I'm in the ballpark with my estimated fuel consumption of 9.88 l/100km

TDIMeister · Aug 10, 2006

On doing some quick searching on the Internet, I think I may have overestimated the Cd and underestimated the frontal area. I think a Cd of 0.44 and A of a little over 3 square metres is more likely. But the difference of Cd*A is only about 2% and well within the margin of accuracy of this type of calculation...

If Dave has more exact values for all of the parameters, I can re-run the calculations.

Hasenwerk · Aug 10, 2006

TDIMeister said:
On doing some quick searching on the Internet, I think I may have overestimated the Cd and underestimated the frontal area. I think a Cd of 0.44 and A of a little over 3 square metres is more likely. But the difference of Cd*A is only about 2% and well within the margin of accuracy of this type of calculation...

If Dave has more exact values for all of the parameters, I can re-run the calculations.

Holy crap!

That's some pretty far out calculations! My Syncro TriStar gets about 10L per 100 km at 110km/h with the 115 PD - used to get 8.5 to 9 with my modified AHU that was in there. As of tonight there is 2h 21m on my VNT-20 ALH that is in my Westfalia. I think the drag coefficient is going to be a lot higher as the van is a lot higher!

This is the vehicle in question prior to getting the body work done.

I drove a JX powered (1.6TD w 69hp) Syncro van like mine from Vancouver to Quesnel and it barely had enough poop to get up an 8% grade at 80km/h - that was with 5.43:1 final drive and 0.77 4th. The 112hp DJ engine that used to be in there could to the same trip to 10 Mile Lake at a maximum of 90 on the hills.

Yeah a copy of the Excel spread sheet would be fantastic! Please and thank you.

Tonight on the way to 10 Mile Lake, as series of 8% grades the van got to a little over 3800 rpm in 4th as a Ford F-150 was trying not to get too embarrased about a big Vanagon keeping up with him!

The gear box that is in there only has a modified 4th and I am thinking of getting one with a modified 3rd as well so the jump isn't as much... perhaps a 0.70 might be in order and a 1.14 3rd (stock is 1.25)

Thanks again for the info on this.

istewart · Aug 10, 2006

If I'm reading that right, 23mpg at 75mph is a marked improvement over the 2.1L wasserboxer, which seems to get 20mpg wherever I go. The 1990 Vanagon I had got slightly better mileage, I believe due to the updated transmission. (Both are 2WD non-Westfalia. I'll have to ask my mom for consumption figures on her Syncro.)

Any plans to offer the VNT20 setup as a conversion package?

I am still trying to save for a normal ALH... although I have to wonder about the upcoming common rail engines, especially since I'm going for maximum fuel economy.

TDIMeister · Aug 11, 2006

Chalk it up to being easily confused...

first I get David (Fast_Forward) for another Dave in BC (and I'm Dave too...), then I get mixed up between Dave #1's PD Tristar Syncro with the VNT-20 Westfalia Syncro that is the subject of this thread. Apologies.

Now that I think I have this straightened out...

I believe the numbers I have are still reasonably accurate, except upon looking at the picture, I have never seen this kind of camper top in a Vanagon, and had a different (much lower) one visualised in mind. That said, the frontal area will be more than my initial estimate, but I believe the Cd value is still reasonable. You have to be careful to distinguish Cd and A; the product Cd*A is decisive for aerodynamic drag but one doesn't necessarily and directly affect the other.

Dave you've got mail on the way.

By the way, a properly designed spoiler will knock down that Cd substantially. Maybe you should enlist an aerodynamicist or Ernie Rogers to design you a wing and you can incorporate it into your conversions. Could be worth a substantial MPG improvement (not the mention a unique look) compared to taller gears.

Edit -- PS: Since as you've rightly said, the van looks like a big fridge on its side, you can fairly accurately determine the frontal area with a tape measure and just measure the maximum height, width and ground clearance of the cross section of the car. If you can take a picture of the car from the straightahead view from the front looking back, then you can eyeball any adjustment to the frontal area.

TDIMeister · Aug 11, 2006

David, cute licence plate, too!

Edit: My lastest calculations, correcting for the curb weight and increasing the frontal area to 4m^2 and keeping to a Cd of 0.48 now gives an estimated power demand of about 80HP and fuel consumption of 13.1 l/100km (17.9 MPG US) at a steady and level 120 km/h.

It would be very interesting to see how the theory compares to real life.

TDIMeister · Aug 11, 2006

jnecr said:
60HP for 120km/hr?? really? that sounds like too much to me, and that equation has too many numbers for me to pluck out of my head and guess on for me to deal with right now...

So do you have the numbers that were used, I'm guessing... yes... namely, what were the Fr and Cd used to come to the 60HP figure?

For a manual A4 Jetta TDI, I calculate for 65, 70 and 75 MPH respectively:

Code:

MPH     65    70    75
BHP   21.8  25.5 30.2
MPG  51.0  44.8 42.2

Reasonable, no?

Parameters:

mass: 1500 kg (3306 lb) with driver, etc.
rolling resistance coeff: 0.01
drag coeff: 0.32
frontal area: 2m^2
195/65-15 tires
15% driveline losses with 3.39 final drive and 0.756 5th gear
typical Diesel fuel properties.

diesel des · Aug 11, 2006

I would be interested in trying to inprove the aftercooling. You peaked at 80 deg c which is quite high. Now can you measure the water temp of the fluid you are cooling it with? Eg where is the weekness, the ability to cool water, or the water/ boost heat exchanger size? I would want no more than 30-35 deg c above ambient MAX! Getting that temp down will really help reliability and smoke....

Hasenwerk · Aug 11, 2006

istewart said:
If I'm reading that right, 23mpg at 75mph is a marked improvement over the 2.1L wasserboxer, which seems to get 20mpg wherever I go. The 1990 Vanagon I had got slightly better mileage, I believe due to the updated transmission. (Both are 2WD non-Westfalia. I'll have to ask my mom for consumption figures on her Syncro.)

Any plans to offer the VNT20 setup as a conversion package? I am still trying to save for a normal ALH... although I have to wonder about the upcoming common rail engines, especially since I'm going for maximum fuel economy.

My camper got about 16 US MPG with the gasser.

I am getting out of the mail order side of things with my business. Just too many variables out there for me to control. If someone brought their vehicle to me, I could do a VNT20 conversion for them with no problems.

My thoughts on the common rail vs PD vs VE TDIs and fuel economy is that it requires X energy to make a given mass go forward. I don't think we will see dramatic increases in fuel economy unless you change something else in the vehicle.

Hasenwerk · Aug 11, 2006

diesel des said:
I would be interested in trying to inprove the aftercooling. You peaked at 80 deg c which is quite high. Now can you measure the water temp of the fluid you are cooling it with? Eg where is the weekness, the ability to cool water, or the water/ boost heat exchanger size? I would want no more than 30-35 deg c above ambient MAX! Getting that temp down will really help reliability and smoke....

The limit here is my water cooled intercooler being a little on the small size for the amount of air going through it at sustained high demand times. Cruising down the highway at 100km/h on the flat being a "normal person" post intercooler temps are around 40C which is quite reasonable. It is only when I feel the van is an Audi R10 and I am rallying up a long hill that it will actually go >60C. After the high load situation, the temperature rapidly goes back down to around 40C. Even after a good hard drive I can stop and put my hand on the intercooler and it is cool to the touch - the intercooler is never being heat soaked, it just needs to be a little bigger to more efficiently cool the air at sustained high load situations. It is as efficient if not slightly more efficient as my fan cooled AHU intercooler that is in my TriStar and max boost there is 1.2 bar and not the 1.6 bar that is found in my Westfalia.

TDIMeister · Aug 11, 2006

I agree with Des, and as you've already acknowledged, that every possible improvement to the intercooling will be beneficial. I realise however, you are constrained with the packaging and location of the heat exchange and the associated plumbing. Which leads me to ask, what are you using for a pump to circulate the fluid between the intercooler and the heat exchanger? I don't remember reading about it in your posts.

Also, a water-coolant solution actually reduces the specific heat capacity compared to pure water. During summertime, running plain water in the intercooler circuit (the water never goes to boiling temperature anyway), maybe with a bottle of Redline Water Wetter may help bring the temps a few degrees down without touching any hardware. Then during winter you can go back to the same coolant-mix as for the main cooling system.

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