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I know maintenance is key to the longevity of an engine. So, years ago, when I saw that there was oil caught in a well inside the filter housing of my ALH, I decided it should come out. Here is my Pella ball hooked up to a vacuum pump. The hose is connected to a 1/4" Copper tube for a...

I've lost count on how many people call me up after installing either a cylinder head or a VE pump and can't get the stupid thing to start. They follow the timing belt procedure to a 'T', but it won't hit a lick. The first thing is to make sure your battery is fully charged. Then, you have...

Looking for Standard size 1.9 BRM OEM pistons. Will buy piston sets or singles, but must be clean tops, no dents from dropping or Turbo explosion pitting/ melt. Especially need 3/4 pistons, but desire complete sets.

It's been a long time coming, but we got it. The accuracy and repeatability of our cylinder head porting is not only spot-on to our design, port-to-port, but the bottleneck in the business has always been the time and effort it takes to hand port a cylinder head. On average, we spend 8 1/2...

Over the years, we have had a few cam followers come our way. One I will always remember was supposed to be a nitride cam follower for the Pumpe Duese engine. It was shipped in a nicely sealed container. What was claimed to be a black nitride cam follower was PAINTED BLACK! The paint would...

In all the years of repairing stripped or stuck glow plugs, I think some improved method for installing properly is in order. Not to take away from what has been said previously for proper torque and use of an anti-seize, being careful to not cross-thread, we still see many gp's that ruined the...

Well, this is a bit embarrassing, but someone from Alberta sent a cylinder head to Frank's VW TDI's. It has to have been a long time ago. It was buried on a shelf that got moved today. After some 6,500 cylinder heads, this one didn't get processed. I somehow lost this head in the shuffle...

About 10 years ago, I got a phone call from one of my gearhead buddies that said he'd installed a rear main seal, with the dubious crank sensor that is part of the installation. He could not get the car to start. That was the time we both learned (for him, the hard way..) that the crank...

Put this one in your 'annal engine build' files under "incremental improvements for assembling a performance engine". The advantages of an oil-galley piston and tapered (keystone) wrist pins in our opinion, is an obvious benefit and foregone conclusion. Every diesel engine now produced that...

One of the regular problems we see with the PD cylinder heads is a galley plug from the ends of each injector rocker shaft will pop out. It can often be found in the top of the cylinder head. "Hey what does this go to?" Here are two rocker shafts, with and without plugs. The plugs are aluminum...

Some time ago when reordering stock of oil pumps, we were sent some that didn't come in the same boxes that we were used to. The pumps appeared to have some manufacturing differences and worse, they were poorly made. This first picture is not from excessive duration or trash that went through...

Some ALH pics... This first is roughed in.

September 2016, New Offering! Improve your Connecting Rod Bearings with Polymer Moly Coatings I have the ALH/AHU 50.6 H-beam 4340 rods that are accurately made by our design engineers at Molnar Technologies. The owner’s pedigree extends 45 years in connecting rod design and is well-known in...

Let me try to create some understanding about billet compared to cast steel cams, their comparative advantages and disadvantages... how a 'billet' cam would be made and how it is NOT made...and the reason steel cast cam, based on our experience, is better. A billet made for cams can loaded...

We receive and ship quite a few engines. Getting the engine out of the box or off a pallet and onto an engine support can be tricky. Sometimes the engine can be damaged if it shifts or loses balance. We used to attach a removable lifting eye to the passenger side of the head or attach head...

We were recently introduced to an engineer who discovered and interesting failure from unit injectors for a stationary powerplant that has implications to failures we are seeing for the VW PD injectors. http://dquirk.com/Diesel/Bacteria.htm The problem in this case, there are microbes that are...

We all know there are problems dealing with the web and apparently there are some who find it necessary to redirect emails, blow up computers and otherwise throw blockades in the path of doing business. We even have had a website developed FOR US, where you "... have a safe place where you can...

A heads up if anyone comes across this... Advertisement in the Lamar Xchanger, April 1, 2014 "... Offering reward... for information leading to the theft and whereabouts of a 1982 Vanagon Popup camper with diesel engine, VINWV2YG025XCH111430 The van is Tan over Dark Brown. If you know...

Things have not been quiet at Frank's TDI's, nor for that matter have they ever been. We are performing an improved cam boring procedure for the Pumpe Duese cylinder head. The PD cylinder heads have shown themselves to be a very close setup. Longevity improvements are substantiated with our...

I have a nearly complete Touareg BKW Engine that was hydro-locked, destroying the #2 rod. There are many perfectly good parts from an '04 Toureg with 135,000 miles total. Both cylinder heads are in good shape and can be ported to improve breathability. All gear sets are good, Exhaust and...