Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 02:56:44 EDT
Reply-To: Modl6971@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Michael Modl <Modl6971@AOL.COM>
Subject: A Complaint w-South African Engine Conversion
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
In a message dated 5/11/00 3:03:21 PM Pacific Daylight Time, KENWILFY@AOL.COM
writes:
<< Well, I haven't said anything on the list about this before now but I am
getting ready to do a 4-cylinder in-line engine conversion from South Africa
(www.tiico.com). It is going into a customer's '84 Westy. The kit arrived
in a crate today. All I can say is that it looks every bit as good in person
as it does on the website. Everything is new, and stock VW. I mean the
intake made specifically for this engine in a Vanagon application is worth
it's weight in gold to me (that is what makes this conversion look stock).
Only down side so far is that apparantly some salt water leaked into the
container on the long trip from SA and the block got a little rusty. All the
cad plated fasteners, etc are still new looking as is anything else that was
painted with some nicer paint. Besides that all the stuff arrived in good
order and it looks like it is going to be a really simple and nice
conversion. I'll be posting pictures, and more to the List as I get on with
the conversion (have to get the customer's van down here first). >>
Ken I wish you the best in the installation. It's a beautiful kit, fit and
finish is excellent, all fits perfect. Two weeks ago I was one of the lucky
ones that had a visit from a proud owner of a burgundy 87 syncro with the
full S.A. kit just installed. The van was nice, it had the S.A. grill and an
auxiliary gas tank on the rear lid. The customer showed up at my VW
dealership near Seattle (I'm the shop foreman for VW) with this car and a
piece paper that said "After installation visit your local VW dealership and
hook up the 1552 to adjust the CO (Fuel Mixture) to 1.0."
This is impossible. There isn't one OBD1 or OBD2 VW that CO is adjustable
with the 1551, 1552 or the new high tech 5051,(these VW scan tools do all the
same thing). These scan tools or any other scan tools can do other things BUT
adjust CO. Now here is the real kicker. The S.A. factory fuel injection kit
doesn't have a O2 sensor in it's system. But before the CAT there's a O2
sensor screwed in for LOOKS but not plugged into anything.
OK, the customer wants me to hook up the 1552 any and check for faults. He
shows me the diagnostic plug under the rear seat from the new factory
harness. The plug DOESN'T even match the 1552 diagnostic connector. The SA
connector has 3 wires going to it. One red, brown and grey wire. I patiently
took a customers 98 Jetta DLC connector apart to compare wires and see what
controls what in the DLC 1552 connector. I bridged wires from the SA
connector to the 1552 connector and I was able to perform fault checks and
perform measuring value block checks now. The information I was able to
retrieve was the same as an 93 to 95 OBD 1 Jetta, but the SA engine has a 96
to 98 Jetta throttle body, which is really nice to have because you can
adjust basic settings of the throttle body with the VW scans tools.
Here is the really important thing, measuring block 005 channel 3 is the O2
sensor reading. It was showing a stuck reading of 1.0 . This is a default
value when an O2 sensor is unplugged on a 93-95 car. A properly running 93-95
vw will show .98, .99, 1.00, 1.01, and 1.02 when the O2 sensor is sending an
average millivolt signal of 500 millivotls, which would be perfect fuel
mixture. Keep in mind the .98 to 1.02 numbers have nothing to do with voltage
signals from the O2 sensor, it's only computer talk in the VW program. OBD2
cars will show true millivolt signals that we are used to.
Note that there are no adjustments that can be made on this SA kit that I
had.
I checked CO to see what it is running at anyway. It was running very lean at
.12 before that CAT and the car had no power because of it. The millivolt
reading from the O2 sensor was .010 which is very lean. So obviously the SA
computer needs to see this reading from the O2 sensor in order to adjust fuel
mixture and run properly. The part number on the SA computer unusually
started with #JKN959123 (I'm not sure with the first 3 letters).
TO FIX this customers car, I need a wiring diagram for this SA computer to
run the O2 sensor signal to the appropriate terminal inside the ECM computer
connector, or replace the current wire harness with the correct harness that
will include the O2 connector.
By the way, this SA ECU I think is looking for knock sensors because there
was a fault for them, but the fault didn't come back. There is no knock
sensor on the engine.
The customer spent $150 for my time and info that I provided. He is also
going to the junk yard to get a normal VW DLC connector for the scan tools.
That was 2 weeks ago, I havn't heard anything. Good luck on your project.
It's a great kit. I'd take the 5 cyl instead though. See ya, Michael.
87 syncro
87 quattro.
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