Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 12:48:09 -0700
Reply-To: daveb@CP.NET
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dave Bayer <daveb@CP.NET>
Subject: Re: need info on 5 cyl swap
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
"a.a. \"fred\" bertagnolli, jr." wrote:
>
> as my '87 audi 5000 quattro falls apart in bits and pieces around me, the
> engine and drive train pull like a freight train. I've found an '87 syncro
> with a broken tranny and a questionable engine. so i'm thinking, once i
> locate a good used tranny (hopefully less than $1,500 + $1,500 rebuild),
> what would it take to put in the 5 cyl?
You could pull the tranny now and get it rebuilt with a different
3rd and 4th gear ratio for somewhere around $2000 US I believe. Someone
said
that the 2.3 5 cylinder (which is what I believe you have) pulls
smoothly
from 20mph in four gear so it should happily live with a lower ratio
4th.
I would expect it would be back around the time when you got the engine
together.
I recently went out to Livermore to take a look at the swap
that the Vangon Projekt has put together (which is slightly different
than Ken's full kit I believe). The 5 cyliner kit comes in two flavors,
basic kit and a custom specified kit. The basic kit is imported from
Winkler in Germany and contains the basics for shoe horning your 5
cylinder
into the back of a van (syncro or 2 WD). You would need to get a
different
power steering pump and AC compressor if you want to use this kit as
well as rigging the exhaust (from the exhaust manifold) and plumbing the
piping for the intake system (oh and mounting the intake system).
The second version was kind of a custom kit where you pick out
the parts you want and get a final price.
The disadvantages of the 5 cylinder conversion as I see them (and note,
I
am picky so your mileage may bery well vary):
- the belts are about an inch behind your old oil/fluid door.
It really didn't look like you could modify the dipstick
in order to keep accessible via the door.
- on a syncro you lose 1" to 2" depending on how you rig your skid
plate. You will have to modify the plate as well I believe.
Though on third thought, you might be able to shim the
old engine carrier and retain the old skid plate. Such a
setup might still interfere with changing the oil on the
new engine though.
- Certain pipes are made out of copper. Not sure if this is a
problem though. I seem to remember that a closed system
with copper and iron (your engine block) will produce
a current (and thus you need dielectric materials in
your plumbing system in your house if you mix
steel and copper piping... But in the conversion, the
copper does not touch the iron and you do have some rubber
tubing between the tubing and the block).
- Exhaust tubng is the same stuff you find in muffler shops so I
expect it will need to be changed often if you live in
a place where they salt the roads. I could be wrong on
this though (stuff sure was light!). You can get a stainless
steel muffler, so it is just the tubing...
- On the audi engine, you will need to figure out how to get your
oil cooler in there if you keep your AC. Detlev was working
on a new bracket to mount the AC when I was there, but it
isn't finished quite yet.
Advantages:
- Copper tubing does away with nasty plastic coolant manifold which
has a tendency to crack at the most inopertune times. It
also uses standard bulk hose which you can buy just about
anywhere should you need to in 10 years.
- With the power these things have you can get a differnt 3rd and 4th
gear ratio which will help out with fuel economy tremendously.
- The rest of the advantages of going to a 5 cylinder engine in terms
of maintance, reliability, power, and replacement engines
should you need another in 10 years (and assuming junk yards
still have audis or vw quantums stocked).
dave
