85>87 engine change trouble, Rats!

[Thesingingsawguy]

So, the 1.9 in our 85 vanagon finally gave up and we found a nice running engine just being pulled from an 87. We got it in okay and it even fired for a bit but I guess you know it doesn't run. Digijet to digifant ...I had no idea. I haven't found a suitable organ doner. Short of finding a whole harness with sensors and a brain, is there another solution? Can it be converted to carburetors? Thanks loads, Terry

[ajdenette]

Terry,

you may be better off harvesting the Digijet Fuel Injection and maybe cooling system from you 1.9 and installing it on the MV block if it was all running correctly otherwise you are looking to fill in what you need for the 2.1 Digifant Fuel Injection. to help steer you in the right direction more information on what you have put together now would be needed. You are better off fixing one of the fuel injection systems than trying to switch to a carburetor, trying to find a manifold and parts for a carburetor to fit on a wasserboxer in the US.

[Jadewombat]

Digifant or digiijet SHOULD run on that engine. There's not that much difference in displacement between a 2.1 and 1.9, vacuum draw, etc. Both systems run off an air-flapper in the airbox if I recall correctly. I've played with Digijet (L-jet?) systems before and the ONLY modification that needs to be done is adjusting the spring tension on that flapper valve with an allen key.

From a 10 second search on the interwebs:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewt ... p?t=511564

[ajdenette]

Jadewambat the problem he may be experiencing is if he mixed and missed components it would not run. The OP needs to have a matching idol control valve, distributor, and Fuel injection both systems will run on any Vanagon block but we need more information from the OP. even a picture would give a lot of us something to give him pointers on.