ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

Hey gang- name is Pinky and am new to the forums. I'm currently working on a 74 Thing and am thinking of going the TDI route with it, just sending out a feeler to see if it's viable.

The car will be using the stock pan that will be very beefed up with tube and will have an air-bag suspension with 3-inch narrowed beam.

My question is what sort of trans could I use? It would need to be severely beefed up if I go with the TDI b/c the motor would be very modified. Can my type 1 tranny be used?

Also, could the TDI fit into the engine bay without cutting? I figure it probably won't but it would be nice...

I have a zero mile 2.0 type 4 that I was going to throw in, but a friend of mine does vegi-oil conversions and has been getting amazing performance results out of it. His 2500 Dodge Ram runs up to 130 real quick right now but is limited by the gears, he's going to make a run at bonneville next summer and is hoping to pull 250mph once he sorts out the gears. So we got to talking and I figured I would ask around about putting a TDI in. However, I also have no idea what year TDI motor would fit... Which one has the smallest dimensions? Does anyone have a website I could look through with more info or of their own conversion in a type 1 vw?
thanks

Pinky
I'll be out of town until next monday so sorry if I'm slow to respond...

Most 4 cylinder TDI motors have almost the same dimensions, and yes, you would need to cut your engine bay. If I were doing this conversion, I would find the oldest TDI I could, because VW's tend to get more and more complicated through the years. Get one without power steering and without A/C (unless you are going to use it) if you can to keep it simpler.
A stock transmission can be seriously beefed up, but since the TDI's produce more power at lower revs, you would probably find stock gearing too short for comfort.

I think youll be dissapointed with the performance of the TDI engine. Just about any other n/a 4cyl motor will out accelerate the TDI engine. Beetle is more suited for a high reving small lightweight engine. Like a rotary. Any tranny should work alright.

Don't underestimate the tuning potential of diesel engines. You can push A LOT of hp out of them. The newer TDI engines are limited for the ~200hp/400+nm mark because of their injecting stuff (can't hit much over 4000 rpm), but the older 1.6TD has a lot of potential. There's one VW caddy TD for example that is pushing 236hp on the front wheels and runs 14's on the 1/4 mile. Thats pretty nice for a FWD diesel. There have also been some MB turbodiesels with ca. 150hp/litre numbers and thats with all stock engine internals.

We have some shops in Finland that tune the feeder pumps, they install bigger elements and do something else to the pumps (I don't know that much). Of course you'll need a bigger turbo, a better flowing exhaust/manifold and a cooler for those kind of numbers.

Btw: Another good thing with a high performance turbodiesel is, that you still have very nice torque on the smaller rpm's.