Ken,

You put a turbo on that 1.6 … actually on the JX version of the 1.6 and it was just fine - some might argue better than the higher-revving 1.9TD(i) engines - in a fully loaded westy.

I would like to try and put the 2.5l TDi from the 1996 - 2005 LT into a Westy.

Roy

> On 27-Aug-2016, at 15:58, kenneth wilford (Van-Again) <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET> wrote:
> 
> I grew up with VW diesels.  My first car was a sweet 82 Diesel Caddy
> (Rabbit Pickup).  After that I owned diesel Rabbits, Golfs, Jetta pretty
> much exclusively until mid 20s.  I bought my first Vanagon which was an 85
> 1.9l waterboxer but I really wanted a 1.6l diesel Vanagon.  They were rare
> even back in the late 90s.  After working on Vanagons and driving them
> daily for about 3 or 4 years a customer came by with a diesel Westy with a
> recently rebuilt engine.  I was excited!  Now I was finally going to get my
> favorite engine in a Vanagon.  I just had to drive it down my street to
> realize that while the 1.6l was great in a small, light car, it stunk in a
> large, heavy, van.  It was scary to pull out into traffic at the end my
> street and there really is no traffic here.  I thought maybe it was just
> that van, but since then I have owned a few and worked on several here at
> the shop.  I have one customer who bought his new and keeps it pristine and
> treats it really nice.  The 1.6l powerplant is just too weak in the van.
> You can't keep up with modern highway traffic (65-70 mph), the engine is
> being pushed to it's limits all the time so they don't have the long life
> they have in the cars.  I would never recommend a 1.6l diesel Vanagon to
> any person.  If you want to do a conversion and put a TDI in there, that is
> a whole other story.  There are circumstances where that might make sense
> and you have the power comparable to the waterboxer with more torque.
> 
> It's just my opinion but I really wanted to like them and instead I came to
> almost hate them.
> 
> Ken
> 
> On Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 2:12 PM Karl Mullendore <tdiguru@westyventures.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> In a heartbeat. Although preferably the factory JX turbodiesel that should
>> have been sold here. Great success in Europe, but I guess the US buyers
>> weren't quite 'ready' for diesels. The beauty is that every inline
>> gas/diesel 4-cyl VW engine from 1974-1999 will bolt in when the original
>> 1.6NA expires, which is hastened most times by heavy right feet and
>> impatient drivers.
>>