The diesel’s are louder … the purr of the diesel puts the kids to sleep right away ;-)  I don’t have AC, but power steering is not mutually exclusive with a 1.6TD .. by the way, with an intercooler and a little tuning, you can get 90 hp out of that engine. 

> On 28-Aug-2016, at 16:56, Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I don't care so much about the power steering, but now that my van is in
> very good shape I keep noodling on the idea of installing that Behr under
> dash unit boxed up in my shed.
> 
> Jim
> 
> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 2:53 PM Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> I have a customer with the 1.6 turbo motor. It goes OK although 70 really
>> seems to be an upper limit and it takes time to get it there. They have
>> travelled cross country and they love the fuel economy. For myself I would
>> rather pay more for fuel, enjoy the quieter ride and have AC and power
>> steering. I'm spoiled.
>> 
>> Dennis
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
>> Of Roy Nicholl
>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 9:53 PM
>> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>> Subject: Re: new guy
>> 
>> 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.
>>>> 
>>