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Gerry | Vanagon
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Subject:Re: weird problem w/ poor 85 Westy gas
Date:Fri, 10 Jan 1997 17:42:10 -0800

>| Do the earlier water-cooled vans also have knock sensor and so might be
>| expected to benefit from higher octane?

	Is there knock sensor on the 2.1 Digifant engines? I know the
Digifant II is based on Bosch's Motronic FI system and one of the Motronics
was the first to use a knock sensor. I thought the knock sensor was designed
for use with turbo systems to advance/retard the timing to the instance before
the engine started knocking. I didn't think there was such provisions in
the Digifant ECU...

	On another note, does anyone know if the Digifant and Digifant II
ECUs are interchangable? Is the Digifant II the brain that was installed on
89 and later Vanagons? I was looking through the file archives and found
the Bosch number for the 86-88 ECU, this was also cross referenced (though
the 86-88 vanagons were the only cars listed as using it), but I could not
find a reference for the 89 and newer ECUs which was a year or so after VW
came out with the Digifant II system for the Golf and Jetta if I am not
mistaken. A local shop can get a new Digifant II ECU for ~500 for me which
I beleive is a LOT cheaper than anyone else (he can get used Digifant I
ECUs for ~150 but if my ECU is dead, I want a new one, not one that is
half dead...)

dave