2012 Zafira 1.6 engine swap nightmare.

[moffspeed]

Posting this in an attempt to help some friends of ours through a Zafira nightmare..



So they bought a 2012 plate Zaf 1.6 petrol from a reputable local independent dealer approx. one yr ago. Nice car, one owner, 22K miles, HPI clear etc. Long story then - but in essence they repeatedly overfilled it with oil having been given some dodgy advice- ultimate outcome - 11 Litres of oil drained from a wrecked engine...



So our friends sourced a bare engine off ebay - to be fair a reputable salvage company and I tend to believe them when they tell me it came out of a rear ended Astra 1.6 on a 12 plate also, mileage 44 K.



£1200 later a local garage have swapped all the ancillaries off the old engine and added new timing belt/water pump/clutch kit. All good so far, engine ticks over beautifully but under any load the engine misfires like a bag of old nails and Vmax is 50mph. Garage checks timing - all is OK, ECU then sent off and checked - all OK. Arms-folded time from the garage "we've done the work and the car runs" - so money handed over (they didn't speak to me first...) and hobbled Zaf back on the driveway.



So car then goes to our local Vaux main dealer - £220 spent on diagnostics - timing again adjusted (?) but no fault codes appearing and car no better. Vaux agent then twigs replaced engine so non-standard car and we don't want to know thanks all the same....



Final chapter - I organise for my local Saab indie to take a look - very very honest and competent guys - 3 hours later - no answer. Again no fault codes, fuel pressure OK, no air leaks, exhaust back pressure OK, only possible clue = Cat getting unusually hot.



So that's the problem - only other issue = original engine number was 20K**** whilst donor engine is 20M**** so ? any other ? ECU compatibility issue. We now have a £6K car which has had £2K spent on it and is effectively a non runner. Could cut and run and sell "as is" on ebay for £2k max or fling a Cat at it and further diagnostics but without a guaranteed "cure".



I'll take a look at the legal side but any technical hints/suggestions ??

[moffspeed]

Think I might have answered my own question after a bit of Googl'ing, the 2012 Zafira is a "B" so still running the Z16 engine whilst the Astra crossed over to the A16 engine set up in 2011. So presumably engine is trying to exhaust through a totally different catalyst set up - hence overheating cat etc...??

Looks like A16 / Z16 engines otherwise very similar - so is my answer to source an A16 manifold /cat pipe set up or am I looking at different ECUs etc ??

[serek]

not on zafira but recently we had same problem on insignia
we fit new replacement engine, same engine code as on car
had misfire lots of different issue but we could not work out what was wrong
in the end there different camshafts on insignia and on zafira with same engine code

[neiljohnson]

There is likely a variation as been said
Recently had an Astra in that had a replacement engine but was a non runner turns out the engine came from a Meriva & for some obscure reason the pick up on the crank is different so had to fit another engine