MR2 TDI

[lozzzzzz]

This weekend I exploded a tractor battery in my face and spent hours in A&E having bits of plastic pulled out out my eye and checking for acid damage! Now I have 11 drops a day and I owe the parents £130 for a new tractor battery!!!

Brilliant!!!!

Luckily my vision is clearing up, a lucky escape!!

More to come

[dave_s13]

st luck chief, great build thread btw.

The fact you're making you're own fuel too makes this the perfect engine swap ever really. I'd imagine a more complex Toyota d4d engine might not be happy on homebrew fuel?

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks Dave,

I'm not sure if it will tolerate the fuel as its more modern. If you can run it on bio, it would have to be 100% bio (no veg oil left at all.

The engine I've gone with can run on anything down to 70% bio and still not have any problems.

B70 takes me 3 hours to make, but B100 takes at least 7 hours to make.

[furrywoolyhatuk]

Blooming heck, hope your on the mend.

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks Furry, the vision is almost completely back to normal now, just bruised looking. The eye drops make my vision blurry but I think that's normal

[The Turbonator]

Jesus, how did you manage to explore the battery?

Hope you get better soon and can get back to working on the project. Thoroughly been enjoying this thread and the updates.

[mrtwisty]

Bloody hell! Hope you make a full recovery.

Very interesting thread btw. Loved the MV6 GTE as well (have an SE5 in the garage that hasn't moved under it's own steam in nearly 30 years!).

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks folks. And thanks for the kind comments about the threads.

The battery didn't seem to turn the tractor engine over so I charged it. But it went to fully charged after just an hour so I dropped a spanner over the terminals to see if still packed a punch, next thing I know, my ears are ringing, my face is stinging, and I'm running out of the garage with my hands over my eyes tripping over things!!!

Turns out the terminals were a bit dirty, the battery WAS otherwise ok!!

Glad you enjoyed the Scimitar Thread, get that Scim of yours back on the road!!!

[dave_s13]

Kin ell! You've obvs got some skillz in the garage but next time use a multimeter ffs.

[lozzzzzz]

Had a good solid day on it yesterday. I was really picking the pace up towards the end of the day as I seem to be approaching the next milestone.... Starting the engine in the car. (not quite there yet mind)

I've got the wires from the engine bay through the bulkhead.


And all of the carpet and trim back in, just the box lids left to attach (well in the back anyway).


The ECU now sits in the cubby hole behind the passenger.


And I've started extending the remaining wires to meet up with the dials in the front.


Jobs left to do before I can start it in the car, are:

Finish extending those wires
Mount the fuel filter and connect up the lines
Put some Bio in the tank

It might go then But could still do with:

Air filter, MAF sensor, and boost plumbing finishing
Exhaust connecting up
Coolant hoses connecting up and bleeding.

Exciting!!!!

More to come

[bearman68]

Great piece of skill and engineering audacity. Enjoing reading about it, and great photo's and great thread. You deserve it to work well for you.
Best of luck.
Why did you pick a TDI over a PD engine? I always felt the PD would have been fine with bio?

Well done

[lozzzzzz]

Indeed, the PD would have been alright with 100% bio, but this will run on 80% with 20% unconvereted, indefinitely and the PD wouldn't like that.

I can make dirty B80 in 3 hours, but B100 takes at least twice as long.

Thanks for your kind comments

[BGarside]

Cool project - I'm a big fan of the Mk.2 MR2 and the VW 1.9TDI. Wish I had your skills.

The 1.9 TDI is a bit rough and noisy, even for a diesel, but more reliable than the current common-rail stuff and very frugal and tuneable. I had a remapped PD150 in my old Leon that went like a rocket and still easily returned 55mpg on a run.

You might find the sound insulation needs beefing up with that engine in a mid-engined car. Also the much higher torque at low-to-medium revs is going to give the rear tyres a much harder time than the 3SGE so I reckon you'll need to watch it in the corners.

What was the weight difference between engines out of interest?

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks BGarside. I'm worried about vibration and noise, but that'll be a case of developing it as it progresses. I'm not sure about the weight, but I'd be willing to bet its no heavier, there were a lot of cast iron brackets on the old Toyota motor, and a huge heavy manifold and long exhaust system that started at the front of the engine. The TDI has minimal aluminium brackets and the exhaust comes straight out the back.

Now that the engine is in, the suspension doesn't seem to be sitting any lower. Anyway, I'll get it weighted and we'll see (I wish I'd weighed it before hand).


I got the last of the wires connected up and just had to give it a go

There are a number of sensors missing, no exhaust, lots of air in the fuel lines and a flat battery, but it soon came to life

Two milestones left, Moving under its own power and the MOT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq8LjXg2SEs

More to come

[gazz81]

Has it got one of these in it?!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAAaWXt74c

[lozzzzzz]

No! Its not as refined or powerful as the Petter

[anonymous-user]

lozzzzzz said:

Thanks folks. And thanks for the kind comments about the threads.

The battery didn't seem to turn the tractor engine over so I charged it. But it went to fully charged after just an hour so I dropped a spanner over the terminals to see if still packed a punch, next thing I know, my ears are ringing, my face is stinging, and I'm running out of the garage with my hands over my eyes tripping over things!!!

Turns out the terminals were a bit dirty, the battery WAS otherwise ok!!

Glad you enjoyed the Scimitar Thread, get that Scim of yours back on the road!!!

Wow. Glad you kept your eyesight, batteries look innocent enough but can be fecking dangerous.

[lozzzzzz]

I've been so busy, I've pretty much had two weeks with no garage time

But yesterday I got a little done.

I finally made up the drive shafts, that should hold


Only kidding, I've sent those off to be made properly, and I'm hoping I should get them back in 3 weeks.

Then I faffed on for quite a while with the Boost plumbing, there are quite a few things that the pipe work has to go around, so its taking a while to get it right. Its go to weave its way between the engine mount, inner wing and the crank and alternator pulley, ensuring that it doesn't touch the drive shaft and suspension bits and has a little room to expand when the pressure increases inside.


Still a work in progress, but getting there.

More to come

[Shnev91]

Those driveshafts look fine. chuck em on

[lozzzzzz]

I've made some more progress although this post is a little modest in the number of photographs. Sorry about that. I'll try and get back to old habits next time I'm in the garage.

Anyway, I've finally tackled the boost hoses, the outlet from the turbo, makes its way over the drive shaft, past the crank pulley between the alternator pulley and the inner wing and gets to the bottom of the intercooler, then the top hose is much simpler as can be seen here:



I've more or less got the main radiator hoses sorted (in my head anyway) so I should be able to get those fitted soon, and I've made a good start at altering the MR2 turbo exhaust silencer to meet the turbo outlet pipe. I'm hoping to get those two things finished over the next week.

More to come.