The VolksRunner

[VolksRunner]

Taking a perfectly good Canadian market 1997 4Runner and making it more German...

For absolutely no good reason I decided to swap my 3.4L V6 petrol engine for a 1KZ-TE. My primary motivation was to improve fuel economy in the long term, while refreshing my 4Runners still solid but quarter-century old drivetrain.

Toyota stopped selling diesel vehicles in Canada way back in the 1980s, so Any Hilux or Surf diesels here were imported used from Japan or Australia. They're quite rare.

I happened upon a low-mileage '96 JDM Hilux Surf which was otherwise solid but written-off due to a collision. As we have state-run insurance here tied to licensing, the insurance estimate resulted in the Surf being deemed unsafe to ever again be roadworthy.

The original plan was to simply swap the engine and transmission from the Surf, and part-out the rest of the highly sought-after parts to help offset the cost.

Man makes plans, God laughs.

Anyway, here's the soon-to-beVolksRunner...



...and here's the soon-to-be parts bin:



I started doing my homework while the Surf sat in the back-forty of my friend's chicken farm, The more I looked at the 1KZ-TE as an option, the less appealing it got. Not much of an improvement in fuel economy over the 5VZ-FE gasser, and although a lot more torque, a comparable loss in top-end. Even with a total rebuild and tune (as planned) I wasn't likely to reap a benefit compared to the effort. So after much deliberating, I decided to go in a different direction, and so did my Surf (which is now in someone else's care, about to be dissected to resurrect a Prado).

[VolksRunner]

Turning to the growing popularity of TDI swaps, I began looking for a dead Jetta or diesel Beetle with the simple ALH engine, but there were none to be had during my search window. Instead I stumbled across this marvelous example of 2005 Wolfsburg technology, a BHW-equipped Passat wagon driven across Canada and parked in 2017, never to move again under its own power. After confirming the engine still turned-over after its five-year slumber( it did!), and after $300 (plus a $200 tow bill due to the subframe snapping in half when the vehicle was lifted), it was all mine. Warts and all. It's important when doing these TDI swaps to find a complete donor vehicle, because it's not as simple as just taking the engine and ECU. Lots of other parts are required like the lift pump, accelerator pedal, chipped ignition key, and so-forth. I also grabbed the fuel tank just in case, and a few other things I expected to need (but didn't). One advantage of a Passat BHW is it is not a transversely-mounted engine. It is oriented as one would expect on a RWD vehicle. Those wacky Germans!



Thankfully (for me, not for anyone who owns a Passat one relies upon), the transmissions for these cars are notoriously unreliable and used ones go for a premium. So by selling the transmission, seats, and wheels after stripping the engine and related parts, I actually recouped my $500, plus a little pub money to boot! $60, actually. Thankfully I don't drink much.

Pulling the engine was a snap, since no real care had to be taken with the car itself. Snipped all the fluid lines, took a sawzall to the front clip and engine mounts, and two hours after landing the car in my shop, the necessary bits were out of the vehicle and ready for the transplant; engine, electronics, and all. And by the end of the day, after its long life, the Passat was carted-away to its date with the Crusher of Destiny. And for some reason the Kidney Foundation gave me a tax receipt for it, so hooray for that.

Meanwhile, we set about removing the V6 from the 4Runner. And because there's no effective way of mating the VW engine to the Toyota automatic gearbox, we pulled that, too. (Not shown: the R150F 5-speed manual transmission I sourced from s 1999 Tacoma pickup). Pressure-tested the 5VZ, pulled it and the transmission separately, and sold them online. Note: I'm an idiot, so not only did I pull a perfectly good motor with less than 5000kms since its timing belt service and a four-day-old starter motor (long story), I sold it for relative peanuts. I could have held out for a little more money, but it was constantly in the way. Also, I needed the money!






The sale price of the used Toyota engine/transmission was basically enough to pay for the custom BHW to Toyota harness/ECU. A local company called FastForward - which specializes in electronics for diesel conversions and avionics - provided the kit which was essentially plug-and-play. It's quite a wonder. It not only simplifies the essential function of the engine's electronics, it defeats the (difficult to bypass) VW immobilizer, over-rides all the check codes produced by bypassing the emissions, and provides a CANbus to match the TDI ECU to the Toyota instruments. Everything works as it should - speedo, rev counter, all the idiot lights. Plus cruise control and air conditioning (with a little bit of re-jigging required on the latter. Details to follow). Fun fact: The complete 4Runner wiring harness and ECU was just over 17lbs. The new harness is 2lbs! And here it is, in its gloriously simple entirety:



So while I waited for the new harness to arrive from FF, we baselined and installed the Tacoma transmission, which was plug-and-play. It mated perfectly to the existing (2000 4Runner multimode) transfer case and the existing driveshafts, and the only change was a manual-specific transmission mount on the crossmember. Note for anyone ever considering a A340F to R150F swap, they are physically identical casings, so no adapters or modifications should be necessary. I have read that there are *some* specific years with different output shaft lengths, but I haven't been able to confirm it.

The Passat's odo read 300,000kms and I had no reason to believe the engine mileage would be any lower (plus sitting idle for half a decade is no good for anything mechanical). That in mind, I expected to do a complete rebuild before putting it in the 4Runner. I had a budget set for this, but of course wildly exceeded it pretty much right away. With that in mind, I decided to weigh each part of the rebuild on a basis of necessity rather than just committing to a complete refurb. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


The next step of the install was to mock-up the BHW with its adapter plate/starter assembly (excellent quality work by a local company called TD Conversions) and test-fit the complete long-block to tack-weld the new engine/frame mounts. The mounts were also supplied by TD Conversions. We also installed the clutch components s we could properly mate everything to the transmission. Before this point I wasn't even sure the BHW would fit vertically in the engine bay without a combination of body and suspension lifts, as it's a very tall assembly. As it happens, it fit, but not without the BHW oil pan resting on the front differential. the ALH pan is a little shorter, so I sourced one of those. that was better, but still not suitable. More on that later.



After four test-fittings before the location of the frame mounts could be certain, the following issues were noted:

The oil pan does not fit with IFS, even with a diff-drop kit. Neither does the more shallow ALH il pan.

The back of the engine barely clears the firewall, so some plumbing modifications will be necessary. Also (learned later): the turbo plumbing also needs to be "reimagined".

The adapter is "clockable" about 15 degrees. I opted for a zero degree vertical set-up, but in order to fir the alternator between the engine and frame, a slight tilt to the left is required. But at that point it was just easier to modify the alternator mount than to pull the engine and redo the mounts.

The VW starter will not clear the Toyota frame. Thankfully, the TD Conversions adapter kit includes a higher starter location, and a beefier starter (from a Tundra V8 pickup) with a modified pinion gear to match the Toyota clutch ring.



Next post: "The $300 Passat", or "You Get What You Pay For"..... Stay tuned!

[VolksRunner]

The thing about bargains is they're seldom bargains, and that was the case with my Passat motor.

$300 for the entire car wasn't bad (particularly as the net cost was closer to zero) but the engine – the condition of which I knew liltle about – was an unknown quantity. It turned-over freely, suggesting the rotating assembly wasn't seized, the timing belt was intact and in apparently good condition, and there were no obvious leaks on or under the engine after sitting for years. Three reasonably good signs.

Obviously without knowing the service history, I had planned on doing the timing belt/tensioners/water pump service, as well as the crank seals. And while doing that, it's not much more of a commitment to replace the head gasket and replace the OEM studs with hardened ARP ones.

As disassembly began, three obvious red flags became apparent. One was the turbo had a lot of shaft play. So much, in fact, that when I removed the unit and shook it, I could hear rattling inside. Not good! The OEM Garrett unit is rebuildable, but for not much less cost than replacing it with a remanufactured unit, or spending a little extra for an upgraded model. I opted to do the latter, and upgraded to a slightly larger BV43 unit. That gives me a little more wiggle room for any power upgrades down the line.



The second red flag was a lot of rust in the cylinder bores. The two most likely causes of this are loose/worn piston rings, or water collecting in the cylinders during prolonged inactivity. After spending a lot of time inspecting the cylinder walls for scoring or other evidence of piston play (and finding nothing unusual) I decided to roll the dice and not rebuild the bottom end. Bad rings would only give themselves away when the engine was actually running and offending my neighbours with thick black clouds of ex-dinosaurs.



And finally the biggest flag of them all (cost wise), the cam and caps were completely thrashed (this is typical of high-mileage BHWs regardless of how well maintained they have been. VW has since replaced the original components with an improved, more hearty design). A complete head rebuild was unavoidable. Thankfully the two rollers on the right of the photo were able to be saved, because their replacements are $800 each and on backorder for as long as three months!



The stripped head was sent to the machine shop and turned-around in a surprisingly short amount of time. Fortunately the head itself was undamaged so a quick clean-up and port/polish was all that was required. Even the valves were salvageable.



As luck would have it, the world's largest supplier of diesel performance camshafts is also right in my vicinity. A quick call to Colt Cams and a shiny new stage 2 camshaft arrived by the end of the day.



New improved valve caps would take a little longer to arrive, so there was now time to address the oil pan issues and install the “balance shaft delete” which is an essential upgrade for any BHW. The balance shaft is a type of internal harmonic balancer which, unfortunately, is prone to catastrophic failure. How bad could that be? Well it happens to share space with the oil sump AND drives the oil pump, so when it fails catastrophically, so does the entire lubrication system. OR.... the chain tensioner can break, causing the chain to shear the teeth off the balance shaft sprocket, and those metal teeth take a quick and lethal journey through your engine. The upside to the latter scenario is that your oil pump will have stopped working shortly before the teeth pass though it, so your engine will still be ruined, but not specifically because of metal shards coursing through it. A terrible design flaw for a system only added to make the engine marginally less vibratey. That said... only North American market BHW engines have the problematic chain-driven balance shaft system. Euro-market Passats have a gear-driven system replacing the stupid chain/tensioner, however the shaft that drives the oil pump is still somewhat prone to failure. The delete kit is fairly straightforward, and requires only slight modification to the block surface where it meets the oil pan. I cannot stress enough that this modification is essential if you're planning on using a BHW! Also during this part the original oil pick up tube was replaced with an ALH unit whch is suitable the shallower oil pan.

Master welder Miles made short work of the oil pan, clearing the front diff by no more than 10mm at its closest point. Tight fit! He also took a moment to plug an oil feed hole made unnecessary by the deletion of the balance shaft.



In the end, my "bargain" motor was anything but. The upside is my swear-jar was overflowing, which would help offset the costs of the next phase.....