Deezler's 2003 Jetta TDI Build Thread

[Arragonis]

Hi,

I'm interested in your intake mods - have they generated more power or FE? I don't have the same car but the same engine (130 hp + 6sp ?) in a smaller car.

Some with a vRS claim that fitting the intake from a PD150 (e.g SEAT Cupra) makes their car better in terms of HP and FE, but never seem to have firm figures.

How is your V6 intake doing ?

Cheers

A.

[Deezler]

COcycler, thanks. I am impressed with your pump-duese fuel economy! I'm guessing you are a patient driver. You've got some nice mods, too.

Arragonis, the full intake mod definitely helped power a bit. Not much, mind you, as my ALH engine came with the little VNT15 turbo and 90 HP rating. Fuel economy improvement was not measurable (had a lot of other changes going on at the same time though), but there's no way reducing intake restriction on a turbo diesel is going to hurt! The only parts of the intake tract that is from a V6 are the mass airflow sensor housing and upper airbox lid though.

[AeroModder]

I've got a question for you. What angles are you running your vortex generators at? I noticed your video showed beautifully smooth airflow, but I'm getting rather large counter-rotating vorticies on my rear window.

[Deezler]

Hmm. That's hard to answer. I started by trying to follow the recommendations from vortekz : Vortekz.com: Vortekz Generators

However I also wanted to follow my roof to glass line evenly for aesthetic reasons. Since its not exactly straight, I had to ad-lib a little bit. I think they do taper from about 15 degrees in the middle of the car to still holding 5 degrees by the outer edges.

[Deezler]

Not much changing these days. Trying to keep my coolant/oil pan pre-heater use up, but it's easy to forget... Enjoying the spring-like weather and now it's time to think about new aero-mods for the year!

In any case, new vehicle milestone; first 800+ mile tank. Not my highest mpg tank though, so clearly I could have been going this far before, too.



My winter B20 pump:

[COcyclist]

Deezler, Congratulations on your 800 mile tank. Have you done the Ventectomy mod? (gives VW diesel owners almost an extra 2 gallons capacity)

[Deezler]

COcyc,

Yes, definitely had to do the ventectomy. I think the stock tank rating is, what, 14.5 gallons, so you can see from my 15.3 gal fill-up that I was depending on it for the range.

Having over 16 gallon capacity on a vehicle that gets over 50 mpg = fantastic range. I can drive from Michigan to Florida on one tank... or across the entire country only stopping twice...

[alohaspirit]

any updates?

[Deezler]

Only bad ones (eco-modding wise). I completely changed direction with my car and life. My wife and I decided to take action to get our own farm and (mostly) off-grid home going right away, after finding a terrific deal on a vacant parcel of land I have been watching for years now. Bank finally wanted to just get rid of it and I was lucky enough to qualify for the new financing.

But as per the car.

I was sick of the rough ride and road scraping. It was pretty awesome while it lasted, and I have no regrets, but I was done with "low".

So instead of 2.5" lower vs. stock ride height, it's now 1.7" taller. About 4" higher than I used to drive around. That was quite a shock.



My new direction for the car was a goal of UTILITY. This diesel engine has such a tasty amount of torque and efficiency, that it's quite palatable to accept some minor fuel economy losses in order to open a whole new range of capability.

Once I get some bulk free time (ha!) I plan to build a front light setup just like this:



And a trailer hitch is quickly moving up the priority list of next mods. My buddy has a 5x8 utility trailer that I can use. That's going to ruin my rear diffuser mod.... and my other underpanel came off last winter on a 1000 mile snowboarding trip (didn't fly off, but I had to make a roadside rip-out).

Between the vehicle lift, oversized snow tires, worse aero, no engine heater use (new house has no garage) and less highway commuting, I am pulling only around 44 mpgs these days. Far below my old road trip peaks of 55+ and daily use of ~50... that feels like a long time ago.

All my money and research right now has led me to the purchase of this type of tractor:


So that I can get started clearing my new parcel of overgrown land. Trying to get a permaculture garden going asap!

I still want to add some significant aero-mods to the TDI, but the priority is quite low, to be honest. Maybe someday...

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Deezler

My new direction for the car was a goal of UTILITY. This diesel engine has such a tasty amount of torque and efficiency, that it's quite palatable to accept some minor fuel economy losses in order to open a whole new range of capability....

Thats the ballance us non-commuters are always trying to find.

I say don't worry about ride hight.
My engineer friend commutes in a 2001 sunfire. He put new struts on all 4 wheels and raised the car nearly 2 inchs. He said the effect on fuel milage is slightly more than only effecting the rounding error but still well with in the standard deviation.