BimmerTim's Tacoma Build (tdi swap) and Trip Reports

To be fair, it wasn't about the power. If it were I wouldn't have chosen a 90hp VW diesel. lol. Also, so far on this tank it looks like I'll be over 25mpg. Previously, I wouldn't even be able to get 300 miles on a tank. Already on this one, still between 1/4 and 1/2 on the gauge, I've already got 300 miles on it.

 

def jealous of the mpg

 

Just refueled for the first time on the swap. 309 miles and 11.429 gallons, for 26.5 mpg. Not too bad.

If I used all 15 gallons, at that rate I should be able to do just about 400 miles on a tank.

 

Damn that's better than what I get in my awd vw lowered wagon.
I'm lucky to get 275 mi on a tank highway only in my truck. 400 would be real nice

 

That's also on 33"+ tires. It looks like you have pretty tall tires too. I daily a VW Alltrack, and the truck is now on par with the Alltrack for mpg.

 

yea I'm on 35's currently. but I also have a SC pushing 11psi with a Haltech and water meth so it likes to drink when in boost lol.
My DD wagon is also an Alltrack. Love that car.

 

It’s such a perfect usable daily. I had a B8.5 S4 before the Alltrack, but my dog hated riding in it.

 

yea the versatility is great. I can load so much gear in it with the backseats folded down. Have slept in the back a few times too.
My one complaint is that I wish it could tow more. The 2in hitch I have is limited to a 300lb tongue weight 8in from the receiver. Would be great if I could haul my wr250 and carrier with it.

 

Gears make a HUGE difference in wheel torque for sure. I have owned some 5VZ trucks with/without supercharging, and going from a 4.10 to 4.88 does more for the butt dyno than installing a supercharger and running "stock" PSI.
That said it also reduces the wheel speed range... which with the narrow diesel power band means a ton more shifts... I was considering an ALH 1.9 TDI swap before I decided to go 2GR, and the test drive of a friends TDI swap pickup made me change my mind to go for more revs not less.

 

That's great to hear. I'm really looking forward to doing a gear change this winter. I'm also planning to send off my injection pump and injectors for a rebuild too. They have a ton of miles and I just want to make sure this runs as mint as it can. While that's gone I'll probably have the ecu socketed and have the ASV and EGR properly removed from the tune to eliminate the CEL.

I'm still on my second tank of fuel, but I've been driving it most days. There are a few other things I'd like to change now that I have some miles on it. Maybe I'll tackle those while the truck is down and document those.

 

Someone asked on another forum what I thought this weighed at this point. With the topper and the whole bed system in the back, without me, it came in at 3980 lbs wet. I'm kind of surprised that it's sub-4k. That means with me and the gear I bring on trips I should be right around 4500 lbs.

 

Ok, I got the EGT gauge hooked up today and was able to test a number of things to see how hot it gets. I put the EGT probe in the block off plate for the EGR on the manifold as far down toward the turbo as I could get it. It's also only like 55degF here right now, so that may have played some role, but... When warm it idles at about 400-450degF. Normal sub-45mph cruising it's about 500-550degF. Getting on the highway and cruising at about 60-65mph it's around 500-600degF. I did one long hard 4th gear pull up to 4250rpm and the hottest I could get it up to in any situation even long grade 4th or 5th gear matted was 750degF.

I think it's safe to say that my EGTs are totally fine.

 

Only to slightly de-rail your build (epic by the way). What did you use for your crankshaft spacer? I’m helping a buddy fix his 1.9 ALH tdi swapped pickup. It looks like this kit: https://dieselconversion.com/kit-bu...-ahu-alh-to-toyota-r150-manual-transmission/#

The hardware spec was.. subpar, and mixed. All of the bolts connecting the spacer to the crank sheared. They look to be an inadequate grade. Hard to tell since they’re in pieces. Wondering what you did there?

 

I used the TD Conversions kit (here). The crank adapter is a one piece unit that was a pain in the ass to install, but it was hardened steel and very nice quality. The studs to mount the adapter were custom machined to go from the tdi thread to something else. I don't understand why the threads needs to be changed rather than just use nuts with the same thread as the tdi crank...

All in all, I would say that the adapter kit was ok, but they mixed and matched metric and imperial hardware for unknown reasons. The grades supplied were also not even rated to factory torque specs. If you look back at this thread you can see that I took it a step further and drilled out all of the imperial threads in the aluminum and used timeserts to ensure I didn't ruin any threads and used metric everywhere. I also changed out every bolt from the kit to appropriate grades and vibration resistant fasteners.

I would use the kit again, because it saved a lot of time from designing and making my own, but I would make all of the same modifications again as well.

 

I know I'm a bit late on this--I just stumbled through your thread today.

4.30 gears were more common in 4Runners than in Tacomas. It looks like you've got an 8.4"/open rear, so your rear diff donors are limited to other 8.4"/open Tacomas. That means 4.30 gears would most likely come from a 1999/2000+ 2.7L manual Tacoma (earlier years, like my 98, got 4.10), and 4.56 would most likely come from a 2.7L auto Tacoma (I'm not sure how much year matters here).

 

Thanks for the info!

 

I forgot to post about my gauge mounting journey. I started with a simple design to make sure that I had all of the mounting and locating dimensions were correct.

This version completely replaces the radio. In future revisions I would like to integrate the factory single radio pocket below the gauges. I didn't do that this time, because the pocket will need to be modified to fit the gauges above them, but I wanted to make sure that not having a radio in that space was ok and that the gauges would fit well there.

Don't mind the lightly hacked up radio bezel. I had to do that for my current/prior radio. There is a new, unmodified one on the floor in the second pic. It doesn't quite fit right, because I got the spacing of the gauge panel wrong in the in/out dimension, which I'll fix for revision 2.







Here is generally how I designed and assembled that panel.

 

I don't have the black beauty bezel in there, because it didn't fit with the new, unmodified radio trim panel. I must have forgotten to remove the thickness of the black bezel when I designed the metal frame. You can see here, that with the black bezel removed it fits quite well.






And here I used an OEM single DIN pocket to show the mounting tab height. Clearly I messed up that dimension, since the tabs are pretty well lined up without the black bezel in there.

Without bezel



With bezel



I'm working on revision two, which will include the use of the pocket. I'll post about that once it's here.

As a radio replacement I bought this little bluetooth adapter and an amp. The bluetooth adapter turns the amp on when connected to a device. Volume is controlled via the buttons on the side of my phone. We'll see if I like not having an actual head unit.

 

For rev two I included the OEM single DIN pocket.



I did have to trim the top flange off of the pocket to fit the double DIN hole. You can see there is something going on with the bottom edge of the pocket that I still need to figure out. BUT, I like this much better than rev 1. I also don't love the texture of the gauge panel, so I need to find a solution that better matches the OE plastic, but that's pretty simple.

 

Here is the metal mounting frame I designed that's behind the scenes. In this version I included the mounting tabs in the design rather than bolting on the OE brackets. This fit much better.