Best motor for my 1982 diesel westy

[captainpartytime]

This is my first post to this site. I've spent the last two days looking through every vanagon diesel post here, GTD, and TheSamba site. I'm looking to do a fairly affordable (I'm a high school teacher and my wife is a nurse) engine conversion on my 1982 diesel westy. I bought it from the original owner who had 325,000 on the clock before he had a full engine rebuild. The new rebuilt 1.6NA is just too slow!!! I am in the process of restoring the whole inside of the vehicle and now want something that will take my wife and two young daughters (3 and 1 yr. old) across the states reliably and with good fuel efficiency. I don't need a rocket ship but something that will be a strong workhorse. I think I've narrowed it down to either a 1.6TD or 1.9 or 1.9TD. I plan on doing the conversion myself but do not have much engine experience so it would have to be somewhat of a drop in, bolt up, and go. The 1.6TD 'ecodiesel' found here http://www.vwdieselparts.com/turbom.htm looks like a good candidate. I feel like I have a lot of good info but just need some help focusing on what my actual, feasable options are. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions from anyone.

[82 vanagon 01 tdi]

With respect to all the people who have helped me with tips and info.
As a new convert myself over the last 8 or 9 months. All the reserch that I have done says first look at a realistic budget, time, place, tools, and just fow much you can do your self. Your options do very from 1.6 td jetta motor that can be found easy and cheep, I paid $300. for the hole car pulled the motor and stuck the na 1.6 back in it from my westy and sold it for $1000. The 1.9 td is also great but is more money and has its problems, the crank gear being the the worst, also they can be hard to find very hard if you are in the USA. Then there are people that do use the 1.9 tdi, very complicated lots of electronics involved. there is a place in B.C. Canada that dose it for about $ 10.000.
No motor is a drop in, as there is exhaust, turbo oil return line (1.6td), and drivers side motor mount as the turbo is in the way, unless you use the manafold from a Quantum disel that is hard to find and very very very hard to find in canada. then there is the injection pump anaroid that hits the motor cover, so you have to do some modifing to the cover, unless you go to the jx injection pump available in germany and south Africa, more cash....and tools and know how as you need to know how to time the pump.
After you do choose the motor that is right for you(cost , availability, capability)dont forget that there is also a transmission that needs to be changed to match that new found power. I am shure that we all agree that the one to use is th DK code out of an air cooled van, or you can have yours regeard, very hard to find in canada, I got mine from the USA. aprox $1800. by the time I got it. but $1000. to 1200 in USA.
I had my choice of motor as I found an 86 jetta 1.6td $300.
93 1.9td jetta $500. (crank gear was gone but motor had new head so i fixed the crank gear car was to good for donor sold for $5000.)you just dont find 1.9s for that deal ,once in a life time. Also I had found a 98 tdi for $1000 from a wrecker(to complicated)....Sooooo after all that I went with the 1.6td as it is cheep proven and plentafull. and if you take the time to surff the net there is lots of help out there on them. and they are very easy to get lot of reliable power out of, like about 80hp+ by just inter cooling and turning up the ip and when you think about 80+ hp to the 50 hp that you have now well in the end that is what made my mind up.
I could go on and on, but I think that it all comes done to cash and your abillity . good luck

[captainpartytime]

Thank you very much for all the information given. I'm sure this topic has been discussed over and over so I appreciate the consolidated break down. O.K. so I'm pretty sure the 1.6TD is right for me. Does anyone have a link or a list of possible donor vehicles with years. I want to start hunting down a motor as soon as possible. Again, thanks for all the information.

[82 vanagon 01 tdi]

Are you looking for used or new rebuilt?
Just do some surfing, auto grave yards, news pappers,
are you looking for just motor or the hole car to take motor out.

[captainpartytime]

Are you looking for used or new rebuilt?

are you looking for just motor or the hole car to take motor out.

Both, but I think it will be easier if I knew what years and what make (jetta, golf..etc.) came stock with the 1.6TD. David Marshall (fastforward.ca) used to have a comprehensive list of years and cars that carried this motor but he is no longer in business.[/quote]

[libbybapa]

I think the Quantum was the pioneer of the 1.6TD in North America in 1982. Rabbit and Jetta promptly followed suit. In 86 the hydraulic lifters were introduced (identifiable by the bump instead of depression between #1 an #2 injector). In the US the engine remained the same until 1990 when the ECO motor was introduced. Canada continued with the "real" 1.6TD through the ECO years. The ECO had a detuned pump missing the boost enrichment aneroid and fitted with an 8mm plunger vs. the 9mm that all of the other 1.6s came with. The ECO also came with the k14 turbo (as did the stock Euro TD vanagon) which is nice for fast spool time. The ECO went through 91 (92?). When the AAZ (1.9TD) was introduced in Canada (no diesels in the US until 98 with the TDI).

Andrew

[libbybapa]

Oh, and there were Audi's fitted with the same motors, not sure on those...

Andrew