Engine swap for fuel data
 

Question...

I have a 1982 VW Rabbit diesel which I have been tracking with Fuelły. Late last year, the head gasket blew and long story short, I'm swapping out the engine with a TDI motor from a 1997 Jetta.

My question is: should I continue to track my fuel ups on the current vehicle and average them with the data from the original engine? Or retire the car and make a new entry to start over? What's going to be cleaner for the database when comparing vehicles, and does Fuelly have a provision for cars with non-factory engines?

I'd say retire the old engine data. The new engine data won't be comparable to other cars of that year and engine on Fuelly.

The engine entry is optional, and I would guess cars without an entry are filtered out when someone asks to look at a specific engine.

That's a great question and I've never thought about it. I guess I might want to retire it and start a new one too.

Do you have a build thread anywhere? I'd love to see it and learn what it takes to put a relatively modern TDI engine in a pre-computer car.

I bet it is easier than putting a VW TDI into a tacoma. ;)

Makes sense, I'll retire the current vehicle and start a new one, no reason to average all the fuel data together...

Should I just leave the engine blank then? Technically it's still a "Diesel L4" although not comparable to any other 1982 diesel Rabbits. With any luck I ought to push 60 MPG out of this thing.

No build thread on it yet, but i'll post some details when it is complete. A friend of mine more experienced than me is building the engine and doing the swap, I'm just supplying car and cash. What I can tell you though is we're getting rid of the electronics so no ECU, MAF, sensors, etc. and going with a straight mechanical injection pump similar to what was on it originally. He's fabricated up some custom brackets to make the engine mount into the older car but other than that it's pretty much drop in and go. I'm using the newer 5 speed transmission converted from hydraulic clutch to cable and scirocco axles to hook up the wheels. Way too many other new parts to list so this thing ought to run perfect and with the amount of torque and HP the TDI produces in that lightweight Rabbit body, I expect it should run very strong indeed! Stay tuned!