81 1.6 mod questions
 

So I just got an 81 Rabbit, and want to know what all I can do with it. I have already turned up the fuel screw 1 turn and i thinkin that is where it should stay till i get some gauges on it. What else can I do. I wanna turbo it some time, but i have seen that there are some draw backs to doing so having to do with internals not made for the pressure. Then again I have been told that if I put a thicker head gasket on and keep my boost reasonable I shouldn't have a problem. Also I have seen some injector nozzles that are said to work for a performance mod that were originally for a Mercedes, good idea or bad. Lastly I really want a tach, and though I have seen some kits they all seem to require a bit of electrical wiring knowledge, witch would defeat one of the reasons I bought an all mechanical injection engine. So does any one know of a good simple tach kit. I don't really care if I have to add a gauge on the dash.

Extremely bad. The two engines use completely different prechamber designs and the MB nozzles will melt your prechamber because they don't atomize the same way.

Thanks for the info, though do you know where I can get some performance nozzles, delivery valves, ect.

So the 81 is a non turbo? Thats not good.
The turbos have different pistons(hypereuretic) and oil jets to cool down the pistons.
Also the cam is a bit different which is neglectable. A thing which isn't neglectable are different exhaust valves the turbo gets a " bit" hotter so you need better valves too.

You can gain (or better say expect) 125 hp with a turbo and a mercedes sprinter intercooler and stock injectors and turned up volume. You must have an additional oil cooler! Expect to change the head gasket every three month when you drive hard- thats what I had to do...
Don't worry when you get used to it you are done in three hours.
The heads will develop cracks between the valves- normal and thats not really serious dangerous as long as they don't get bigger.

The funny thing is going 120mph and sipping a bit diesel on the autobahn while belching black smoke.
Let me now if you need any infos- had VW diesels a couple of years and can tell you a bit.
Greetings from germany:tu:

Suggest to go the route I did; get a gasser cluster with the tachometer in it, and replace the big clock with the tach. using a DSL-1 (Dakota) signal converter for the 4 cylinder. Either way ... unless you want to use TinyTach ... requires wireing mods, but this method is a piece of cake. There is a good writeup under 4crawlers web site ... and many recent forum discussions. I know ... I created or reactivated many of them. Just this week got mine calibrated to within 200rpm accuracy ... and will 'fine tune' in the next few days. Seeing a tach on the 1.6L diesel is a kick. VW shop that I recently had do some grunt work ... owner ... said in his 30 odd years of working on diesel rabbits, had never before seen a tach on the 1.6.

EDIT: FORGOT THIS. WILL NEED AN ALTERNATOR WITH THE 'W' PLUG, ALONG WITH THE DSL AND A REEL OF WIRING.
TO REPLACE MY CLOCK, GOT A CONSOLE CLUSTER AND PUTTING A 2 1/16TH VDO IN IT IN PLACE OF ONE OF THE GAUGES THERE NOW.

Do you have any pics of this mod?