Diesel Donor car (NAC)

[Jim Dupree]

Well I don't have first hand knowledge of the rest of the US but California
got the 4000 diesel in 1982 and 83. I was working for an Audi dealership in
Sacramento CA and got the pleasure of working these fine specimens. We had
several customers with them. The 1.6L 4 cyl diesel in the 4000 was way under
powered but was not really any worst that the VW Quantum diesel. The turbo
diesel 4000 was better but they were very rare. We had an early test car at
the dealership for several months but I never saw a customer car or a new
one on the sales floor.
The 5000 diesel were slugs as well with a whopping 65 hp or so from the 2.0L
5 cyl. The 5000 Turbo diesel drove quite well but still only had around 90
hp but something like 125 lbs/ft torque. I think the normally aspirated 5000
diesel was sold 80 and 81 and the turbo diesel in 82 and 83 but I'm not
sure. I owned an 83 TD I bought for $300 that needed rings. Really the block
was worn and should have been bored but pistons were too expensive for my
budget at the time. I threw rings and rod bearings in it drove it for 2
years. These were the only Audi engines that I have seen that had cylinder
wear problems. Mine only had 60k mile on it when I bought it. We had
probably 6 in the shop that were worn with low compression.
Jim


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brett Dikeman" <brett at cloud9.net>
To: "Jim Dupree" <jdupree914 at sbcglobal.net>
Cc: "Mike Arman" <armanmik at earthlink.net>; <quattro at audifans.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: Diesel Donor car (NAC)


>
> On Sep 1, 2005, at 10:01 PM, Jim Dupree wrote:
>
> > There are probably better industrial engines available
> > but there were a lot of small diesel engines used in
> > cars in the early eighties.
> > The vw diesel engine was used in the Rabbit, Jetta,
> > Quantum, Rabbit Pick-up, Vanagon, Audi 4000 (was even
> > a few 4000 turbo diesels)
>
> The 4000 never received the diesel- it was too heavy.  Only the 5000
> got the diesel in the US, and it was -exceptionally- rare, with good
> reason; they were reportedly garbage (I think the pump was
> unreliable, and cost more than the car was worth.)
>
> Buy a Honda generator.  They're quieter, more fuel efficient, better
> emissions, produce cleaner power, more reliable, easier to service,
> won't kill you if you look at it funny, and they're rather compact.
>
> Or, just keep an eye on craigslist and ebay.  Occasionally industrial
> equipment goes for a song on both.
>
> There's a site dedicated to completely home-brew electric generation
> devices; they have an impressively efficient generator design that
> doesn't require too much in terms of fabrication skills and fancy
> materials.  If I can find/think of the URL, I'll let you know.
>
> Brett
> -- 
> "They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/
>
>