Been looking yesterday at my brother in laws new Subaru turbo diesel, which is a flat 4 configuration.

This would seem to be a great engine to put into a kombi.
Anyone looked into this?

there's been a lot of talk about this on the buggy forums actually.

I think it sounds like a great idea!!
As a turbo diesel owner I can appreciate the massive torque yet awesome economy they deliver.
I'm looking forward to seeing any progress on this front as well!

The new Subaru's run CANBUS on the wiring. This means the wiring is going to be even more of a ballsache.
Basically if a sensor is missing the ECUs gonna chuck a paddy. Could even mean if a tail-light's out (well not quite but you get the drift)

@ Pete, got a link please?

aftermarket ECU.

ES, there has hasn't been lots of threads, just comments here and there and wishing really.

im sure once they been around a few more years and more start hitting the salvage auctions we'll start to see more conversions

that Cbus system looks like a pain in the arse
diesels dont even really need much in the way of wiring, long as they got diesel and air they'll run

kinda funny thinking of aftermarket management for a diesel
but then again i deal with tractors which dont even need a battery to run

Hi

You cant even change the radio in a car with the canbus system, I don't know how you would get it to run in another car.

I appreciate the advantages that diesels have, but I would never own one, I feel like I need a bath every time I fill one up and I cant stand walking in all the split diesel on the ground at servos, I try to avoid filing up a petrol car anywhere near a diesel bowser.

Steve

Is the CANBUS system really that hard? I thought that most cars have different CANBUS'es on board. Like one BUS for the engine, one for the lights and one for the heater and stuff?

Ah, found something on my one of my favorite car-tech-sites: autospeed.com canbus article
It says that the engine got it's own bus.

Ain't a bus nothing more then a "channel" the cpu is listening to and sending commands over it?
So, if you transplant the engine bus plus CPU to your vehicle, it should work?

BTW: I like diesels!! I would like the VW 3 cylinder TDI in my beetle.
Or, even better maybe, the new two cylinder Fiat MultiAir JTD, nice light and compact engine.

I have done a bit of research into the boxer diesel with a view to fitting one to our Outback family hack. I have one available to me also. The problems with the engine are that the ecu is an unknown, it could probably be split from the harness and wired in seperately but there are many possibilities for problems. The engine I know of does not have an ecu so I have also considered using an aftermarket ecu. The problem here is that the common rail system requires enormous drivers to open the injectors, sort of like an ignition ignitor but bigger. Because the common rail works on massive rail pressure(thousands of psi) there is a very high electrical load to overcome this. The injectors also have a dwell period that must be correct or you get hideous diesel knock and likely engine failure. They are quite a bit more complicated than they seem.

Best bet would be to use a factory ecu and make it work. I don't think the CAN is really an issue myself as the ecu can be programmed to ignore other systems. There is still multiple control units communicating via the BUS so you can seperate them with the right programming.

I could get brand new engines with wiring and ecu's from japan if anyone was really interested in it.

Hi all, dropping over from the the Manx Club forums, picked this thread up in Google.