I’ve had the pleasure to talk to a fair number of people interested in this engine. I remember when the little Diesel Rabbit first hit our shores with the 1.5 liter engine. Some of the diesel truckers thought the injectors were too small, and that they would be nothing but trouble. What we must keep in mind is that half the stuff we hear is bogus. This is a nice little engine that hums down the road, with great economy.
If you are in Canada, you have more of these around, (or so I’m told), if you are in the States, a lot of these durable little engines are in old cars, and they’re getting scraped, you might pick them up while you can. There are folks who specialize in this engine, and it appears that parts will be available for some time, with progress in providing bio fuels, and emission controls getting better for diesels, we should expect to see some new cars with diesels soon, they sure do boost the mileage over a gas engine.
Rob Stephens in Ontario is one of the first to send me a direct drive Gen based on the 1.6 N.A. VW Engine driving a two bearing generator 4 pole head. This is a good example of what a DIYer can whip up on his own, with a little labor and not too much expense. It should be obvious that running a VW Diesel at 1800 RPM is not going to produce maximum KW, but for many of us, it is all we need, and the advantages of the direct drive is worth limiting the power, and of course many of us feel this engine will last a good long time at 1800 RPMs.
This is a picture of Rob’s Home Brew drive coupler. Rob explains that it allows for considerable miss alignment, but as we know, the better the alignment, the more efficient and long lasting. I would think the ‘off the shelf’ jaw couplers could be easily adapted.
Rob has some good data on fuel versus KW, and we have discussed making this available to reader here. Rob is also going to take some close up pictures of his home made coupling, and we’ll get it on here too!
Below are two favorite Excellent VW diesel sites.
http://www.4crawler.com/Diesel/index.shtml#TechInfo
Any info on the kW output on a setup like this yet?