[squibby]

Good write up Steve

Gwagensteve wrote:

I think the most relevant comparison is between a XUD9 converted sierra (as the OP suggested for the conversion) and a G16B EFI converted sierra, where peak torque is near-as identical, but the diesel is giving up significant HP.

A 1.9 TD should positively rape the baleno 1.6 petrol in terms of torque, XUD9 must be a bit crappy if they are near-as identical. I'll bet it delivers max power and torque a lot lower though.

Fair argument mate, didn't realise the XUD9 was a bit lame. Perhaps there's more to this then meets the eye. Is the XUD9 is extremely frugal on the fuel to compensate for the poor power/torque? Or is it just old? The French can make the best diesels in the world, second only to Volkswagen.

[Gwagensteve]

Fatzook wrote:

JrZook wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:

No question that car sounds really, really cool
Steve.

For real? Sounds like it has a flock of pigeons stuck in the muffler I'm actually surprised that the sound tickled your fancy.

Same. That would be enough for me to sell the car. What a fucking lousy racket.

In all honesty there was too much whistle for my liking, but I suspect that's just the result of a spanish redneck exhaust (no muffler) with a resonator I'm sure it would be pretty mild. I quite like a bit of whistle though - it's a nice indicator of engine load- otherwise diesels note is almost totally flat due to no butterflies in the intake.

I guess the amount of whistle that car was putting out piqued my interest as to where the power band was and how small the turbo must be. I know it's not comparing apples to apples, but listen to a 4BT Cummins, even unmuffled, and whilst there's (muted) whistle at low RPM it takes a fair amount of throttle to wake all the pigeons . That didn't look to be the case here, and makes me suspicious this is a very low performance diesel that's leaning very hard on its (tiny) turbo to deliver very modest torque. Off boost, or approaching peak power, I reckon it would be a fair dog, not at all the case with a G16B

Squibby - power and torque @ rpm are further back in the thread. Both this motor and the F18 Renault are pretty average. I suspect that when Santana calculated out torque loads on the Sierra drivetrain, they had to cap torque at about 120Nm, which IMHO severely limits the attractiveness of these motors as a conversion due to the low HP that results in.
As to economy, read back further - a figure of 5-7 l/100km was quoted for the XUD9, but in all honesty I don't believe it. (certainly not 5l/100km)

Yes, power and torque peak is lower (4300rpm/2500rpm) but I don't think that's of much use unless there's a way of getting very much taller gearing in a sierra.

Seve.

[squibby]

Nothing a bleed valve and an increase in fuel pressure won't cure. Or are these engines too new for that?

I can believe 5l/100ks. Thats only about 47 mpg. Small diesels have been delivering that since the early 90's. I guess that's the only appeal and the whole point of this engine else it would have been a waste of effort.

[Fatzook]

squibby wrote:

I guess that's the only appeal and the whole point of this engine else it would have been a waste of effort.

Sounds like a waste of effort anyway. The time it will take you to recoupe your initial outlay in form of savings at the bowser will probably see the sierra to several other owners, or the scrap yard.....which ever is the longest time frame.

[Gwagensteve]

squibby wrote:

Nothing a bleed valve and an increase in fuel pressure won't cure. Or are these engines too new for that?

I can believe 5l/100ks. Thats only about 47 mpg. Small diesels have been delivering that since the early 90's. I guess that's the only appeal and the whole point of this engine else it would have been a waste of effort.

Well they are a mechanical pump diesel, so theoretically yes, you could screw some more fuel and boost in, but at what cost reliability? As far as I researched, these motors are upwards of 7-12 years old, have an appetite for head gaskets due to coolant issues, and have no spares support in Australia. How hard would you lean on one? How much money would you spend chasing a turbo or head (even a head gasket?) if you popped one after getting heavy with the fuel/boost.

I'm more than aware that small diesels have been getting 5L/100km for some time. My X3 delivers 5L/100km at a steady cruise - but with the weight and aerodynamics (not to mention driveline drag and rolling resistance) of a Sierra I'd expect the figure to be higher.

My rough calculations based on petrol fuel economy indicates a standard sierra requires about 40hp to hold a 100km/h cruising speed. I think that's much higher than a small hatchback. Diesel engines consume about 181grams of fuel per HP per hour. At 832 g/l, Thats 6l/100km at a steady cruise. Ballpark, sure, but I bet you'd never see better than that, and I bet you wouldn't get within a bull's roar of 6l with the engine spinning at over 3200rpm.

In any case, let's say 3l/100km saving over a G13 under all conditions. At $1.50/l that's $4.50 per 100km or 100,000km of driving to recoup the conversion cost assuming $4.5K total bill, and no engine failures. I don't believe one of these motors would exceed 100,000km once in a car here before falling apart. They've already probably done 150,000km or more in their original car.

Steve.

[atari4x4]

paging Dieselsuzi.... are you ever coming back to this thread?

[SierraDan]

My only interest in diesels is the low down torque which is nice for towing/carrying weight and the whistle sounds cool.
Other than that I'm not a fan, as I like to have the option of a wide rev range. I love my G13BA off road.

[2stroker]

I have found that most people who don't like diesel vehicles have not actuallly owned one, its a bit like me with Fords, I don't like anything that is Ford, I have never actually owned a Ford and I know that Ford makes some excellent vehicles, I just don't like them because I have been bought up to dislike them.

[squibby]

2stroker wrote:

I have found that most people who don't like diesel vehicles have not actuallly owned one, its a bit like me with Fords, I don't like anything that is Ford, I have never actually owned a Ford and I know that Ford makes some excellent vehicles, I just don't like them because I have been bought up to dislike them.

yeah, I owned a 1.9 naturally aspirated french Diesel, ('96 Renault Clio) shared my dad's Peugeot 306TD - I just looked it up and it's an XUD obviously almost the same as the one we are discussing only we had a 91hp XUD, I also had a 1.6 VW Golf Turbo Diesel. The VW was the thirstiest, the Renault and the Peugeot would easy do better then 5/100km on the freeway. I always thought the French diesels were pretty bullet proof. Great donor for cranking up the boost. Sounds to me like this XUD9 good safely put out a lot more power then it does so yeah I absolutely would fit a bleed valve and increase the boost a bit. I wouldn't go to the trouble of converting a petrol Suzuki to Diesel though.

[Gwagensteve]

I'm not, but any stretch of the imagination anti-diesel. On a quick count I've owned 5 Diesels and I want to convert my tow rig to diesel. A bad conversion is a bad conversion though.

Steve.

[ajsr]

considering most sierra's are doing 3500 - 4000 rpm at 100km/h a diesel would be useless as there are sweet fuck all diesels that will make any kind of good power or torque at much over 2800 rpm, and are maxed at about 3800- 4200 rpm.

oh and Ive owned shitloads of diesels, i have 4 diesel vehicles at the moment. oh and i hate fords too

[GRPABT1]

I love diesels, for what they're good for. And I own a modified commodore but I don't hate fords

[2stroker]

It is all relative I guess, if you have a heap of power you don't need to have it geared so that its doing 4000rpm at 100kph

[Fatzook]

2stroker wrote:

It is all relative I guess, if you have a heap of power you don't need to have it geared so that its doing 4000rpm at 100kph

True.

But this is the one issue you cannot easily address with an oiler in a sierra. The gears are just not tall enough. You are effectively moving the workable rev range 2000rpm down stream.

I love the idea of a TD sierra, but to get the advantages of the diesel, and not have the disadvantages, you'd need to run one of these flashy new CRDi things, and that posses a whole new set of mechanical, electrical and reliability issues.

[GRPABT1]

2stroker wrote:

It is all relative I guess, if you have a heap of power you don't need to have it geared so that its doing 4000rpm at 100kph

True but then what happens when you need to go slow offroad? All that low down torque and high gearing will be scary. Which is why I think it was mentioned earlier that the guys in America who actually wheel don't have diesel conversions that get good economy etc.

[bazook]

just buy a rocky its going to be easier

[sideways]

Gwagensteve wrote:

I don't believe one of these motors would exceed 100,000km once in a car here before falling apart. They've already probably done 150,000km or more in their original car.

Steve.

I do.

These are mega miles motors. I know a guy with one that has 700'000km on it, original engine, never even had the head off. Ran as if it had 100'000. His wife had one with 400'000km, same story.

One of the teachers at school had one with 550'000 (same story again, it'd been in his family since new), he traded it on on a 307 HDi.

The head gasket problem is because the radiator is lower than the head so people tend not to bleed the system or put enough water in them.

All of the above are Peugeot 405 diesels, of course.

There's a series on the autospeed website where they get quite respectable performance gains out of a 405 diesel, the only properly relevant one is here. Note the dyno graphs!

Also, this has some VERY useful info on the engines. http://www.engine-cemberci.com/engine/PEUGEOT/4.pdf 140kg for the XUD9 turbo! Given these lean 30* and both the manifolds (and obviously, turbo) are on the down side, the Sierra lean is gona be a whole lot worse!

To my knowledge (please note, whilst I am a Peugeot enthusiast, I care little for FWD Pugs and my knowledge of them has just been picked up on French car forums, much like the stuff I learn about Vitara's and Jimny's here.) the only RWD gearbox for these is the one from a Tata Techoline... I don't think a Sierra gearbox would last long behind one of these. If you figure out a reliable, strong gearbox to adapt these to you might have a few of the Peugeot and Citroen guys interested. XU engines have the same bell housing pattern and people are often talking of sticking an Mi16 engine in a 504 or race car ect.

A little known fact, the engine from the 205 T16 (of group B rally fame), the XU8t is based around the block of the XUD series.

If I was to do a diesel conversion on a Sierra (which I wouldn't. If I wanted a small, diesel 4wd I'd go hunting for a Daihatsu Scat.... Or a Rocky if I was really feeling like some cock up my arse), I'd look at a cheaper/more common engine like a 2L (as in, the 2.4l) from a Hilux or something. I have always thought a small marine diesel in a tray back Sierra would be the ultimate small farm vehicle, but I guess that's basically what a Scat or Rocky ute is anyway.

Thanks

Hayden

[zukenutter]

I think this sounds great and I look forward to reading the progress and outcome.

[303zuke]

Anyone who's (still) interested in all the bits together in one package might like this on E-bay:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/VW-2-0TDI-en ... 4ab95bb1fd

[christover1]

Some outback travellers like deisels more than petrols.
Good range on a tank ful.
Carrying spare deisel is a bit safer than petrol.

Only ever driven heavy deisel vehicles,
so I have no idea about a Sierra deisel.

If I was to do it,
I'd look into Suzuki (and affiliates) factory fitted deisels to glean info.

[Fatzook]

303zuke wrote:

Anyone who's (still) interested in all the bits together in one package might like this on E-bay:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/VW-2-0TDI-en ... 4ab95bb1fd

Not a bad deal. Its CRDi, but looks like everything is there. Not sure I'd run a sierra gearbox with that much motor though. 140HP and 319Nm.

[mr.high.top]

what about the daihatsu rocky diesel(l series hilux engine) or would they be much heavier then the 1.9 and or any power torque difference coz to be honest my zooks gonna handle like a bucket of water anyways

[Fatzook]

mr.high.top wrote:

what about the daihatsu rocky diesel(l series hilux engine) or would they be much heavier then the 1.9 and or any power torque difference coz to be honest my zooks gonna handle like a bucket of water anyways

They make rubbish power and torque numbers, and are HEAVY to boot.