# DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit



## crazyjpeters (Mar 15, 2001)

Ya that's right, CIS and all its variants can kiss my camshaft.
This is how I swapped crossflow injection OBD1 onto my 16v 2.0 in my rabbit:
What to buy:
injection from a 2.0 8v - injectors, air meter, wiring, ecm, 4-wire OXS, distributor, air temp sensor, water temp sensor, carbon canister purge valve, crank trigger sensor, ABA coil.
ROSS machine or equivalent fuel rail (I got mine for beer at the last place I worked)
fuel rail adapter for fpr or standalone type inline fuel regulator/fmu
coolant outlet for the push-in temp sensor (digifant 8v?)
G60 injector cups
cone filter
What to make:
If you know cool machinist types, then by all means use the info on the web and make your own fuel rail - however if you don't, then it's quite likely cheaper to buy one from Ross or Bahn Brenner.
I also made a crank trigger wheel using AutoCad and a local laser cutting place - keep the metal thickness around 1/8" or the laser tends to melt more than it cuts. The brackets I simply bent out of 5052 aluminum using a metal brake and a bit of ingenuity. I used the stock ABA crank trigger sensor. I beleive Eurospeed makes one nearly identical to the one I used.
I made 2 adapters out of plate aluminum. One for the air temp sensor that goes in the position that the old cold start valve sat. Simple enough - I think the air temp sensor was a 12mm 1.5 thread. The other was an adapter for the 8v water outlet. I needed to flip the water outlet around so the sensor hole pointed down and toward the firewall. It would not clear the head in the normal location. Doing this caused the larger o-ring to sit too close to the indentation at the bottom of the head resulting in leakage. I just made and adapter between the 16v style outlet and the 8v style. Actually it still seeps slightly, but I think I may have done a poor silicone job on it in my rush to get finished. The old coolant sensor needs to be plugged (1/8" NPT plug and pipe dope)
What to modify:
I heated my plastic intake tube and managed to turn the oval shape into a circle ( not perfectly, but it worked and I didn't know where to go for a real tube) since I went ahead and used the VR6 air meter.
Very helpful:
CE2 fuse box/A3 gauge cluster. Doing this swap is not bad if you live for wiring and have multilpe Bentleys available to you. I hear the European built rabbits have more consistent wiring colouring than my 84. For me this was the most time consuming part, since I have an 84 with an A2 dash and had A2 dash wiring (so glad to get rid of that seperate fuse box/ relay box) It is fairly straightforward once this is done. Be sure to get the VSS when you put in the cluster - no speedo cable!
Steps:
Remove CIS-E Motronic - throw in garbage and light a big fire - dance around fire chanting curses in German. Pee on fire to put it out.

Rewire (take your time on the CE2 stuff it's got to be done right) - you will most likely have to redo the harnesses in the engine bay for the headlamps etc.
Remove old injector cups (17mm allen?) install new ones (12mm allen?)

Assemble injectors, rail, FPR of choice. Plumb new fuel system. 
Replace cold start injector with air temp sensor and adapter.
Replace TB with automatic unit (if you have to) - I had to reuse my cis-e plugin to use this TB - the motronic 2.9 uses a slightly different unit.
Modify intake tube and install airmeter, filter, etc.

Rig up the crank trigger sensor and brackets - the ECM expects the first missing tooth to be 14 teeth BTDC - keep that in mind when welding it to the Hamonic damper pulley - and be careful of that water pump pulley - everything has to clear. If you want to adjust your timing, you need to do it at the crank trigger, since that is where the ECM gets its timing info from. I slotted my mounting holes so it could be adjusted. It's almost mandatory, since no one is that accurate with their alignment of the crank trigger. The sensor needs to be about 1mm from touching the wheel.
The Hall sender wheel from the 8v must be put into the 16v unit. This is a big pain in the butt esp. if you've never changed your rotor - why they chose to glue it on with that cement is beyond me. Keep in mind also that these distributors spin opposite directions. Basically I just lined up both distributors to TDC mark ont them and noted where the ONE - windowed 8v wheel was positioned and copied it using the 16v distributor and the wheel. The placement is not overly important - I don't think 5 degrees will matter, since the timing is controlled by the crank trigger. Reinstall and setup distributor to TDC. If you don't care about throwing an engine code right away, play around with a timing light and try to time the engine using the distributor - surprising!
Rig up water outlet. Some wiring on the engine harness must be extended for the temp sensor, air temp sensor and distributor.
Swap OX sensors.
Plug everything in.
Results:
Very responsive, starts every time with no trouble ( I may even install a car starter!)
Pulls very strong and feels more powerful - even though the chip I got in the ECM is a turbo chip and pulls out some timing on the top end. When I switch back, it may even pull stronger - we'll see.
Has not stalled once yet. Not once. No really! No, I know it's a 2.0 16v... No, I'm not joking. Ok, stop it.
It may still have a speed limiter on it, I haven't tried going past 170 km/h yet.
My only caveat is that the idle isn't rock solid. It seems to do alot of hunting. It never stalls, but it bounces around between 800 and 1000 alot. I can live with that if it's the only problem.

I'd be happy to hear from anyone that is/has/ is going to try this swap. I know it's a lot of work, and it seems a bit daunting if you've never done it before, but I think it's worth it - Especially if you get most of it as performance hand-me-downs from your buddy! Thanks a million Bron! Next summer - ABA bottom end with a turbo!


_Modified by crazyjpeters at 6:35 PM 9-4-2003_


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## vr6swap (Aug 17, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

I'll bump this one because I for one never thought about putting 2.9 on a 16v. I mean,people do digi-1 all the time and it's no thing, but is this swap worth the extra work? 
I've always heard that the OBD1 motronic doesn't like boost,and that it can't provide enough fuel for boost. Internet rumor?


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## crazyjpeters (Mar 15, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (vr6swap)*

Well, there are an awful lot of 2.0 8v engines out there. And they stopped making G60's a long time ago. That in itself is not a good enough reason for this swap, but it was there, so I did it, partly because it was given to me for probably less than a G60 swap would have cost me. I also wanted to get the motronic 2.9 injection working for when I swap an ABA bottom end under it next year. And I was looking for a true multiport fuel injection - there isn't a huge advantage to them, but why do a batch fire when you could do a multiport?
As far as boost goes, we'll see. That's the reason I'm swapping to ABA bottom end. The car that I got this setup from was boosted - and worked quite well. I can't remember how fast it was, but I'm pretty sure it was in the low 13's if I remember correctly. It had an FMU to handle the extra fueling duties.
If you want something relatively simple, swap the g60.


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## vr6swap (Aug 17, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

Well,okay. Props for doing something different,you may be onto something here. Hope you saved all the notes for the machine work and fabrication. http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif 
1. I didn't know 2.9 was multiport. I thought all the aba crossflow stuff was batchfire like digi-1. 

2. A friend of mine removed a whole bunch of rocket science from his turbo'd OBD1 vr6 and replaced it with a Cartech FMU. He tells me it runs and drives 100% better,and doesn't go lean under boost. I guess the simpler it is,the better it works.



_Modified by vr6swap at 9:51 AM 9-7-2003_


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## Scracho (Nov 19, 2002)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

Do you have any pictures of this setup? Very interested in doing the same thing.


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## crazyjpeters (Mar 15, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (Scracho)*

sorry, I am sans digital camera. As soon as I can, I'll try to get some pics out here, but don't hold your breath.
There are a few of us who have done the swap, you just have to be good at using the search to find some of this info.


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## crazyjpeters (Mar 15, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

well, over the past month I've been keeping a close eye on my fuel mileage.
My in town mileage went from around 22 mpg to around 30.
My highway mileage went from about 31 to 36 roughly.
I'd say I'm pleasantly surprised. It also seems to be much more forgiving of speed on the highway. Before, if I pushed it on the highway, the mileage dropped off. Now, I drive around 140km/h and it still does 36-38 mpg. Sweet!


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## PAGTI91 (Jul 3, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

agreed with the CIS = PITA, all that stuff is old. I think a great injection would be OBD2 (Motronic 5.9) on a 16v. That is fun stuff.
But, your 2.9 is probably worlds smoother than what you had...the newer injection kicks butt. 5.9 gets rid of the ISV and adds a second O2 for some cleanliness...its cool...good job...


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## crazyjpeters (Mar 15, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (PAGTI91)*

I have a couple of problems with the 5.9.
Mainly the throttle body is a bit more complicated, which wouldn't have allowed me to use a 16v throttle body.
Also, 2 O2 sensors would have meant welding in another bung, which I hadn't planned on doing.
And I don't think you can blink and erase codes without a code scanner. which is not a big deal when the car is running perfectly, but when you're testing, it can be a real time saver to check and clear codes as they come up.
And the 2.9 was cheap through a friend.


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## Bad Habit (Nov 27, 2002)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

damn,old thread.I did it a long time ago.It was alreday in there,but it works with 16V's thats for sure


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## andrew1984 (Jun 24, 2002)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (Bad Habit)*

great thread! http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


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## GTItus (Dec 11, 2002)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (andrew1984)*

Has the idle problem gone down after driving it for a while? Just curious...


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## OhioBenz (Dec 6, 2001)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (GTItus)*

great thread back from the dead - another option for us 16valvers....


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## austin neuschafer (Apr 26, 2002)

hmm, god thing I wqas informed about this new thread. I have done extensive research on htis, so I can help with most any technical question


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## OhioBenz (Dec 6, 2001)

*Re: (austin neuschafer)*


_Quote, originally posted by *austin neuschafer* »_hmm, god thing I wqas informed about this new thread. I have done extensive research on htis, so I can help with most any technical question

not exactly new - somebody has DONE it back clear in '03.


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## austin neuschafer (Apr 26, 2002)

that was not what I meant, It has been done by a few people back in like 01 or earlier from some people I have talked to. but I meant that someone that has written up a brief summary of there outcome of this setup. now I want to hear a update from the person her who started this thread. and there eng setup on the 2l16. ods etcs


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## BladesNet (Mar 29, 2001)

*Re: (austin neuschafer)*

God ... an old watched topic of mine from 2003.
16v and Motornic 2.9.

Seen one live: yes.
(aba/16v hybrid on motronic 2.9)
Does it work: yes
Does it work well: no.
Even with a chip, there's some serious remapping to be done. Some spots in the map were uber lean and some were uber rich ....
This will be a viable option when people have programs to remap their oem chips.
The person I know has since witch to a standalone management solve the different fueling issues.


_Modified by BladesNet at 2:55 AM 1-10-2007_


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## 107726 (Aug 15, 2003)

I'm watching this topic because I want to do this badly, I hate digi2 and CIS so much.


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## austin neuschafer (Apr 26, 2002)

I am curious as to what happened with that project of his, but I can answer most if not all your tech qeustions about this fuel system


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## VWralley (Mar 30, 2002)

*Re: (austin neuschafer)*

this is in my opinion the only stock fuel injection worth putting onto a motor. but with megasquirt as an option now with a ton of online help, it still seems like more hassle than its worth.


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## atrujillo1991 (May 24, 2006)

*Re: (VWralley)*

I would love to see exactly how the throttle body wiring works out considering the connectors/pinning of the two are completely different. Pictures of the way you guys did your water outlet would be interesting,too. I used a short rubber coupler to re-use the ABA sensor but still, I'm curious


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## 2doorV6 (Jan 29, 2003)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

just tagging along


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## atrujillo1991 (May 24, 2006)

*Re: (atrujillo1991)*

If anyone can shed any light it'd be much appreciated








http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=4097484


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## raymondlee (Jun 8, 2008)

*Re: DOWN WITH CIS-E MOTRONIC! motronic 2.9 swap onto 2.0 16v Rabbit (crazyjpeters)*

i think i am goign to atempt this, but obd2 any problem you think ill run into?


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