# B5 passat engine swap -- W8 for a 1.8T



## G-Boi (Aug 29, 2002)

I posted this in the B5 section as well, but I thought I would get more information here. 
I have just purchased a 2002 W8 4 motion passat wagon for a low low sum of money, lets just say it was 3 digits. The car is in immaculate condition exterior, and interior. The only issue with the motor (hence the low sale cost) is the dreaded cam adjustor, good old P0011. Other than that, the car is solid, all the suspension parts are serviced recently, just a good solid car minus the engine trouble. Instead of selling the car or junking it, I'm contemplating a swap for a 1.8T engine + tranny to drive this awesome car.

I have several questions I need to ask the gurus here, here goes..
1. What engine code + tranny I would need to source to make this swap happen?
2. Will the W8 sub-frame work with the 1.8T engine, or I need to get the 1.8T sub-frame?
3. Since my car right now is a GLX, with full MFA in the cluster and climate control, will the 
1.8T's ECU be compatible with this W8's comfort module? If all it needs is 
reprogramming, that will not be an issue.
I would love to keep this car, hence I'm consider this option of swapping for the 1.8T.
I need all the help that I can.
Cheers


----------



## Veedubgti (Mar 5, 2001)

*Re: B5 passat engine swap -- W8 for a 1.8T (G-Boi)*

It would be alot less work just replacing the cam adjustor, I'd think.


----------



## MikkiJayne (Jan 1, 2007)

*FV-QR*

Lol! ^ You've not read much about the W8s have you?







It is less trouble to swim to the moon than sort out a W8 with cam adjuster problems








OP: If the Passat is a manual then you should be able to simply bolt the 1.8T straight to the 01E transmission. The ratios might be a little high, but it would be a good cruiser! I'm actually doing a similar swap in my C5 A6, replacing the viciously expensive, underpowered & unreliable 2.5TDI with a tuned-up 1.9TDI.
Subframe is likely different - the B5s were quite specific about stuff like that, compared to things like the C5 which were more universal.
If you can find a rear damaged B5 1.8T (any version if it's all complete) then I'd just swap the whole front end over. You'll probably need softer springs and dampers as well as everything else. All the plumbing, power steering, AC etc will nickel and dime you to death if you try and piece it together. I'm finding exactly that with mine so I'm looking for a complete car to strip everything but the motor from.
The cluster can be coded to whatever motor you have in there, so that should be easy enough. You can recalibrate the MFA to get the fuel consumption right too. Comfort module and climate shouldn't care about the motor, although the ABS controller will probably need coding for a 4-cyl.
Turn the W8 in to a nice coffee table and use the proceeds to buy a nice big turbo for the 1.8T and I reckon you'll be pretty happy with it


----------



## G-Boi (Aug 29, 2002)

*Re: FV-QR (MikkiJayne)*

hey thanks for the info.
unfortunately, my passat is AUTO/TIP, so bolting the 1.8t over is not so easy. do you happen to know which version of the 1.8t i would need (if possible) to bolt onto the the existing tranny?


----------



## MikkiJayne (Jan 1, 2007)

*FV-QR*

Ah. Thats not as easy, as the tranny ECU is also coded to the motor, but you ought to be able to re-code that as well so it shouldn't be impossible. The ratios will still be pretty high for the 1.8T, but it shouldn't be too bad. I might be inclined to find a manual donor, unless you want to keep the auto? 
You could always put a 2.8 in there instead? That would be much better suited to the tranny and possibly the character of the car, although it obvously has a lot less tuning potential than the 1.8T.
Assuming the W8 has the same ZF 5HP19FLA tranny as the 1.8T it should still bolt up, but you would have to get the 1.8T flex-plate, and probably torque converter as well. I'm about a week away from finding out how compatible they are though I'm afraid. I have a V8 tranny on the driveway, with a 1.8T one on the way shortly








Something I just thought of though - the W8 will be drive-by-wire (electronic throttle), so you would be best finding a DBW 1.8T as well. I couldn't tell you which one was fitted to the B5 (not got Etka with me), but someone else in here may be able to help with that. Or the 1.8T forum.


----------



## G-Boi (Aug 29, 2002)

*Re: FV-QR (MikkiJayne)*

here is an interesting twist to the story that happened today, and continue to amaze me.
so upon starting up the car today, the idle was fairly rough and lumpy, thought to myself, ok, i know i'll sell the car so i drove on anyway to meet up with my brother. This is without any hardcode (i.e. CEL was NOT on), met up with him, and decided to plug in the vag com. I got a few miss fire codes, P0300, P0301 and few others all are mis-fire. so I decided to erase and clear them and see what happens next. i started up the car again, nice smooth idle... hmm.. strange. after dinner came back out, my brother and i went for a drive, driving the car fairly hard, say 6k rpm constant for about 1-2 mins. the night before my brother had used GFF to do the output test on the actuators on both bank 1 and 2. they both clicked, did that several times, as well as the day before. fast forward to tonight, we thought the car was getting a little better every time we drive it, this was after we had flushed the engine, replace it with fresh synthetic oil and lucuas synthetic oil stabilizier. 
long story short, we both wanted to see if it was actually a mechanical part failing (i.e. the cam adjuster itself) or the actuator/selenoid that was causing the issue (it may be stuck to advance timing due to sludge). hence the 'spirited' driving. to my surprise, the CEL remained off. after going on a drive for about 80 kms, most of it was at about 4-5k rpm range, we thought this would indicate whether it is mechanical or electrical. if it was mechanical, even resetting the ECU and getting rid of the CEL would not resolve the problem, all those misfiring and rough idle would return. but every time we cleared the CEL with vag com, the car idles perfectly, and steadily, which was very strange. After this drive, we decided to plug in the vag com again to see if it threw any codes (the CEL was off throughout the whole drive), and surprisingly enough, no fault codes were detected. and the car still idled beautifully...
both my brother and i are very surprised by this result.. maybe the car realized i was going to sell it, it decided to cure itself...








either way, i'm very happy about what transpired tonight. maybe all that reving and driving in high rpm might have made the actuator work and freed it up and god rid of all the sludge..??? i dont know how to explain this, but we'll see how the car is tomorrow!


----------



## Capt.Dreadz (Jun 4, 2003)

*Re: FV-QR (G-Boi)*

So is it safe to say this thread went from _"The swap of death"_ to the _"Find of a lifetime"_








I'm familiar with the B5 and i gave myself the







at the thought of it. I was ready to tell you part it out.
I bought my last 2 B4's this way. The PO thought it was something serious, i bought it cheap & it turned out to be something stupid.


----------



## 155VERT83 (Aug 1, 2000)

*Re: B5 passat engine swap -- W8 for a 1.8T (G-Boi)*

I hope it holds up!


----------

