2.5 TDI Transporter BPC 2009 info thread

[Greg Roles]

FYI found two Russian you tube videos that showed up in my recommended feed where they are honing out and re-sleeving injector bores, using liquid nitrogen to shrink the sleeves before fitting.

[Greg Roles]

There are also tons of Russian videos of re-sleeving T5 blocks, so despite some negative comments on various UK forums about doing this, it seems in Russia it's quite common. My bores look fine, and Plasma is supposedly super low friction, so I'm just gonna run Lucas upper cylinder lube to be safe and not thrash her when she's cold.

[liangdotchen]

Thanks for your breakdown so far, very informative. Im also looking to replace my cylinder head. Do you know if the AXE head will fit the BPC engine? Ive asked many parts suppliers and they said it will suit my vin number, so answer isnt definite.

[Greg Roles]

Well all I can tell you is both the FAI China aftermarket head and the AMC heads ( pictured ) list both the AXE and BPC in their listings, so I'd say you've a good chance that it's all the same. EDIT - NOT the case, the AXE has a different turbo mounting to the BPC, different gasket and casting!!! Got this info off a Darkside video, so unsure if the "mounting" on the older AXE is just a bolt on component and not cast into the head, but they both have different turbo gaskets, again perhaps just to suit the turbo, but I'd suggest from this info the heads may not be inter-changable at all!!

[Greg Roles]

Put the new valves in the new head last night ( you need a deep valve spring compressor as pictured, normal one won't suit ), and all my injectors etc have FINALLY arrived, been almost a two month wait on rebuilt injectors out of the UK. Planning a big weekend of engine building at long bloody last, I'm actually a bit excited.



And... as is the way with these things, I came across the link below today. A T5 remanufacture specialist in Latvia, I've easily spent more than they are asking for a rebuild. I'm sure freight would be a lot, but at least the entire thing is rebuilt.

VWT5ENGINES.COM - REMANUFACTURED VW T5 2.5 TDI AXD, AXE, BNZ, BPC, BLJ ENGINES

[RobTrans]

Gidday Greg,

Re your comment : " If you have a lower km engine, NOW is the time to fit the blue injector bridge I've shown at the start of this thread that holds the injectors from both sides, preventing this problem, GLAD I have one!!!!! "

Is there any chance you could post the exact parts you ordered from Darkside for the injector bridge (maybe the SKUs if you still have the invoice)

Cheers

[Greg Roles]

DSD7192.

Beautiful machining and fitment, but prepare yourself - 350 GBP ( 645ish AUD plus post ). To be fair the actual manufacturer "07eins" in Germany want 399 Euro ( 615ish AUD ) for it....so they are within $30 of each other.

Why this is so important is it stops the wear into the head by the much harder, endlessly toggling injector body only held on one side. Head cost me $2k AUD by the time it got here, so 600 AUD for the bridge is cheap.....

Problem is if you already have the head wear grooves, holding it dead straight will likely raise even more leak issues. 07eins do go into that on their page, and do offer a return if this is so, but so long as your head hasn't done beyond 200 thou I reckon you'd probably be OK. My car is at 267k from memory and the grooves were not terrible, but obviously enough to leak. The pics above of the grooves are WAY worse than mine were, I easily overlooked mine. I've the old head here still, so I'll go take a pic.

Cylinder one, bolt side fine:



Same cylinder, non bolt side with wear grooves marked:



I've read a few post from peeps in the UK that said at 170k/190k-kms their injector bores were fine...still it's a worry!

The original PDE bridge for VW T5 2.5 TDI engines
– 07eins

[Syncrotek]

I noticed a comment by 'festa' the 2.5 T5 engine experimenter on the T5 UK forum about the injector clamp, but I haven't been able to find the forum post again, but the comment was about enlarging clamp hold down bolt size I ~think~, and some other relevant details, it might help your work (or not) if you had a look for it.

[Greg Roles]

Yeah I did find that very post yesterday, seems an odd decision for as I understand his thinking he just made the clamp on one side stronger, but ended up with cracks in the head. My old head doesn't have any cracks, just the side wear, hence my love of the (pricey) bridge.

Injector Retainer - Has Anyone Installed One? | VW T4 Forum - VW T5 Forum

That post does mention the fact the PD design hammers the injectors slowly into the head, causing cracks, and on still more reflection perhaps that's what the Russian guy on page two was making up brass shims for, to support the injector body and take the load off the tip end rather than a fuel leak seal.....anyway with the grooves he had, the injectors will sure be trimming up and wasting fuel / diluting the oil.

[rabi]

Thanks for sharing this information it's very useful.

[Greg Roles]

Welcome mate, when I started a few months ago I had trouble finding info on this motor here in Australia, and spent a lot of frustrating time trying to work on this thing. I must have pulled the top end apart 10 times by now. Wasted thousands of $$ too. Endless delays. There are indeed plenty of resources out there on the 2.5/5.0, but they are scattered all over the place, and mainly Euro/Russia/UK, so just hoped to summarize the main things in one place. Even the UK guru's miss things, for instance Darkside did a major powerup rebuild on their T5 2.5, and it was very impressive and well thought out, but then put the stock sump oil baffle plate in, which can crack and fail. Seems a silly thing to overlook in a no doubt expensive 400hp build.

On the upside I now know this engine backwards, and as it's almost all new or rebuilt now, should be pretty reliable.

[Greg Roles]

Amazing you-tube video popped up today, here's a company in the UK that re-sleeves the 2.5 and seems to understand them well.

VW Transporter T5 AXD/AXE/BPC/BNZ/BLJ engine repairs & remanufacturing

vw transpoter t5 axd and axe 2.5cc pd 5 cylinder engine bore wear now can be fixed ! - YouTube

[RobTrans]

Excellent, this thread is a great knowledge base for anyone who owns an ageing 'BPC'

Greg - what was the ballpark $$ amount for those recon injectors ? Could you post a link to the supplier if possible

For anyone who is interested in a BPC performance rebuild video then this is the link to a Darkside youtube that Greg mentioned in an earlier post. A good watch .....

Could this be our MOST POWERFUL VW Transporter engine build? - YouTube

[Greg Roles]

Rob I just bought the "good, used, tested" injectors from Darkside at 285 GBP - $511 AUD ea ( OUCH ). They have been tested for flows, cleaned, new seals and washers etc, but I doubt there's any rebuilding "inside" them to be honest. I just wanted to eliminate the whole injector side of things, and now I have 5 spares 2-3 of which are most likely fine, I'll get them all checked in time for spares.

Good Tested 2.5 / 5.0 TDI PD Injector with New Seal Kit - 07Z130073N

[Greg Roles]

Found these awesome videos today from Phil at PT Precision automotive, Balgowlah NSW. Seems this poor bastard has been on a parallel timeline to me and my saga, his finished in Dec last year. His customers van had been run on petrol, had fuel clog issues and head crack issues, plus had put a glow plug tip through cylinder 2 and the turbo, still he goes over a lot of the diagnosis steps and just the video of the parts itself is a great resource. What I learnt from it is the fuel rail pressure relief valve, which holds pressure in the rail, something I had no idea was there. I feel his pain.....and like him I've aged a similar amount......still trying to get my f-ing engine to fire right now this weekend, it's a fuel issue now.....and priming the air out against a good pressure relief valve is a nightmare!

T5 transporter BPC R5 2.5L the headache PART 1 - YouTube

T5 transporter BPC R5 2.5L the headache PART 2 - YouTube