Harold - the T25 van (1.8T content)

[Kiels3927]

A hump over the motor might be a humbug with you storage.

Have you considered a 1" or so wall over the motor cutout, then fit a spaced lid over the whole cover (minus the catches)?

Or not.

[Gold Coaster]

Yeah, I was thinking the same ... the added airspace over the motor couldn't hurt?

[Bryn23]

Well, i haven't been on here in the last week, and boom!! its alive..

I like the wiring, it looks clean, very nice.

As for the cut out, id be looking at making a new one out of ply with a raised profile, id also look at the boat sound deadening foam attached to to it to reduce the noise in the van.

Keep up the thread, as its the most exciting thing on this forum, and your detailed posts are helpful for others.

[GeorgeMK1]

Yeah George!

Will be one of the coolest Van's around!

Woohoo! Maybe not the coolest, but atleast the quickest and most reliable hahahahah

A hump over the motor might be a humbug with you storage.

Have you considered a 1" or so wall over the motor cutout, then fit a spaced lid over the whole cover (minus the catches)?

Or not.

Yeah that’s what I was thinking too mate, seams the easiest option to do I guess. But the issue then is working out how the mattress will sit.
Read below!

Yeah, I was thinking the same ... the added airspace over the motor couldn't hurt?

More air = good! But it takes up space too ☹

Well, i haven't been on here in the last week, and boom!! its alive..

I like the wiring, it looks clean, very nice.

As for the cut out, id be looking at making a new one out of ply with a raised profile, id also look at the boat sound deadening foam attached to to it to reduce the noise in the van.

Keep up the thread, as its the most exciting thing on this forum, and your detailed posts are helpful for others.

Thanks for the kind words Bryn! I’m glad the build is being enjoyed.
Wiring is strangely one of my favourite things to do, and I like it to be neat or else I’ll hate myself for it. Plus who doesn’t like burning heat shrink lmao.
What is boat sound deadening? What sort of materiel? Never heard of it


You guys were pretty much in the same thought process as I am with the raised wall and a lid on top.
The very few companies that make conversion parts in U.S actually sell a lid raiser. Now, it’s a great idea but the problem is that I can’t afford it, and then there’s also postage on top of that
Here’s what it looks like.




For the lid I wanted to do everything in aluminium to keep weight down. Was able to find 19x19mm alu tubes and made the rough shape.




Then silicone it in place and also added screws to reinforce it. (sorry for the high exposure photos, was really sunny yesterday)




My old man was able to go to our local metal scrap yard and got me a huge 4mm thick alu sheet for $20 bucks. Winning!!




Anddddd here we have it. Raised lid.
Cheaper than ordering a decklid spacers from U.S and also keeps all the latches etc OEM.
Happy chappy.
PS. Don’t mind my temporary water temp gauge setup hahaha. This is just to monitor how its going for now.
Also got the mrs to help clean him up, almost ready for a possible test drive.




Here’s the lid from the bottom side showing.
There were a few gaps showing so I got some black silicone and smeared the life out of it. Its now nice and tight!!






All up the little hood raises it about 1” which really isn’t much in the grand scheme of things.
I hope we wont feel it on the mattress, but if we do – we can always engineer some changes haha.

That was pretty much the final thing to do. I’ve been running the van for the past few days trying to bleed out all the air. Its taken up about 8/9L of coolant so far and seams to be bled pretty well.
Issue is I still havn’t heard the fans kick on. After half hour of idling the temp gauge still reads only about 80/85deg max. It never goes over.
Not sure if its because when the thermostat opens up, the water has such a long way to travel that it never really needs the fan to turn on.
Either way I need to install a temp gauge asap and closely monitor it.

I couldn’t wait for the silicone hose to come in for the intake so improvised just to be able to drive it.
Here is the finished product of the engine bay (almost).




And here we are parked at work this morning �� �� �� �� ��




First impressions.
Clutch is smooth, engagement was really good and positive. Engine is really punchy down low too, will have no issues with stalling or even on steep hill starts.
The thing I did notice was how short the gears felt. When I hit the FWY the engine was revving pretty high around 100/110km. I don’t have a tachometer but I have enough experience to know its sitting at roughly 3k rpm, maybe a tad over.
I’m hoping the larger profile tyres I have will sort a bit of that out.

Also the engine feels like its not running perfect. Down low there is plenty of power, but up top it is not that great.
I do understand I am running a k03s turbo, and it would need a tune to run 100%, but I've actually put in my supposedly stage 1 tuned ecu and I was expecting more punch. I'll have to take it to Gavin @UGP to see whats up.

Lastly the only other crap thing is that the engine seems to hit the engine brace by a tiny bit, and I can feel the vibrations throughout the car. I found out it’s hitting on the sump.
So I might have to remove the brace again and get the sledge hammer out – who knows.

But anyway… here we are, driving our converted van ��

[Bora Sport]

Great read. Thanks for taking the effort to document it all. I have been following this with interest. I believe you are on the right track with coolant temperature. My mate owned a radiator shop for 25 years and goes motor racing. Apart from the obvious adding a larger radiator for extra surface area for cooling, increasing the volume of coolant is also part of the answer to keep temps under control.

[GeorgeMK1]

Great read. Thanks for taking the effort to document it all. I have been following this with interest. I believe you are on the right track with coolant temperature. My mate owned a radiator shop for 25 years and goes motor racing. Apart from the obvious adding a larger radiator for extra surface area for cooling, increasing the volume of coolant is also part of the answer to keep temps under control.

Thanks!! Really glad atleast some folks are enjoying it, its been a full on few months haha.
Those are just the words I needed to read haha. Got me really worried that the fan hasn't kicked on, but I have been monitoring the heat through the heater core just to see how hot it feels as opposed to just seeing off the gauge. Seems ok for now, I will have to wait for the hotter days to come in and bumper to bumper traffic to see how it all goes. I'm worried, but also not so worried seeing as almost the entire cooling system is new I guess.

Had the chance to plug the car into the scanners at work yesterday - came up with quite a few codes but most were intermittent from when I started up the engine without most sensors.

After we cleared everything and re scanned it, the two main engine related ones that stuck were MAF and n80 purge valve.
I've been told some information that the +pos for the MAF should be 5v instead of 12v, however after speaking to my foreman and re looking at the diagram, we noticed the +pos goes through a 10amp fuse, which he said means it has to be 12v and not 5v. Can any guru confirm this?

The other issue he mentioned I should look into is the n80 valve. He said it plays a pretty important role and actually works alongside the MAF when opening/closing so I should really look into that. (the n80 valve is aka purge valve for charcoal canister).
He said I can use the existing canister and just add an inline n80 valve, so might look into that.

Apart from that, it seams to go a lot harder after we cleared all the faults and the ECU was happy to move. Still a slow heavy bus, but just more enjoyable to drive now. Overtaking is actually possible haha.

[Bryn23]

Yeah the boat insulation is just a dense fire resistant sheet, that you install against the sheet metal to stop the noise and heat entering the cabin.

although you have already made a new cover, so this wouldn't fit.

Buy Sound Insulation Online | Whitworths Marine & Leisure

Still a little Dynamat would do the job with your new cover as its only about 2mm thick

[GeorgeMK1]

Still a little Dynamat would do the job with your new cover as its only about 2mm thick

I completely forgot about Dynamat!! They have heat and sound barriers, thanks Bryn, will definitely look into that - perfect solution!!

[Bryn23]

No Problems

Ive just installed 5 x 3.5 sqm boxes into my camper van of the Resomat, similar stuff, but not as good with heat as the butyl based sound deadening.

55kg of sound deadening , but it works

I also had dynamat between the engine and plastics on my Can Am Commander and it made a huge difference in heat and sound transfer.

[ian]

Where is Harold
I was following the Harold Saga with some interest,
Suddenly his rebirth has come to a stand still ?