Preparing the 16v

In order to prepare both motors for the eventual swap I did a few basic things. The ABA block was compression tested and to my surprise had even 180 psi compression in all four cylinders. I then did my best to clean up the ABA engine bay and motor - in its final days as a daily driver an oil pressure sensor in the ABA motor blew out of the cylinder head and sprayed oil over everything - apparently this was enough frustration for me at the time that I bought the Volvo S60 to replace it and never did a very good job of cleaning it up. I did fix the sensor issue so the leak is no longer there, but that is redundant now that I'm replacing the head anyway.

I removed the front bumper cover that needs to be replaced anyway, and the headlights. Then, as a first step I took as many pictures as I could of the existing motors in tact for future reference. Unfortunately, these pictures are stuck on a camera for which I cannot find the cable, so from that point on I began using my phone for the pictures.

Next step was to pull the 16v head off of the old motor. It was at this point I made the realization the intake manifold orientation was the opposite of the ABA (i.e. the drivers side). I think they made this configuration for the Scirrocco? The flipped orientation will be a bit of a problem when I try to get the hybrid motor running for the first time, since I'm not sure what I'll do for an intake and I'm not sure if I'll have problems with the throttle cable? I guess if anything, the ABA throttle cable would need to be shorter which seems like a better problem to have than being too short. After thinking about it, in the long run I'll be better off as the drivers side orientation will be perfect for intercooler piping going forward.

Dis-assembly was pretty straight forward - I started with the intake manifold, then removed the timing belt and pulled the head cover off. From there you can pull out the head bolts. All that should be left are a few hoses. I left it at that for the day.

At this point you get to see the mechanics of the 16v motor - dual cam shafts and the additional valves just make it look more sophisticated than the ABA. Overall the head appears to be in good enough shape - no obvious problems detected by me at least. Ideally one would rebuild the head and the block - I just can't bring myself to spend that much money on a motor I can't be certain I'll ever get properly running. For now, the stock internals are how its going to stay.

The original ABA:

 16v manifold - here you can see the driver side intake. Note above the ABA intake on the passenger side. I forgot to take a picture of it, but the throttle body for the 16v is also pretty awesome, it has a two stage valve .

Here is the head removed from the block - you can see the dual cam shafts and the distributor on the side of the head as opposed to the ABA distributor lower on the block. You need the ABA distributor  to run the oil pump in the ABA block, but the 16v head will use its own distributor.

After doing research I think I have a few possible solutions to this problem. Since I have the old 16v block I could install the oil pump intermediary shaft gear from the 16V into the ABA. I'd need some sort of block off for the old ABA distributor. Since removing the oil pan and potentially pulling the block of the ABA will be difficult for me to pull off on crutches, I decided to take the easy way out and buy a part designed by BBM to solve this problem - the Dizzy Gizzy, which is now on order.

 


Set the valve cover back in place.