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I just recently acquired a Canadian market 5 speed 1984 524td. It came with a "somethings bent in it" engine installed. Luckily for me I have a spare known good US spec engine conveniently laying about. After looking them over there seems to be a significant difference in the I.P. and associated wiring. Can I pop the US spec engine in with no problem and drive away? Do I need to swap the IP? In reading it seems so long as the Flywheel reference sensor is intact and working, everything should be good to go. However that seems too good to be true.
Any ideas?

you need the ECU from the US car. and wiring. cuz of the electronics for the EGR and 4th injector etc. and also the flywheel sensor controls the tach and stuff. also controls the fuel shut off? ive heard of really long cranking with no flywheel sensor. the euro pump has no electronic timing advanced solenoid so no real ecu.

Well, shoot, I got the engine as a standalone without the ECU. It seems then I need to swap the Euro IP into the US engine, or install an ECU with the associated wiring...yikes. I've read the same about the Flywheel sensor, which the Euro spec model does come with. So my train of thought is as follows now; remove US I.P. and replace with Euro Spec I.P. and set timing to reflect the Euro Spec IP.
Also, R&R timing belt, pulleys and what not while I'm in there.

sounds like a plan! run that euro pump. -Paul

Swap the non-electronic injection pump, carry on. There are possibly a couple of switches on the engine related to it. The non-electronic IP uses a simple temperature switch to turn on/off the timing advance solenoid to aid with cold starts. I don't know if the US-spec engine uses that same switch. Basically if you swap over the couple of sensors screwed into the head and use the Canadian harness you're good to go, or just confirm the part numbers are the same.

The flywheel sensor is only used for the EGR valve, and probably the tach if you have one. It doesn't actually need to be functional for the engine to run. No long cranks or anything like that on my car and my sensor was disconnected when I got it. The connector was actually ripped off. My Lincoln is the same as a Euro-spec BMW as far as the engine and controls go. Only real difference is I don't have a tach and some of my coolant hoses are different. If you have long crank problems, I'd suspect glow plug problems or the IP timing is wrong. It should light off fairly quickly.

I have a vp-20 "CA" pump. the flywheel sensors feeds the ecu and then to the solenoid valve on the pump. my pump buzzes when not running and if I make a fake "pulse" like its running to pump stops buzzing. there is also some sort of feed back from the 4th injector. I would think if the ecu does not see the flywheel spinning then some solenoid would be off hence the long crank? -Paul

possible it doesn't give the timing advance during cranking and thats why it starts hard? I don't think the fuel cut-off is run through the ECU so that shouldn't be it.

yep has something to do with the advance. not the fuel cut off. The ford manual has a nice diagram of the system. I just cant copy and paste the diagram. oh well. all in all mine works great! -Paul

you have the ECM in use I guess? Seems in theory that having ECM control is the better mousetrap, provided the timing curve is reasonable. For all that does I bet someone could make a new controller that can be programmed to give whatever you want. Seems like it should be able to be done with one of those cheap and cheerful programmable controllers that cool people use in all sorts of projects.

im "cool" which opens up so many doors....... the timing advance is fine for what I want. If I want more, im putting in a m57 with a 6 speed. -Paul

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