UKZUK, Nysa & Tarpan

Quick engine update. I’ve bought a smelly diesel that will annoy the purists..

I like the petrol engine  in the Zuk don’t get me wrong. If I wasn’t building a campervan it would probably be great. It’s certainly the engine if I ever get a Sadness. But it’s monolithically old, it’s not very torquey, or powerful, drinks like a fish, and parts are not going to be easy to get in the UK. So..

I had been looking at importing an Andoria 4C90 or 4CTi90-BE from Poland. Both are 2.4 litres, but the latter from the Zuk’s successor (the Lublin) is turbo charged. Power-wise, the 4C90 has 70bhp, 146Nm while the Ti90’s have 90bhp, 205Nm (BE6) or 102bhp, 230Nm (BE) respectively depending on year.

Both are direct fit for my Zuk, but both are only available in Poland which would mean crazy shipping costs even if I could convince someone to send one to the UK (see my post on parts buying),  and be hard for me to get parts for quickly. Not ideal if I brake down on Stelvio!

So enter the venerable PSA XUD…

This is the engine I bought from eBay for £150. It’s smaller capacity and it’s slanted. It’s also been found in FSO Polonez(‘s?) and has a reputation for being slow without a turbo. The XUD9A (NA) does have about the same power as the 4C90 NA at 72bhp, but it makes less torque at just 119Nm.

Luckily, like the Andoria, the XUD is also available in turbo and turbo-intercooled variants, and are relatively de-tuned in standard form, so there is tuning potential and plentiful spares world-wide if I went this route.

So, the engine I just bought is the XUD9TE/L is sounding a lot more hopeful.It has 92bhp of power and 197Nm of torque. With a larger front mounted intercooler (FMIC), a tweak to the fuel pump, boost compensator and turbo boost my plan is to comfortably see around 110bhp and more than 230Nm of reliable torque – this should be possible, as many 306 owners seem to tune to 180 or even 200bhp from this engine!

I’ve now ordered full seals, head-gasket, cambelt, waterpump and and all service items for this 120k mile unit. The next challenge is to find a LDV pilot gearbox, flywheel and ideally, at least the front bit of the prop.

Here’s a table of the 4CTi90BE vs. the XUD9TE/L vs. the original petrol S21 my Zuk has, which I’ll update once we’ve got an engine installed!

Current status: Dirty. Now let’s find that gearbox.