Volkswagen AP (Alta Performance)
inline-4 · naturally aspirated · petrol · 1984–present
Also known as: ap1800, ap1600, ap2000, motor ap, alta performance
Volkswagen do Brasil's AP — Alta Performance — which powered nearly everything the company sold in South America for twenty years, and which turns up in Fords.
⚑ That last part is the reason to know it exists. Between 1987 and 1996 Ford and Volkswagen ran a merged South American business called Autolatina, and the two shared engines and platforms freely — so a Brazilian Ford Escort of that period can carry a Volkswagen engine with nothing on it saying so. Searching Ford material for an AP1800 finds nothing; searching Volkswagen material finds everything.
It is a development of the EA827, so the European 1.8 of the same era is a close relative and much of that material transfers.
Most were built to run on ethanol or on Brazilian petrol-ethanol blends, which changes the fuel-system parts, the compression ratio and the cold-start arrangement. A part specified for a European car is frequently the wrong one.
It is belt-driven and, in the versions that matter, entirely mechanical.
Cars fitted with this engine
1 generation, across 1 make. From the authored catalogue — an absent car means the catalogue has not reached it, not that the engine was never fitted.
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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