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Just my 2 cents. My father worked at TDE (Theo Decker Essen, old'n famous German tuner) in the early 70's, who tried to develop a Diesel on an aircooled basis for VW. They started with the head tuning, welding and creating a new combustion chamber. Wtihout gain! They used Mercedes parts, as these were the only parts availabe back then. Bosch developed a lot for MB, but just a few parts were compareable to a Beetle engine.
At first, the main problem is, that you can't raise the compression to such a level, that a diesel has. You'll need a pretty small combustion chamber and a very good piston, that can either dissipate the heat as fast as possible and then sealing the cylinders better, than any other aftermarket piston. The thermic load is around 200°C higher than with a normal petrol burner, air cooling is definitly at it's end even with the best cooling system!
The next fact, why it's not working for a long time is, that either the crank is bad for these aspects, as is the account of bearings for the crank. The load on the bearings is nearly 4th the load, than with a "standard" engine. You'll see damaged crankcases sooner than with a dragster engine. Ask people, who run 13-15:1 c/r in their dragsters, they'll tell you what will happen.
I don't want to say that it's impossible, but I think it's nearly impossible to convert a Type 1, 4 or Type 2 WBX. It'll be possible only, when you develop some very nice new parts, like an impossible 5 bearing crank (for such a boxer engine) and maybe a partially w/c engine/heads.
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