Street motor

[volkdent]

Originally Posted by ricola

I completely agree they are not necessary, I just prefer driving to wrenching on engines! You can pick up a complete subaru donor for the price of an aftermarket ECU these days and give me a fully engineered stock powerful engine over a tweeked one any day..

Rich is right, there's a reason you can't buy new aircooled vehicles any more, and it's not just because of emissions... I like working on my car, but I like to drive the snot out of it too and not be having to fix it all the time, and I don't mean just back and forth 5 miles to work, I mean take it to the track, drive across country, whatever, the reliability leans towards watercooled and modern technology.

Originally Posted by evilC

Going back to the original purpose of the thread, there is no sustitute for cubes and if you take that premise it boils down to cost per cube.

The scooby route looks very attractive but hanging that great lump out of the back has its own compromises. I'm currently playing around with some thoughts on supercharging and rotary power to acheive the fun quotient.

evilC

Rotary is great for HP, not so good for torque, and you're still dealing with a finicky motor type. Very good for weight though!!!

Jason

[Wally]

Originally Posted by volkdent

Rich is right, there's a reason you can't buy new aircooled vehicles any more, and it's not just because of emissions... I like working on my car, but I like to drive the snot out of it too and not be having to fix it all the time, and I don't mean just back and forth 5 miles to work, I mean take it to the track, drive across country, whatever, the reliability leans towards watercooled and modern technology.

Rich is not right, but we all have our preferences I suppose. Personnaly I think bugs and aircooled should be connected. Part of the hobby and claiming to be within the german-style is adapting modern technology to the ancient (aircooled) technology and show them and yourself that it can be done!

I won't go as far as calling a non aircooled (maybe with the waterboxer as an exception as its orginal a further developed type 1-ish design) bug Not-german-style, but am certainly leaning towards that. To me german-style and a 'custom car' are definately two different things... but I still can and will respect anyones taste on non-stock bugs

As I and many others have shown, the type 4 engine can do all that what has been mentioned above and then some more wrt what used old suby engines can. The issue of 'difficulty' or wrenching time is really lame because to install a watercooled suby engine in an aircooled bug and do it even a little nicely in order that it really IS reliable (cooling!), takes as much if not more time than building a proper type 4!

I really don't understand it either though, as both Volksdent and Ricola are VERY good builders and plenty creative and have invested also quite some in their cars. So why don't you guys use this to make a really respectable effort with your cars by keeping it aircooled and give it that extra ?

OTOH, maybe enough has been said about this subject