Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 11:18:39 EDT
Reply-To: KENWILFY@aol.com
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: KENWILFY@aol.com
Subject: Re: Engine conversions (long)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
In a message dated 07/25/2000 4:04:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
jmp@bt-pacific.co.nz writes:
<< The fact that there is not a lot of discussion on this conversion tends to
indicate it may not be very popular
Is there a reason for this?
Is the 5 Cyl conversion a "bad" conversion?
The first draw back I can think of would be the weight difference in engines.
Any one know the aprox weight of the 5 cyl ?( I realise they may vary
slightly from model to model) >>
I thought I would post why I was such a proponent of this conversion about a
year ago and why I don't say anything about it now.
At the time I was really jazzed to do this kind of conversion and I lined up
a customer who seemed to be a nice fellow. I ordered the parts far in
advance to get the conversion done in the time frame that the customer needed
it done (he was going off to college) and was anxiously awaiting the stuff to
get started. Between one thing and another the whole project turned into a
tottal nightmare for me and almost became the end of Van-Again as a business.
The customer, seemed friendly and we put him up in our home and fed him for
the duration of the work being done on the van (which turned out to be over a
week). I also allowed him to help with the work (big mistake!). The parts
and engine I had lined up to do the conversion all were majorly delayed
(through no fault of my own) and the customer became very upset, which was
understandable. When we finally got the parts, the conversion was much more
involved than I had originally thought, causing me to stop taking parts
orders (which is how I actually make money) and focus on the conversion for
about a months time (no joke). When we were finally done with the conversion
(we put in a 2.1l engine from a GT Coupe) the power and torque were very
nice, but I really couldn't think that any power increase would have been
worth the 150 plus hours I spent on this project. When it came time for the
customer to pay the bill, I decided to only charge him for the 56 hours that
I estimated the conversion would take initially. He tried to refuse to pay,
claiming that he had done most of the work himself (I think he thought I owed
him money :). Finally he agreed to pay the bill and I vowed never to do
another 5-cylinder conversion again. Was it really the conversion's fault?
Not really. But this experience has soured me from doing any more
conversions unless I have all the parts to do it to start with and some type
of manual on how to do it. I thought that would mean, I would never do one
of these conversions again, until I ran into the SA 4-cylinder conversion.
It promised to be everything I thought the Eurospec conversion was (turned
out to be a bad joke) and the do-it-yourself 5-cylinder conversion (which is
now discontinued) seemed to be. I have one of the SA conversions here and it
looks to be exactly what it claimed to be on the website. I'll have more to
say after I actually do this conversion (the customer hasn't brought his van
down yet).
If you are still interested in getting the 5-cylinder conversion done, there
is only one shop in the US that I know of that does them. This is Detlev
Hanschke in San Francisco area (Livermore), CA. His phone number is
925-447-8224. If you have any questions or want to know how much the
conversion costs, I suggest you contact him.
Hope this helps,
Ken Wilford
http://www.vanagain.com
John 3:16
New Phone (856)-327-4936
Shop: (856)-765-1583
Fax: (856)-327-2242
