Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 19:51:11 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Drillock <drillock@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Mark Drillock <drillock@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: Re: Thinking swap? Engine options are only half the
story...What...
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Robert Lilley wrote:
>
>....................
> After all my engine is BETTER than brand new Factory VW.........
>
Well this is a puffed up claim. You may well have done some things to a
higher standard than the factory but that does not guarantee that your
engine as a whole will lost longer. Time will tell perhaps but since the
original 2.1 often goes to 150k miles or more we won't know how yours
measures up for several years if ever.
> .....
> Another point is that engineers are paid to make an engine cheaper and not
> last as long......
>
The manufacturing decisions make by a large auto company are far too
complex for your simple statements. Take the decision by VW to even
build the waterboxer. By basing it on the T1 they were able to use their
existing machine tooling to lower the cost of building the new engines.
They also could reduce potential political problems by keeping current
engine plants running longer instead of expanding others or opening new
ones. The German auto industry like the US has a strong labor relations
element. You can not just close plants and open new ones elsewhere
overnight. Why slander the VW engineers? They did a pretty good job with
the waterboxer in my book. They had a lot more constraints to work under
than you allow.
>.....
> I on the other hand have over 18 years experience on making VW engine more
> powerful AND making them last longer, but have not been paid...
>
I see, your 18 years of occasional puttering puts you in a class above
the career engineering staff of VW. I don't think so.
You really should consider not referring to you hoped for performance
and durability increases as accomplished fact. They are far from proven
or even demonstrated.
> ....
> VW dropped the 2L I4 for the 2.3 to 2.6 I5 because the I4 did not make enough
> power. VW also is using the .457 five speeds with the 2.6L engines because
> they can handle the power the I5s put out....
Maybe they needed all of the 4 cylinder engine production for other hot
selling models. With little other demand for the 5 cylinder in their
current product line they may have concluded that SA was a logical
market segment to put more of the 5 cylinder production so they could
keep that production economically viable. This makes more sense than
your claim that an engine family that is putting out more power than
ever is somehow now not powerful enough when it was previously. Reality
is more complex than you appear to realize.
Mark Drillock
