Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2000 14:49:09 EDT
Reply-To: EUROMOG@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Wessels <EUROMOG@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Building Motor From 2.1 To 2.5
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
In a message dated 9/9/00 8:24:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time, derekdrew@RCN.COM
writes:
<<
If you read the post below and the other posts, there is concern about the
possible need for a different computer brain. It would seem that we have
possibly solved that. The Mahle piston and Barrel Kit 98mm--not sure where
one could get one of those but it seems credible that it would be
obtainable at a less price somewhere.
>>
In the Gene Berg catalog this P&C set is also mentioned. It is designed to
work with an 82mm stroke crank. They mention that it runs about $2000. I
would assume that is retail and not their cost. They don't list it officially
for sale in their new catalog. They say that they can fit strokes of up to
86mm inside the WBX case. I would assume that they have supplied custom 82mm
stroke cranks to match the 98mm Mahle/Okrasa P&C set. I would assume a direct
group purchase would get that $2000 price lowered a bit.
I have a local machinist who has built off-road race WBX's. He can convert an
off the shelf stroker T1 crank to fit the WBX case and flywheel. He did this
and bored the stock 94mm sleeves to 96mm. He then had JE make custom pistons
for a total displacement of 2400cc. They won races with it so it must have
ran quite well.
As to the digiphant EFI handling the bigger engine. I think that as long as
you keep the stock valves, rockers, and camshaft it will run OK. Higher flow
injectors would be a poor mans way of get a little more fuel into the engine
with the same programming. The chip from Australia would probably be all that
is needed as well. The biggest things that affect the needed fuel curve are
compression ratio and camshaft profiles. Gene Berg Ent. says it is perfectly
fine to run up 2200cc, in an air-cooled T1 with stock, cam, compression, and
the single barrel Solex carb. You do have to rejet the carb a little. They
say this gives tremendous torque and a quick revving engine through the
gears. You don't have much higher available RPM as the small carb acts as a
governor and restricts the air flow. With this kind of set up they would pass
a smog tailpipe test as well.
I believe that the stock digiphant would be even more capable at handling the
extra cc's than that little Solex carb. You are not going to get more RPM but
the needed torque to pull hills.
I have been thinking along these lines but have not had time to investigate
the availability of the 98MM P&C set. We can get the cranks stateside and
just use the stock camshaft for best drivability. This is probably what FAT
performance has been doing.
John Wessels
European Motorsport
Livermore, CA
http://www.euromog.com
