Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 16:04:19 -0700
Reply-To: Greg Stelz <gstelz1@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Greg Stelz <gstelz1@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Air Cooled or Water Cooled
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Matthew,
I think you might be getting a little carried away
glorifying the air cooled engine. Having owned a 79
bus and now an 86 vanagon, I would have to say that
neither the WBX, nor the air cooled have exactly
stellar track records. I've seen plenty of late 70's
busses on the side of the road overheated (While in
college I went to quite a few Grateful Dead shows).
The busses often overheated in traffic jams prior to
the show. Now granted, lots of these folks were
probably stoned out of their heads and didn't maintain
their vans properly, but there were definitley a lot
of V-heads I met on the tour that knew their sh*t. A
lot of these folks had auxillery fans rigged up to
suck more air to keep these engines running cool.
-Longevity of neither of these engines is that great,
though the WBX is probably longer if you keep your
cooling system in good shape
-The WBX has more hp and torque, bottom line
-No mods necessary to get good heat with the WBX
-the air cooled is easier to work on and much simpler
than the WBX cooling system.
Don't get me wrong, I love the aircooled for its
simplicity, and hope to get another 2000cc type II
eventually.
My $.02,
Greg Stelz
86 van to westy conversion
--snip--
Chiefly the air-cooled is distinguished as being more
reliable, more
powerful (for its weight/displacement), lighter
weight, easier to
"hot-rod" (if that is your fancy), extensively tested
in more than 12
years of service in 6 different vehicles worldwide
prior to being used
in the Vanagon, able to produce far hotter/faster heat
(with some
slight
modifications), is nearly impossible to overheat, and
is cheaper to
own/maintain.
The "water-cooled", on the other hand stands apart by
needing expensive
VW-esque coolant to keep itself on the road, by having
the longest,
most
convoluted, and most finicky radiator plumbing system
of any vehicle on
earth, while also featuring lackluster performance,
and a knack for
needing obscure components, and voodoo-repairs (JB
Weld on the Heads,
AFM-capacitor trick) in order to work semi-reliably.
It is slightly
quieter, and if you like cachet, this motor has it...
VW cobbled it
together in 1983.5, and threw the motor design in the
ash-heap shortly
after ceasing import of the Vanagon to the US, seven
years later; the
shortest production run of any VW motor type. You'll
be part of an
exclusive clique, if you like that sort of thing.
;-) wink. Can you guess which type I own?
G. Matthew Bulley
God-like Creator and Grand Emporer of the
VW Heat, Rust, Noise Web Page
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more
http://games.yahoo.com/
| 
