Date:         Sat, 24 Apr 2004 07:02:37 -0400
Reply-To:     Vanagon Man <vgonman@MSN.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Vanagon Man <vgonman@MSN.COM>
Subject:      Frank's "new" engine rport
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Volks,

I have been following this thread with great interest, for i have in the
past and will in the future buy products from both Frank and Bob.

It seems that although there are numbers from Franks trip regarding various
consumptions and pressures I must ask a few things.

 First off if the motor is so crappy, that was pretty ballsy running 2400
miles on it!  You must have a lot of confidence in the motor to even think
of such a trip! I know i wouldn't leave my town if i had a motor in my car
that i thought was going to die because of low oil pressure.  Sounds like
you might be hung up on a number.

One of them being something that 90% or more of all vanagon owners that
install a rebuilt engine are guilty of NOT doing.  Did you get the fuel/air
mixture "sniffed" when the motor was first installed?  Verify that the
pressure regulator and fuel pump was all working up to spec? If you did not
do that early in the break in period, you may as well kick your own ___.
This whole conspiracy theory thing about the oil pressures seems almost like
a witch hunt..............sort of like those people out there that believe
if the Army looks long enough we are going to find the WMD in Iraq.  It just
keeps right on going .


I have built several engines in the last couple years, and always test for
compression and oil on the stand.  I had one that was weaker than the
others, tore it down, measured everything, and all was in spec......unknown
to why it ran 10lbs less than the others. But then i installed a heavier
spring and knew oil relief plunger, and the numbers were about 5 lbs higher.
Did i need to do that...probably not.  Flow seems more important than
pressure.............and also you are running the synthetic, so maybe it is
thinner and leading to these lower pressures?  I know when i tried one of
those blended oil my hot oil pressure dropped about 12 lbs............when i
swapped back to 20/50 or straight 40 wt ( it gets over 90+ degrees in SC for
months in the summer) all was well.

Seems like there may be too many miles on the motor now to check the mixture
if it was not done. And if it was not done, then if Frank's company
installed the motor and failed to properly tune it, well then there lies the
fault.  I hope this is not the case though, cause someone with your
experience should know better than to plug and play something as major as a
motor!
Adam P
Charleston,SC     Coburn, WV
81  Westy "The Brick "
70 Single Cab "Whitey"
74 Beetle "Ol Yeller"
73 Transporter (STILL at paint shop)
1988 Vanagon Wolfsburg
1976 Transporter (New CA bus)
1974 412 "Goldmember"
Used Vanagon Parts for sale (mostly aircooled)