Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2006 18:35:38 -0700
Reply-To: Keith Hughes <keithahughes@QWEST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Keith Hughes <keithahughes@QWEST.NET>
Subject: Re: Debunking GoWesty!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 21:22:52 -0700
>From: Mike Rouby <mikerouby@YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: Re: Debunking GoWesty!
>
> Ironic then, that I live in Dallas, Texas and work across the street from Doug at Qualitat in Dallas (a business serving aircooled VWs since 1960s). Apparently, he thinks your assessment that air cooled engines last 90k miles is quite, shall I say, remarkable.
>
My "assessment" wasn't that "air cooled engines last 90k miles".
Perhaps examining context as a pre-rant activity would be of value. I said:
"90K on an upright motor in a bus *here* is about all
that can be expected (with case savers, sodium filled valves, external
oil cooler, etc.). 90K on a 2.0L AC Westy, with the square exhaust port
heads, is pretty remarkable here, though the same motor could go 200K
in less harsh climates (e.g. like where GoWesty is located). Stop and
go traffic in 115°F weather just kills the air cooled motors. And with
A/C...."
Did you notice the "200K" in there?
Maybe Doug should put in a couple of decades here and see the results.
Dallas is nothing like Phoenix, weatherwise. Dallas is warm, certainly,
but also very humid (I spent last summer in Waco on a project, and was
surprised how mild the summers are). High humidity is uncomfortable for
the body, which relies on evaporative cooling, but very good for air
cooled engines which rely on the specific heat of the cooling medium,
and the mediums' heat transfer function (both of which increase
significantly with higher humidity). When you're at 90% RH, we're at
15% or less. This is our monsoon season, and we're averaging about 25%.
How many times has DFW *closed* due to high temperatures?
>
> Also, I took my wife to Egypt to see the pyramids last year and I could not believe how many VW buses are around bringing tourists to the sites. Am I supposed to believe that their engines last 90k miles too?? I wonder who does their rebuilds??
>
Believe whatever you choose. It won't change the facts on the ground
here. As I recall, I made no claims about Egypt, but merely recounted
my personal experience here in the Phx desert. If you chose to
interpret that as some type of anti-AC pogrom, that's your issue.
>
> Maybe Phoenix is the bermuda triangle for aircooled engines, but apparently they do seem to last hot climates just fine. Case in point - My Westy originated in Albq, New Mexico. 1982 and still on it's original engine.
>
If you believe that Albuquerque is a case in point, then you really need
to study the weather patterns a bit better. For Phx:
Average annual number of days with maximum temperatures of 100 of
higher: 89
Least number of days with maximum temperatures of 100 or higher: 48 in 1913
Greatest number of days with maximum temperatures of 100 or higher: 143
in 1989
Greatest number of consecutive days with maximum temperatures of 100 or
higher: 76 in 1993
Average annual number of days with maximum temperatures of 110 of
higher: 10
Least number of days with maximum temperatures of 110 or higher: 0 in 1911
Greatest number of days with maximum temperatures of 110 or higher: 28
in 1979 and 2002
Greatest number of consecutive days with maximum temperatures of 110 or
higher: 18 in 1974
Now, how does that compare with DFW or ABQ? Not to mention that our
*lows* stay in the upper 80's to 90's during most of June, July, and
August, and that low is not until just before sunrise.
> Good to see you like the square-headlights (they are more modern), but many people seem to convert to round headlights than the other way around it seems.
>
Well, I've obviously had both, and the round ones have always worked
better. The dispersion patterns for the square lenses is pretty bad.
But they do look better.
> The reality is the waterboxer is less reliable than the aircooled motor. Hence the decision of many to swap engines (eg Subaru, Tiilco, Nissan, Zetec, etc), than to rebuild that failed design.
>
The question was not about reliability, but about longevity. Until a
cracked injector manifold turned my '78 into a fireball, if was far more
reliable than my WBX was, but the original engine was on knocking away
on it's last legs when I rebuilt it at 130K The square exhaust port
heads OTOH are notorious around here for dropping seats and/or sucking
exhaust valves long before that. IME, the Tiico's been on par with the
WBX for reliability, but hopefully (after 3.5 years) I've gotten the
kinks worked out...we'll see.
Keith Hughes
'86 Westy Tiico