Date:         Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:58:02 -0700
Reply-To:     Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Subject:      Why convert? was Re: Inside a Subi engine EJ22
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
              reply-type=original

Some time ago I drove my '87 GL up nearby Walker pass (going from about
2300' to about 5200' elevation). We had three adults and two kids, the van
was unloaded otherwise. I was doing well to make 38 mph; if I'd had a couple
dollars more change in my pocket it would've probably been 35. That isn't
acceptable, to my mind. I had absolutely no margin of power in case I had to
make any kind of maneuver, and just to make it more irritating I had to pull
over all the time to let people by. Once I got over the top I had the
low-oil pressure-alarm thing happen, which kind of flipped me out (I didn't
know what caused it then).

On another trip I took the van to LAX to pick up my in-laws: Four adults,
two kids and a load of luggage. Again, no power to maneuver, which will
really begin to loom large in your thinking if you're trying to navigate
those freeways in any kind of traffic at all, and what is pretty much the
top cruising speed for my Vgon was about 5 mph slower than average traffic.
I was wishing for a traffic slowdown just so I didn't have to feel like I
was gonna get rear-ended by every truck and SUV that climbed up my ass.

I can get behind the idea of a gentle cruising speed and leaning out the
window to smell the roses and all that, but the lack of available power for
the conditions in which I have to drive (out of town, anyway) makes the
stock Vgon flat out unsafe in my opinion. I don't like driving around with a
chronic case of butthole pucker on top of regular 'ol WBXer paranoia. I
don't want to spend the rest of my Vanagon ownership days peering under the
rear end of the thing ever time I walk by, or keeping one eye on the temp
gauge and one ear on the engine- I'm like that already and I've yet to have
the engine break down on me.

I know a good many of you folks have traveled from one end to the other
successfully and happily with your WBXers but methinks the times have
changed. Maybe it's more a matter of where I live and drive, I dunno, but we
really like the van and we just don't feel comfortable taking it out of town
anymore, so it's down to getting rid of it or converting it. So it's going
to be converted- I don't know exactly to what, yet, but it will be. It's
either that or get a mini-van, which I don't want and the conversion will be
cheaper.

I don't want to race anybody. I want to be able to go camping or to the lake
without being outrun up the pass by old guys on bicycles. I want to be able
to go to my dad's in AZ with some sense that the engine will get there in
one piece and that I'll be able to climb the grades up to Flagstaff without
having to worry about being flattened. I want to be able to drive on the LA
freeways and feel like there's some juice underfoot if I need it. We have to
run A/C probably 6/7 months of the year here and I'd like to be able to
climb a hill without having to turn it off and making everybody sweat it
out. I want an engine that I can maintain with what I consider a normal
amount of attention, not hyper-micro obsession. I'd like to be able to hand
my keys to somebody if they had to drive my van without giving them a 15
minute lecture on the minutiae of piloting a Vanagon and infecting them with
the paranoia (or just turning them off to the whole thing) in the process.
I'd like to have something other than almost three-decades old technology
that was a cobbled-together Frankenstein compromise to begin with, and for
which I can get parts and some level of support for the next 15 years.

I'd like different engine. I'd really like to have an entire drive train,
but that's a flame war...er, subject for another day.

Cya,
Robert

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Stewart" <fonman4277@COMCAST.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2007 4:00 AM
Subject: Re: Inside a Subi engine EJ22


> OK so why spend $5k for an EJ22 to just drive at a same 65 MPH as we WXB
> owners
> do? I am trying to say even if you spend $9k for an EJ25 you will still be
> out
> run by those cars regardless you can or can ot race. Regardless you want
> or you
> do not want to race.
>
> OK, I think you have totally missed the point here of the Subaru (or any
> other) conversion. It's not just about speed. Sure, you can do 70-80 with
> your old WBX-but for how long? At what cost? How reliable is it? How fast
> can you climb mountain grades? How long do think WBX parts are going to be
> around? A vehicle worth $1,000.00? Yeah, it would be stupid to convert a
> clapped out passenger van full of rust-but a nice condition Westy?
> Absolutely worth it!    Jeff