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Date:         Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:36:21 -0500
Reply-To:     craig cowan <phishman068@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         craig cowan <phishman068@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: GoWesty2.3--how do you like it?
Comments: To: Zeitgeist <gruengeist@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <1b85fa6a0812111348s299c28a0s7ecfed1f9240312a@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

I'm told that the Tiico kit's engine was of south african origin, and NOT the same as a US built block. The internals were ever so slightly different, and the fuel injection proprietary so that if a particular component was needed, you were forced to either go through Tiico (waiting months sometimes), or retrofit a standard part from a US model, which was often a simple enough solution hence flew under the radar. Either way, it's still not the product they sold you. I remember hearing of $700 coolant lines that were on backorder, and of course the legendary exhaust cracks in the headers..... Who's going to supply the headers for these now? Sure, you CAN still use a US market FOX manifold or something of that nature and have an exhaust shop fabricate something, but the actual replacement TIICO parts won't be available.

There is in my mind, a distinct difference between a TIICO "Kit" and a homebrew I4 conversion using diesel parts. The latter of which, i would greatly prefer. There are some definate perks to putting an inline 4 engine in a vanagon, whether it be Diesel, Petrol, Volkswagen, Ford, Volvo, or any of the other engine's we've heard of people throwing back there, but the fact of the matter is the TIICO kit has some pretty well known problems that i think get thrown under the radar all too well. At a shop i used to work at, i saw a syncro westy come in for THREE replacement exhaust manifolds in a year. THREE. Then, the south african engine blew a rod. In an effort to rebuild it they found that the rod lengthing is different for that model engine than the US model, and ended up using the TIICO I4 bits to put a modern 2.0 Jetta engine in place using a 1.8 head (Can be done.). They fabricated a superior exhaust system, and he's run something like 10,000 happy miles on it since then. I know a guy that put an I4 in his syncro for something like $500 total too.... I just think that the fact that the TIICO has gotten as far as it has with the same problem throughout, and a well known reputation for lengthy waiting periods for expensive parts, is a testament to how many people in the vanagon community were in desperation and opted for the first available converion. (They were afterall, one of the first professional vanagon engine conversion companies in the US).

The extra horsepower gained by scrolling through their webpage, came from their close partnership with Kaleco Auto, some of whom's products can still be found today at http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_page=index

-Craig '85goneWESTY

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Zeitgeist <gruengeist@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sheesh, that's called hyper-scrolling and its performance effects have been > known for years. > > On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Jim Akiba <syncrolist@bostig.com> wrote: > > > This is what their website claimed. But their website also had other > > questionable claims, indeed *one could pickup 5 horsepower by scrolling > > from the specs at the middle of the page to the specs on the bottom.* > > > > > -- > Casey > '87 300TD > '94 100CSQ Avant > '89 Bluestar > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > + To unsubscribe from the Vanagon List send an e-mail to > + listserv@gerry.vanagon.com with SIGNOFF VANAGON > + in the body of the message. > ------------------------------------------------------------ >

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