Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:43:41 -0500
Reply-To: Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Subject: Re: The real story about the invention of the WBX?
In-Reply-To: <02f001c98bce$e7f88ec0$6401a8c0@PROSPERITY>
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To the best of my knowledge the WBX was designed by Oettinger. Which
intended to make it a 6 cylinder. It was probably cost reduced to a
4 . And, of course, the 6 was a rare option in Europe.
On Feb 10, 2009, at 5:28 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote:
> here's my thoughts on it :
> Yes on needing to go to water cooled for emissions reasons.
>
> I also think they just wanted to stay with the original design
> concept and
> layout .......
> which is rear engine, aluminum block , opposed four.
>
> I can't really guess which is more inexpensive to make.......and
> inline cast
> iron block four, or an opposed aluminum block four cylinder
> engine.......
> Bit is seems to me that a cast iron block inline four would be
> plenty cheap
> enough to make for a manufacturer. ....and cheaper to make than an
> aluminum
> block engine.
>
> there is the factor of having all the experience and tooling for
> making
> opposed aluminum block engines........perhaps they wanted to take
> advantage
> of that.
> But one does wonder.......
> was it 'internal politics at VW' ............or just stubbornness
> about
> keeping it an aluminum opposed four engine.......
> or crash considerations...
> or more likely .......acceptance in the European market.
> Perhaps they felt that hard core VW owners would not accept a
> Vanagon with
> a tilted over inline four iron block gas engine.
>
> But I'll be building mine after I pick up my 'new' 16 valve 87
> jetta 1.8
> inline four .........123 hp, 5,800 rpm, .....CIS-E fuel injection.
> Should make a nice vangon engine .......and I hear they get better
> fuel
> mileage than waterboxer engines.
> PLUS............a REAL head gasket !!
> just few too many projects ahead of that one though.
>
> haven't heard anything for a while. but there is/was a conversion
> shop in
> Sacramento , Ca............. doing 1.8 T engines into vangons.
> that's inline four 1.8 ........with FIVE valves per cylinder ! and
> turbocharged.
>
> Scott
> turbovans.com
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jens Jakob Andersen" <jayjay@ZORCK.DK>
> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 12:46 PM
> Subject: The real story about the invention of the WBX?
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> We are trying to find out what happened inside the heads of Schults
>> and Heinz (VW engineers that we cuss about when working on our cars
>> ("That day Schultz said to Heinz over lunch "Fit, too tight a fit? No
>> Heinz, we will place the bolt there - no problem -if people need to
>> work on that part they will allways have taken the front half
>> apart")) - on the day when they decided:
>> "Lets convert the CU to water-cooled - it will be real easy, done
>> quite fast, and a good stable conversion - instead of just using one
>> of our great inline.-4 engines"
>>
>> So my basic question to this list - does anyone know about why
>> VW decided to create the WBX, instead of changing to inline-4 in
>> 1983?
>>
>> Here is what I have found so far:
>> "The switch to water-cooling for the boxer engines was made abruptly
>> mid-year in 1983 because VW could no longer make the air-cooled
>> engines meet emissions standards"
>>
>>
>> Happy driving
>>
>> Jens Jakob
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