Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:29:28 -0800
Reply-To: frankgrun <frankgrun@AOL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: frankgrun <frankgrun@AOL.COM>
Subject: The real story about the invention of the WBX? - Anybody want the
facts?
In-Reply-To: <2677.192.168.0.144.1234309739.squirrel@hasenwerk.homeip.net>
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I have been watching this exchange for a short while. It conjures up intriguing images of the inside story, tense discussions in the VW boardroom, a few inner sanctum conspiracies among the engineering staff, etc. and so forth. In the secret halls of the scientific culture we know full well that real data just gets in the way of the solution to the problem that we often have resolved before the first measurements have been made. This is easily translated as "the facts get in the way of a good story"..
Of course, in the end an engineering team did the deed (designed and developed the engine). As is the way with many such individuals, they looked at their work and they deemed it good. Also in the way on many good technical folk, they recorded the details of their work for posterity to see and judge long after the team entered into the microbial recycling engine. As part of their published work, they documented their objectives (often termed the reasons why they did this). Quite some time ago, in response to the drive many of us have to improve on what the engineers did (on infinitely smaller budgets and without the undue constraints of measurements and reproducibility in production), I sent on to Alistair Bell some of my files on the design and development of many of the engines I have examined over the years. Among those files one will find the work on the 1.9L watercooled boxer and the 2.1L improvements among others. This archive includes the technical details of the diesel addition, the turbodiesel addition, the safety and chassis design of the vanagon.
Of course, since the native language of the engineering team was and is Deutsch, the articles are presented in the same language. A short exercise with babelfish.altavista.com or the google translation services will spin the gist of the articles into a more accessible form for your understanding. The articles are to be found at:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/ragnarhairybreeks/vantech1.html
My intention is not to remove the color of imaginative speculation, but them I'm fascinated with "just the facts, maam"!
Frank Grunthaner
On Feb 10, 2009, at 3:48:59 PM, "David Marshall" <mailinglist@FASTFORWARD.CA> wrote:
From: "David Marshall" <mailinglist@FASTFORWARD.CA>
Subject: Re: The real story about the invention of the WBX?
Date: February 10, 2009 3:48:59 PM PST
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Back in the early 80s I am sure VW thought that these motors were great
and that adding water cooling would be fairly simple seeing how they could
steal parts from the now proven Diesel engine. They didn't drive
them for 250.000kms to find out that the heads would leak and really, what
car manufacturer wants something to last that long - VW really wishes our
vans would die so we would buy new ones right? Look at the Beetle er
um Porsche 911 today... flat six and water cooled. Many people will
argue that the sole left the 911 a long time ago, but this is the true
evolution of the boxer engine. The only great air-cooled boxer
remaining today is the BMW R1200 series and technically these are oil
cooled engines... the last air head was in the mid 90s.
David
Marshall
VW Adventure Driver and BMW Adventure Rider
http://www.hasenwerk.ca
On Tue, February 10, 2009 12:46, Jens
Jakob Andersen wrote:
>
> 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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