Date: Wed, 15 May 2013 10:09:34 -0700
Reply-To: neil n <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: neil n <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: 2.0L I4 Opportunities
In-Reply-To: <CAHTkEuLB4vC5JZM-HAr1rQVQoyJ_WSzqrPv-0gmCx_WBvZu5dQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Ha, ya. It was a LOT of work. LOL.
Hindsight is 20/20.
In past emails, I posted my reasons for doing this swap. And IIRC, I
posted some possible advantages. My only "regret" is the lump in the
engine lid. If I had a shop, and wanted to blow some dough on a spool
gun and another tank for my MIG (aluminum welding) I'd get serious
about addressing that while keeping the engine at 15º.
But hey; if what I did helps someone else intent on doing this (i.e.
ABA in a Doka) then more power to them. Motronic does away with the
AFM and is a reliable system if done right; it's been used in
production of many many VW's.
Even for someone like me, who had even less fabricating experience
prior to starting my swap (like nearly zero experience) but has *some*
experience now, I'd suggest that copying the DV carrier bars is not a
simple matter. The angles are likely crucial as space might be tight.
One tip in that regard though is that one could sleeve the parts
before welding. I know a lister over on thesamba did this. Not sure if
for those reasons, but he was successful in building those bars.
Neil.
On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 7:29 AM, Don Hanson <dhanson928@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recall when you began with your conversion, Neil...and asked for advice,
> maybe? I vaguely recall asking you why you were choosing to do something
> different, to put the motor in there at 15deg. when factory parts existed to
> install it otherwise?. You also began with an air cooled Vanagon, didn't
> you?...Well, you pulled it off in the end, but man, you did it the hard way!
> (IMHO) grin!
> As you went along, you did get to learn to weld and to wire a motor and
> you probably know as much as anyone bout the Vangaon cooling systems now.
> But to this day, I wonder why you chose to do a 15 degree motor mounting
> with the interior bump and all that extra work of building custom engine
> mounts, etc.
>
> I would think, even if a person couldn't actually find and buy real VW
> factory used diesel parts to install an inline in the standard way, it
> would be much much easier to just copy the factory stuff from another van or
> something. The bars are pretty dang simple and the mounts are still
> available and not expensive.
>
> ..... Also
> lucky is the Digifant wires plugs and hoses from a WBX almost plug right in
> to the inlne gas motor and make it run just fine....
> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 11:34 PM, neil n <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> And to be clear, if someone were to ask, I'd suggest they NOT do a 15º
>> install.
--
Neil n
Blog: tubaneil.blogspot.ca
'88 Westy http://tinyurl.com/c8rlw6p
'81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco" http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/
Vanagon VAG Gas inline-VR Engine Swap Group:
http://tinyurl.com/d7gd5ej
