Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 00:24:53 -0400
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Engine Conversion factors/ease/cost Was: An Engine
Conversion Begins-Mixed Emotions!
In-Reply-To: <CAHbJSdUSwebiPw18u4BbC1VD=EB5nYTVY-cKqi1ca8htVbZ1iQ@mail.gmail.com>
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One of the factors to consider is why is there a need for an engine
replacement? Yes there are some that want to turn their vehicle into
"something else" and time or money is unlimited. Then there are those that
need an engine now due to a failure or soon as their engine is in the
process of failing. From experience most engine failures are due to failure
of the support systems. So part of the engine replacement has to consider
the cost of getting the support stuff up to snuff. Any engine can suffer
when the radiator fan fails to run when needed or a massive coolant loss
occurs. Consider your needs also. If far from home do you want to rely on
junk yard parts or have an engine where you can get what you need in a few
days? Same for support parts like water pumps and alternators. Of course you
can plan to somehow tow it home.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Jim Akiba
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2013 11:30 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Fwd: Engine Conversion factors/ease/cost Was: An Engine Conversion
Begins-Mixed Emotions!
Ralph wrote: "
>
> If you are going to do a swap you need to think thru all the good and
> bad things of any powerplant you are thinking of then decide which is
> most favorable."
And there is the main problem. While this is 100% true, the person making
that decision is often in the worst possible position to have a chance of
making that decision correctly. Lack of experience in doing something like
this, incomplete or mis-information, and a plethora of human biases are all
in play. It is something that is ultimately much more complicated than the
above mentioned powerplant which is only a part of the whole recipe.
It could be thought of in a cake analogy (sorry if you like pie more than
cake, I like cake).
You are trying to make a cake, You want it to be something you will enjoy,
and choose generally what cake you will make. Then for example you decide on
the type of eggs you will used based on whatever you like, usually buy etc.
At this point would anyone say that you are ensured a good cake because you
got eggs you like or are good? Doubtful, we have to ensure that not only
are the rest of the ingredients good as well, the proportion and combination
is correct, and the process is followed and executed correctly at the right
times. Anything from too much flour to a burned or just really ugly cake
could result.
It is common that you hear things like "the subaru conversion is great"
which is equivalent to saying that XYZ brand of eggs is the best, and
therefore the cakes are always the best if you use those eggs. That
statement might actually be true *if* the recipe and execution of the rest
of the cake is always the same, which is where it falls apart. What must be
done is first, acknowledge this, and recognize how huge the impact is on
total reliability/outcome of the cake making, and make it easy to always get
the rest of the cake made consistently.
So imagine that all of the conversions are exactly the same level of
difficulty when it comes to actually doing the work and the time it takes to
turn the wrenches etc.
That would be like saying that the ingredients and kitchen/tools are the
same for making the cake. The part left that could be different would be the
directions/procedures in using those things. I can point to one location
:https://bostig.zendesk.com/entries/25075132-Bostig-Factory-Manual
that contains the directions to a recipe. Whereas, anything else, the
person in the worst position to make the cake (never made the cake before,
typically isn't very experienced in making cakes anyhow) has to cobble
together the rest of the recipe and procedures by themselves...
Which cake is likely to come out consistently? Also which cake is likely to
be what the recipe intended when done by lots of people?
The one that has the most complete recipe and instructions.
Now turning back to the actual turning of wrenches etc. The Bostig installed
by experienced professionals take 11-15 hours. Professional Subaru installs
take 40-50 hours. While it's possible a novice could somehow invert the
proportions because they are inexperienced exists, it is highly unlikely,
I'd rather buy a powerball ticket.
I would guess that the inline VW would take somewhere in the middle, but
there are no complete recipes followed by professionals currently to compare
to.
On to cost. There are two major problems. For one, again the inconsistency
is a big problem. If you are putting together your own recipe for large
enough parts of things, and don't have experience, you are your own guinea
pig. The reality of unforeseen issues may arise that you had no possible
awareness of before you started. Unless you have a very complete recipe, you
will have to rely on your gut or information that may not be correct to make
judgement calls on things you don't actually, and can't actually know
anything about. (Like if
15 people did the exact same recipe as yours, what would the biggest
problems be, when would they happen, and what does it cost?) you will only
know *after* you've tried making the cake and eaten some to know if it will
be good.
The other is the spread/pattern of the resources involved in the recipe. In
most cases in our analogy of cakes as engine conversions, the eggs cost
about 80-90% of the total cake recipe. That is too much.
It puts all of your eggs in one basket :) That itself means a couple
things. It means the whole recipe is much more risk dependent on the eggs,
and it means that there isn't a lot to go around for the other ingredients.
The result of the failure of the egg part of the recipe, could cost 80-90%
of the total cost all over again... THIS is how it can end up more
expensive. One egg failure (which is usually the worst case scenario) and
you could be into almost all the cost of the cake recipe all over again. In
the case of the I-4 and the zetec, the eggs are very cheap... the subies,
diesels, and rebuilds, the eggs are very expensive.
People only ever evaluate the cost of everything in the universe as nice,
and the stars are aligned. You really should also evaluate your worst case
scenario, because they happen much more frequently than anybody realizes.
For certain everything will fall somewhere on that spectrum, so to have a
real idea of what the risks are, you must think about it.
Since people don't naturally like to brag about failures(if it's somebody
else's failure they will talk about it, if it's their own, for example their
version of the recipe, they usually stay quiet) it is hard to hear about the
actual frequency of failures. For instance if I didn't already know Don
popped a head gasket on his I-4 from threads long ago, I might mistakenly
think he had a fast, easy, cheap, trouble free I-4 install. If I didn't know
how much time/learning/perfecting Neil did to his exhaust I might also think
the same thing... and this is for cases that WERE published online...
There are countless more never published in all realms, but want you really
want and what is ideal is if there is full responsibility for making sure
the whole cake is correct from the originators of the recipe. Currently only
one recipe exists that is like this. It's a piece of cake, and the cake is
very consistent, and limited to a certain expense range in failures. That's
why I said to Don that the
I-4 could very well be cheaper, but it might not be depending on everything
else. The time/money thing is equally important, but again the time is a lot
more consistent when the instructions are more complete. The other recipes
are not like this. I will shut up now.
There is more on my blog which contains more of my sort of pseudo philosophy
on engine conversions/builds:
http://bostigarticles.blogspot.com/
Jim Akiba