Date:         Sun, 15 Sep 2013 23:30:26 -0400
Reply-To:     Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject:      Fwd: Engine Conversion factors/ease/cost Was: An Engine
              Conversion Begins-Mixed Emotions!
In-Reply-To:  <CAHbJSdU3r2XVFEmgxS14SCB5TEbnNhGWW_yxaYh5qMLQ=TUqLA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

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