Date:         Fri, 8 Apr 1994 12:36:40 -0600
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu (John Gladu)
Subject:      Re: Syncro

At 12:28 AM 4/8/94 -0500, derekdrew@aol.com wrote:
>How did you get THAT piece of information about the viscous coupling being
>shared with the Honda Civic 4WD. The owner of Adventurewagen which was doing
>non-Westy camper conversions for Vanagon told me that line about Porsche
>designing the viscous coupling unit and Steyr-Damler-Punch buiding the front
>diff. He even said the name of the Porsche engineer or contact guy on this
>was a Peter Mutke, someone involved with racing.

It's quite awhile back.  A glossy magazine...  Must not have been HOTVWs or
someone else here would have remembered it...
One of the Populars?  Mechanics or Science?  Probably...

A story about a new invention - the viscous coupling - that had a
silicon-based fluid in it that would change viscosity when the two sets of
plates in it were moving with sufficient speed relative to each other.

The story said that the first commercial use was going to be in the Civic.
Or was that another story?  The part that I'm reasonably sure of is that
they're based on the same concept - both viscous couplings - from the same
design.  The actual part is probably not interchangeable.  I clearly recall
that tie-in between Honda and VW.

I don't have the resources to nail this down, sorry...


bcnu - G (John Gladu)  .Opinions are just that.
Systems Support Center -- Baylor College of Medicine
INTERNET: jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu  | VOICE: (713)798-7370
 US MAIL:  One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas  77030
blegsqua - v. (bleg-skwa) to hassle endlessly
        over the check