Date:         Wed, 27 Sep 95 17:05:06 EDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "William R. Kennedy, NJIT CIAT, 201-596-5648" <kennedy@admin.njit.edu>
Subject:      RE: Porsche Power (was: Self-Introduction)

Almost all of the cost of Porsche conversion is the cost of the engine:
$1500 minimum, $4000 typical, sky=limit.  Adapter flywheel is $300, oil
tank is $100-200, oil cooler and hoses maybe $400 if you feel you need
additional cooling.  I paid $75 for engine mounts and made my own rear
brace out of a $50 aluminum box-member; traded an airconditioner for
the welding work to raise the center of my engine lid (which you need to
do unless your Porsche engine is 3.2 liter big bux).

A serious conversion would probably also include swapping out the trans-
mission for a 5speed.  I'm stuck roaring along in 4th gear just like any
other Vanagon, except that at 65-70 I'm in a VERY healthy part of the
six-cylinder power band, ready to pass with class.

Martin Schneider Designed Systems has a conversion kit that eliminates some
of the compromises I tolerated: professionally designed/cut sheet metal
(I used aluminum sheet and pop-rivets); special rear brace (I cut my own);
special muffler (I used the stock Porsche muffler which reduces my ground
clearance by maybe 5 inches.)  They assume you will use 3.2 liter big bux
engine, so they don't solve the engine-lid question.  

The conversion work is probably two days for a good shop, which translated
into about eight weekends for me, working at my own pace and solving design
problems as they came up.  E.g. stock accelerator cable works, but it needs
to be re-routed THRU a chassis member to reach the other side of the engine.

If you buy a known good engine, that's complete, you are basically "90 per-
cent done, just half-way to go".  The rest of the tasks are at the power
drill and tin snips level.

B.
Wm Kennedy
kennedy@admin.njit.edu