Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 18:35:14 -0500
Reply-To: "William R. Kennedy" <kennedy@FDU.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: "William R. Kennedy" <kennedy@FDU.EDU>
Subject: Porsche engines
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
JVT's answers were good -- just a little more detail here.
>> How do I go about an engine conversion? Do I just get an engine and
>> then order that adapter kit from Kennedy Engineering or Hetlef
>> Hanschke (sp?) and go to it or will I need other stuff? Where do I
>> find an engine? How much is it all this likely to cost.
Cheapest running Porsche engines will be in $1500 to $4000
range. You have to be able to fabricate little stuff (eg
brackets to mount the oil tank in the right rear corner of
your vanagon) but if I can do it, you can too.
>> I've heard that there are Porche engines that I could switch to that
>> would allow me to stay air cooled--which ones are these? Do I just
>> walk into a Porsche dealer and ask them to order one?
The Porsche engine you want is from a 71 or later 911. As
the years went by they went from 2.2 liters, to 2.4, to 2.7,
to 3.0, to 3.2, to too expensive for humans.
The 2.7s have a bad reputation and a consequent relatively
low price.
>> used one is there some sytematic way of trying to track one down or am
>> I just looking at spending months of my life wandering through salvage
>> yards?
Porsche engines will be found in the classifieds of
Excellence magazine and Porsche Panorama magazine.
>> If I want to go to a Subaru engine or an Audi 5 cylinder or some other
>> water cooled is it possible to do this--how hard/expensive would it be
>> to add a radiator to my 1980 Vanagon?
Sell the aircooled to someone who wants to stay aircooled
and put a watercooled engine in a watercooled Vanagon.
You'll both be happier.
>> I've been following the threads about engine swaps for the Vanagon. Does
>> anyone have good figures comparing the weight of the stock Vanagon...
>> Are suspension modifications recommended?
Some may consider my viewpoint inappropriately casual, but I
figure it's a 3/4 ton payload truck. If the new engine
weighs 100lbs more, that's not much in the scheme of things.
B.
--
William R. Kennedy, University Webmaster
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