I know it's been covered, but I'm very keen on doing a Scooby conversion. Is that better?

I personally wouldn't bother for 90BHP, you can easily get that from an air-cooled OG style engine.
My car has 90BHP and goes very nicely, but I did a rolling resistance comparison on the way to work. There's part of the journey down a mild hill then flat for 1/2 mile to a RAB all in a 40 limit.

If I knock the car into neutral at 40 on the hill part it gets to the RAB at 35mph, do the the same in the van and it gets there at 20mph. So what's the difference? They both have tyres on the deck, wheel bearings, gearbox diff and wind causing resistance. Must be the wind?

 

By observation, for the torque characteristics, diesel or larger capacity petrol is probably the most efficient engine in terms of propulsion - but the issues of originality (just because I personally don't care on that one, doesn't mean I don't recognise it's importance to others), ease and cost of other engine play a factor here. I suspect electric assistance would make a huge difference too.

I do think an advantage of the Subaru diesel for VW owners in the future is I doubt there will be much competition for them - for example the TDi Land Rover engines and the Mitsibushi diesel engines can be fitted to a lot of stuff, there is no advantage in fitting a flat 4 diesel into anything other than a VW I suspect.

Regards @zed rolling resistance, I suspect that there would be windage difference in the drive train but wind is the huge contributor - be interesting to see what a more modern van of similar proportions can do (I would imagine a Merc Vito would not be tremendously better as my understanding of aerodynamics is that it's the back end of the shape that makes the biggest difference - I am basing that on the orientation they say is best for a chicken egg, fat side front rather than pointy being the winner).

 

While apparently you can get 100HP out of a 1776, the power seems to be inevitably at the top of the rev range ( 4-6,000) and it has to be dynamically balanced to manage these revs without self-destructing, ported and polished and set up to run rich for racing. OK for the strip in a lighter vehicle but you don't want to be revving the nuts on your way to Cornwall in a bus and washing the barrels with a deliberately rich mixture?

No doubt you can also up the power from your Saburu's if you don't mind pushing it's engineering beyond it's sensible (for longevity) tuning.

 

I like the idea of sticking with the air-cooled VW engines. It makes no practical sense, but neither does much else about owning such an old impractical vehicle.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't fit a powerful diesel turbo in if it could be done fairly easily and cheaply. Power and mpg in one package is very appealing and I am suffering from non-use due to petrol cost.

 

90 bhp is probably double what a lot of folk on here are getting and also in terms of fuel economy probably an increase of around 50% minimum.

Im not particularly biased towards staying vw or fitting an alternative but my daily is a TDCi and I wouldnt have a clue how to fix that (unlikely it would be fixable at the roadside if it broke). but its pretty damned nippy, bags of torque and not that thirsty even when booted. My major issue would be fixing it when it went wrong. Ive half a chance with an aircooled.

 

Unfortuneately it's stuff like expensive air bypass senders and dual mass flywheels with modern cars - you can never get away from weak points and all cars modern and old have them. I'm friendly with a regular mechanic on site and he does the same jobs to modern cars over and over again. No doubt same applies to all engine one might transplant so as long as you're pre-warned it will come down to nuts, bolts and a manual same as the air-cooled. You might need a fault code reader, but these are now a lot cheaper.

 

dont mention dual mass flywheels! I get your point - Modern car engines are comparitively cheap and the right one will deliver as much and probably more performance than a well fettled and expensive air cooler vw. If its the difference between running the bus as a daily or not using it at all as it only does 20mpg and getting shut as its just too uneconomical to justify then the next element to look at is the install costs and the payback.

My bus is also a bit of a hobby for me. Whilst Im not into bodywork or massively involved jobs I do like a good fettle so theres some value there too.

 

5-6 k id imagine

 

I think that's the issue (despite earlier veiled accusations of my slating VW tuning - I do know a bit about them).

One person't definition of reliable is different to mine.

The 150 horsepower (approx) seen from the 2 litre non turbo Subaru engine is within it's design parameters - i.e. when engineers designed and specced the things with an eye to longevity and warranties, they reached that figure. Mostly the same engine, with a turbo, can produce an easy 250bhp, again, nothing going pop, fully warranted manufacturer built cars.

I kind of doubt you could get 150bhp from a VW lump that hasn't been bored and blueprinted to death, and had issues such as crank flex fixed. Most on that power have turbos or nitrous.

Now - the word reliability rears its ugly head, because you are talking about an engine well above its design parameters.

Again, I don't doubt that there are experts out there that have taken the VW design much further that VW did, and for a cost can build you that engine - but how maintainable is that engine, how efficient might it be?

Personally, I'll go with the design team that manufactured 10's of thousands of cars and produced numerous world rally titles - which no VW aftermarket tuner managed.

 

Interestingly even the diesel boxer vanagon conversion only claims ave 27.4's mpg and after all that outlay...mmm

The angled 1.9 VW TDI conversion with the T25 Bellhousing is about the only one that's sounds half decent but even then not quite right.
It's a hard decision for me to come away from air-cooled, which is only eased by the EJ20/22 looking almost as if it was designed to be there.
Not expecting the world, just hoping that the effort is going to provide a 'little bit more': reliability, speed, acceleration, mpg and smiles

If I want even more mpg that I will consider LPG

 

I'm pleased to see this thread is still going strong! Still looking for a good donor Scooby for the bits, but not found anything yet

 

best thing ive done to my van so far especialy now winter here and ive got loads of heat

 

i got mine from scoobie spit up north got it sent on a pallet worked well for me

 

When you find a donor I would drive it around for a while to iron out any problems, oil usage, mpg etc.
What engine are you going for?

 

How did you plumb to get heating in the cab?