Ray-jay builds super charges for AirCooled (aircraft engines & the
corvair engine, had a corvair turbo, had a Piper turbo lance) but you
don't want one. You need a forged steel crank and forged pistons which
you don't have. Turbocharged aircraft engines only have a half life
before required rebuilds of the non-turbo engines.
Slow down enjoy the scenery.

Stan Wilder 83 Westfalia Air Cooled

On Sat, 30 Jun 2001 13:44:15 -0700 Nicholas Wilson <nwilson@MCN.ORG>
writes:
> Are you driving an air-cooled model? A Westy?  From your MPG figures
> I would guess so.
>
> Any engine gets more power at sea level than at altitude due to the
> increased atmospheric pressure. Because the air-cooled engine has a
> much lower compression ratio than the waterboxers,  it is lower
> powered and gets worse MPG than they do. The classic cure for
> altitude is a supercharger, which was invented for aircraft engines
> to deal with this problem. I don't know of any superchargers for
> air-cooled vanagons, and even if you had one, you couldn't use it at
> sea level without cooking the engine. Probably the only practical
> cure for a Vanagon is to install an inline 4 watercooled engine from
> a Jetta or the like, which several folks on the list have done.  It
> would probably be too much hassle on an aircooled, though, since
> there's no radiator or plumbing already installed. People do convert
> older diesel Vanagons to gas engines, which have a lot more power
> for the same engine size.
>
> At 01:04 PM 6/30/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >I submit that driving a Vanagon is more challenging here in the
> West.  I
> >notice my van runs better and better as I approach sea level --
> more power
> >and better MPG.  I live at about 4500' and get 12 to 13 MPG.  At
> sea level I
> >get 3 MPG more.  Is there a fix for this other than moving East
> >(unthinkable)?
> >
> >The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in
> >Colorado.  This is true for several Eastern states.  The highest
> point in
> >Florida is the top of the bridge connecting Tampa-St. Pete.
> >
> >Bill -- Southeast Arizona -- www.freeholder.com

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