Clive,
I'll stand in your corner on this one.

Engines are not made from Mag for the very reason that they would catch on
fire at the blink of an eye. Aluminum also burns quite well at the right
temp as done iron. Aluminum is used in explosives for this very reason. I
don't know about the Porsche motors but I know that there was never any BMW
motor in Mag. Beside the fire factor, Mag doesn't hold it's shape well
enough. You can take a piece of 1/4" thick Mag, hit it on one side with a
small punch and see the mark on the other side.

I can see it now, Mag engine, low on oil, bearing heats up and it's all
over. I don't care what kind of fire extinguisher you have.

-Steven Dodson
Kneeland, CA
"Inga" the 87 Syncro

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf
Of David Brodbeck
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 6:08 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Fire Extinguishers

On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Clive Smith wrote:

> I may be wrong, but you'll have to go some to prove that anyone would cast
> any significant quantities of mag ally's into an auto engine - for one,
all
> the threads would have to have inserts.

Hmm...you sure?  I'd always heard that the Type 1 engine crankcases were
magnesium alloy, and would burn quite impressively.  Could be that's an
urban legend, though. The Type 4 crankcases are supposed to be aluminum,
so I suspect that's what the WBX ones would be made out of.  FWIW the Type
1 cases are considerably softer than the Type 4 ones.

Clearly we need to get someone to go out in the desert, light a big
bonfire, and toss on some engine cases. ;)

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
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