Your lauphing!!!!!  I considered this very closely...  Take a Nissan
Maxima motor and transaxle, and you would have a great quiet, smooth
setup.  Any horizontal mounted motor transaxle, would work fairly well.
Lots of cutting, but once in I'm sure you would have a great van.
Auto. only this way the shifter would be the only real problem. Mate
the half shafts to get power to the wheels, and your done.  To bad
I could not find a cheap Maxima at the time of my swap.

            Eric                   86-VW4x4
            vw4x4@fyi.net          86-SS Syncro
            Pittsburgh, PA USA     1936-Chrysler
                                   92-Jetta GWC
            www.fyi.net/~vw4x4/vw4x4.htm

On Thu, 1 May 2003, John Carpenter wrote:

> In a message dated 5/1/03 4:24:39 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
> kimbrennan@MAC.COM writes:
>
> > Yes, but consider the WRX is rated at 227 hp (217 ft/lbs of
> > torque)...The next "weakest link" in the Vanagon is the transmission,
> > which was designed for 100hp engines.
> >
> > I'll definitely consider a Subaru engine for the next conversion
> > project, but I wonder how the stock transmissions fair with these high
> > HP conversions?
> >
> > Since all of my Vanagons are syncros, this is an important
> > consideration.
> >
> >
> > On Thursday, May 1, 2003, at 05:30  PM, Sullivan, Michael wrote:
> >
> > >and next year Subaru is supposed to offer a 6-cylinder boxer diesel!!!!
> > >
>
> Hi Folks,
> 4 the above mentioned reasons (i.e.), the tranny,
> I`m seriously considering a Front Wheel Drive setup
> where the engine is matched up to the tranny.
> I feel we loose to much HP w/ the conversions.
> And a nice 4 speed auto would be nice as well!
> You would lose the under bench storage,
> but a box could be fabricated in the unused space behind the trans.
> How bout a 4.9 caddy set up?
> Yeah, I know its not Fri yet... heh heh
> John C...
> SLC, UT
> 85 & 91 Westies...
>