My stock,original, low miles, '87 Westy has 2.1 and an automatic. It
doesn't perform as poorly as you say yours does.  I guess your engine must
be very tired, and is obviously lacking power, if it can't even maintain 45
mph up a long freeway hill.  It sounds like it's time for a
rebuild.......talk to Boston Bob for the real answers to your problems.

Mike B.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Daniel - Shazam" <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: That recent post bashing Tiico..one on Yahoo subaru too.

Stock waterboxers....yup, can be real reliable.
Seriously lacking in decent power in many situations however...
Like my 85 weekender with 2.1 wbxr engine and fuel system, and auto
trans....
The best it can do on some freeway hills is 45 and sometimes even only
40.....
And all the other ( too numerous in California ) cars are going  70 or 80 up
that same hill.  Like it's a safety issue even.
  You combine that with the joke head gasket system, and old tech engine
management system, and fuel mileage that could be better......  and lots of
things are hard to work on too, on stock waterboxer engines, like a water
pump job with the engine in the van - a pure knuckle ripper of a job.
Consider all that, and the search for a better engine becomes obvious.
Scott
www.turbovans.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Zeitgeist
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 5:14 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: That recent post bashing Tiico..one on Yahoo subaru too.

My WBX is too damn reliable.  I feel cheated of my shot at vocal
malcontentedness.  My old '87 GL was too reliable, as well.  I feel doubly
cheated.   My anger and remorse is palpable.

Just thought I'd share my story of woe and misery with my factory
conversion...

On 11/1/07, Rob <becida@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> That made your day didn't it?
>
> Rob
>