Hi Katherine - the short answer is 'yes.'
If staying with gasoline ( and there is not much advantage of a diesel
engine these days over a gasoline engine if you go by miles per dollar,
rather than miles per gallon - a diesel or TD in a vanagon might only be
a half mile per dollar better.  - to put miles per dollar into
perspective for you..............a 20 mpg Vehicle using $ 4.00 USD
gasoline in US gallons- that's 5 miles per dollar .  Not that much ! )

And there are lots of disadvantages to diesel engines, particularily VW
ones - and exactly 4 advantages only.
( And I did 'Turbo Diesel Vanagon' for quite a while - been to Tonfino ,
Vancouver Island BC that way even )

so I'm into Subaru engines in Vanagons these days. A sweet 91 to 94
Legacy type Subaru 2.2 engine can do, rather than say 19ish mpg ( US
gallons ) it can do more like 23ish.  Even a bit more.
They are pretty expensive to have done professionally though.
And they are just fantastically rewarding to drive compared to a
waterboxer engine.
They really run a good 45 % better  - just in every way.
But that's one solution.
Scott
www.turbovans.com

Katherine J. Maas wrote:
> I�ve recently resumed active daily reading of the Vanagon postings, after a
> long period of overwork, and I find fascinating the discussions of how the
> fuel crisis is (or not) going to impact our ability to continue to enjoy our
> vehicles. I was reflecting on this myself recently during a two-week camping
> trip from Calgary to the west coast of Vancouver Island. The mileage I get
> on my 87 Westy used to be very attractive! But less so now that it costs me
> $65+ to fill my tank. It certainly made me a bit less prodigal than I
> normally am in my tooling about once reaching my final destination.
>
> I�m wondering whether replacing the engine with something more fuel
> efficient might not be the answer. Has anyone tried this? Even if your
> intention was not at the time to go for fuel efficiency, did you replace
> your engine with something that ended up being more fuel efficient? What was
> the replacement engine? Who did the work (I will definitely NOT be doing
> mine)? Was it hard to find someone to do this? Hard to find the engine? And
> how are you enjoying the results? Are you glad you did it? What are the
> advantages, disadvantages?
>
> Katherine & Vanita (87 Westy)
>
>
>