On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Larry Carter wrote:

> I recently bought an 87 GL to replace my much loved (but rusty) 75 westy.
> I'm becoming acquainted with it's peculiarities/preferences, and are
> pleased.  I was wondering ,since the wasserboxer is so much more powerful
> than the air cooled version,  what is the cost, in horsepower, for air
> cooling?  I am a heavy duty mechanic here on Vancouver Island in a logging
> camp and are familiar with the 35 to 40 horsepower air conditioning costs on
> the industrial installations I see so much of.  
Besides the horsepower used by the cooling fan, air-cooled engines in 
general are not as powerful as similar watercooled engines. The reason? 
With the closer temperature tolerances ensured by water-cooling, 
piston/cylinder tolerances can be tighter and compression ratios can be 
higher. Emissions are also much easier to control. These are the same 
reasons that motorcycles switched to water cooling.
	-Malcolm Williamson
	 '87 Westy (I'll take all the horsepower I can get!)

> Another thing occured to me while I was waiting for my wife  at the grocery
> store in the rain.  The 75 had a cool little drain gutter on the front of
> the vent window.  I assume it's there so that you can sit with the vent
> window open, in the rain, and the water doesn't drip on the floor.  This
> seems like a good idea to me.  If it was such a good idea why didn't they do
> the same thing on the vanagons?  Or does it serve some other mysterious
> purpose no longer nessesary on the vanagons?
> 
>