-Alabama Pete wrote:
> In response to a previous post regarding the retrofit of a Porsche 3.2L
> engine in a Vanagon, I have a few questions...
>
> The Porsche is an air cooled engine.  Vanagon's are water cooled.  Why
> would you take a water cooled engine and replace it with an air cooled
> Porsche engine, other than for the obvious gain in horsepower?  Wouldn't
> you lose the benefits of heating the van in the winter?   Plus, parts
> for the Porsche engine are outrageously priced compared to that of the
> VW engines...  Just looking for some answers and other
> opinions/viewpoints...

SOME Vanagons are watercooled. MY Vanagon (1981) was born
aircooled, and is still aircooled, but now it has 180
reliable German horsepower, and I believe that the
conversion (1978 Porsche 911SC engine), while not
inexpensive, is the easiest one for a hobbyist to achieve.
Porsche engines are coming down in price, to where you can
get a used one with lots of miles left on it for $3000 or
less if you shop carefully. Pete's point is a good one, tho:
if YOUR Vanagon was born watercooled, it introduces an extra
complexity to figure out how to get heat and defrost from
the Porsche engine.

B.

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