JVT's answers were good -- just a little more detail here.

>> How do I go about an engine conversion?  Do I just get an engine and
>> then order that adapter kit from Kennedy Engineering or Hetlef
>> Hanschke (sp?)  and go to it or will I need other stuff?  Where do I
>> find an engine?  How much is it all this likely to cost.

Cheapest running Porsche engines will be in $1500 to $4000
range. You have to be able to fabricate little stuff (eg
brackets to mount the oil tank in the right rear corner of
your vanagon) but if I can do it, you can too.

>> I've heard that there are Porche engines that I could switch to that
>> would allow me to stay air cooled--which ones are these?  Do I just
>> walk into a Porsche dealer and ask them to order one?

The Porsche engine you want is from a 71 or later 911. As
the years went by they went from 2.2 liters, to 2.4, to 2.7,
to 3.0, to 3.2, to too expensive for humans.
The 2.7s have a bad reputation and a consequent relatively
low price.

>> used one is there some sytematic way of trying to track one down or am
>> I just looking at spending months of my life wandering through salvage
>> yards?

Porsche engines will be found in the classifieds of
Excellence magazine and Porsche Panorama magazine.

>> If I want to go to a Subaru engine or an Audi 5 cylinder or some other
>> water cooled is it possible to do this--how hard/expensive would it be
>> to add a radiator to my 1980 Vanagon?

Sell the aircooled to someone who wants to stay aircooled
and put a watercooled engine in a watercooled Vanagon.
You'll both be happier.

>> I've been following the threads about engine swaps for the Vanagon.  Does
>> anyone have good figures comparing the weight of the stock Vanagon...
>> Are suspension modifications recommended?

Some may consider my viewpoint inappropriately casual, but I
figure it's a 3/4 ton payload truck. If the new engine
weighs 100lbs more, that's not much in the scheme of things.

B.
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