Type IV Beetle In The Works!

Hello All,

I've got my daily driver '73 Std. Beetle. I've got a complete 2.0L
type IV engine in the garage and the '76 van it came out of. I've got
the Joe Cali book. What I need is a few parts and a little advice...

First, the engine. The van's been parked for about 10 years due to an
undiagnosed fuel injection problem. A couple years before that the
engine was "rebuilt" by my friend's granddad (now deceased). I've
pulled off the 1/2 cylinder head. I am going to clean them up and
check for cracks, but judging from how nice they look I think may have
been redone as part of the rebuild. There's no reason to think the
seats have dropped or anything horrible like that. Before I took it
apart I did a compression check and got 115-130 psi, except for
cylinder 2 which only made 70 psi. The barrels still show the marks
from a home hone job but the rings look clean, so I assume the rebuild
consisted of cleaned up cylinders and new rings. If I'm doing it, I
want to do things right, which to me means new pistons and cylinders,
and if I'm doing that I figure why not go with an oversize 96mm set.
The 96's sold by Aircooled.net seem kind of pricey though, on the
order of $600 bucks. What is the difference between theirs and the
sets you see on eBay for less than half that price?

For cooling, I'm leaning toward the DTM shroud. My only problem with
it is that I want a thermostat on the engine, which I understand can
be retrofitted if you're mechanically clever. Also the car has a
nearly complete A/C system that I do eventually want to get going
again. Anybody know about mounting the compressor with a DTM shroud?
I believe that The Legendary Shad Laws has a type IV engine and A/
C...any pictures of his setup?

Now, the car. Eventually I'll go with a re-geared overdrive
transmission, but thats not in the immediate plans. However, the
driver's side C/V joint is pretty worn and I don't imagine it will
survive long behind the 2.0L engine. The car isn't going to be a
dragster, just a spirited daily driver, so will standard beetle C/V
joints be enough or should I plan on upgrading to something stronger?

Obviously this will be a big project and I'm just getting started, but
I've got enough time and money to throw at it to get it done in a few
months. Any help from the group in this would be greatly appreciated!

Peace,
Harry

PS. The deal here is, I'm trading my buddy the complete, running
Mexican 1600dp from my Beetle for the complete, non-running 2.0L type
IV from his van. We're both happy, but I was just curious if this
sounded like a fair trade to you guys.

Harry Smith wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I've got my daily driver '73 Std. Beetle. I've got a complete 2.0L
> type IV engine in the garage and the '76 van it came out of. I've got
> the Joe Cali book. What I need is a few parts and a little advice...

I've done it. The Cali route.


> First, the engine. The van's been parked for about 10 years due to an
> undiagnosed fuel injection problem.


Mine was a carburator model to begin with. Depending on how much power
you want out of it, you may want to switch to carbs to keep it simple
and easy to tune.


> A couple years before that the
> engine was "rebuilt" by my friend's granddad (now deceased). I've
> pulled off the 1/2 cylinder head. I am going to clean them up and
> check for cracks, but judging from how nice they look I think may have
> been redone as part of the rebuild.

Come back with valve sizes. The 1.8 carb heads had the largest valves of
the VW heads. Porsche heads flow even better, but they have a different
intake manifold bolt pattern.



> There's no reason to think the seats have dropped or anything horrible like that.

My heads seemed fine, but the head pro laughed at the seats and valve
guides. I had a complete valvejob done by a wizzard of the trade. He
chose to install K-liners in the guides.



> If I'm doing it, I want to do things right, which to me means new pistons and cylinders,
> and if I'm doing that I figure why not go with an oversize 96mm set.
> The 96's sold by Aircooled.net seem kind of pricey though, on the
> order of $600 bucks. What is the difference between theirs and the
> sets you see on eBay for less than half that price?

I trust AC.Net. Nobody else.


> For cooling, I'm leaning toward the DTM shroud. My only problem with
> it is that I want a thermostat on the engine, which I understand can
> be retrofitted if you're mechanically clever.


I desingned a thermostat assembly for the DTM when Joe Locicero was
still around. As far as I know, the drawings got lost and it never made
it to production, due to Joe passing away. I had a couple of different
ways of doing it but we finally agreed on one design where you flip the
strock thermos around 180 degrees, route the operating cable to a pulley
much like the original pulley, where it would make a 90 deg turn upwards
behind the shroud... and there it would hook up to a rack mounted
shutter system, that would restrict airflow to the fan when cold.

I didn't get far enough to build a working prototype, and neither did
Joe I think, so you'd still need to figure out pulley size ( assumed the
stock pulley would do, using as many stock parts as possible) and lever
lenght and stuff like that, plus source the shutter system from
somewhere. (like hardware store).


> Also the car has a
> nearly complete A/C system that I do eventually want to get going
> again. Anybody know about mounting the compressor with a DTM shroud?
> I believe that The Legendary Shad Laws has a type IV engine and A/
> C...any pictures of his setup?


Nope, no pics of his ride.

There was someone on shoptalkforums from.. umm.. Malaysia? just
recently, who had a local source for an AC bracket setup, and then
someone asked about a T4 application... measurements were taken
and sent t o the guy.. I forget what happened after that. You could
maybe order the T4 brackets...



> Now, the car. Eventually I'll go with a re-geared overdrive
> transmission, but thats not in the immediate plans. However, the
> driver's side C/V joint is pretty worn and I don't imagine it will
> survive long behind the 2.0L engine. The car isn't going to be a
> dragster, just a spirited daily driver, so will standard beetle C/V
> joints be enough or should I plan on upgrading to something stronger?

Dunno. Mine was swing.


> Obviously this will be a big project and I'm just getting started, but
> I've got enough time and money to throw at it to get it done in a few
> months. Any help from the group in this would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Peace,
> Harry
>
> PS. The deal here is, I'm trading my buddy the complete, running
> Mexican 1600dp from my Beetle for the complete, non-running 2.0L type
> IV from his van. We're both happy, but I was just curious if this
> sounded like a fair trade to you guys.


The transmission input shaft is shorter on the T1 equipped vehicles.
So...

If your buddy gets the T1 1600, his shaft will be too long for the T1
engine.

YOUR shaft will be too short... (focus, bro, it's just your engine I'm
referring to here) so you have to relocate the T4 input shaft support
bearing from the end of the crank recess to the center of the flywheel.
The Cali book has excellent details on this.

Just so you know.

Jan

On Mar 17, 10:48 pm, Jan > wrote:
> Mine was a carburator model to begin with. Depending on how much power
> you want out of it, you may want to switch to carbs to keep it simple
> and easy to tune.

I might have to just go with some carbs to make it simple at first,
though I do want to build a custom EFI system around the Microsquirt
controller.

> Come back with valve sizes. The 1.8 carb heads had the largest valves of
> the VW heads. Porsche heads flow even better, but they have a different
> intake manifold bolt pattern.

Going by the part number and a rough reality check with a ruler, the
valves are 37.5 x 33 mm with the sodium-filled exhaust valves.

> My heads seemed fine, but the head pro laughed at the seats and valve
> guides. I had a complete valvejob done by a wizzard of the trade. He
> chose to install K-liners in the guides.

Yeah, I probably should get my heads checked by a professional...that
sounds funny...

> > If I'm doing it, I want to do things right, which to me means new pistons and cylinders,
> > and if I'm doing that I figure why not go with an oversize 96mm set.
> > The 96's sold by Aircooled.net seem kind of pricey though, on the
> > order of $600 bucks. What is the difference between theirs and the
> > sets you see on eBay for less than half that price?
>
> I trust AC.Net. Nobody else.

No doubt, they have the best stuff around. However, if I can get
essentially the same quality for half the price, I'm too "frugal" to
pass it up. Anybody have any experience with the eBay sets?

> I desingned a thermostat assembly for the DTM when Joe Locicero was
> still around. As far as I know, the drawings got lost and it never made
> it to production, due to Joe passing away. I had a couple of different
> ways of doing it but we finally agreed on one design where you flip the
> strock thermos around 180 degrees, route the operating cable to a pulley
> much like the original pulley, where it would make a 90 deg turn upwards
> behind the shroud... and there it would hook up to a rack mounted
> shutter system, that would restrict airflow to the fan when cold.
>
> I didn't get far enough to build a working prototype, and neither did
> Joe I think, so you'd still need to figure out pulley size ( assumed the
> stock pulley would do, using as many stock parts as possible) and lever
> lenght and stuff like that, plus source the shutter system from
> somewhere. (like hardware store).

Mmm. It sounds do-able. Probably not too big of a deal in the Sultry
South where I am, but something to think about.

> There was someone on shoptalkforums from.. umm.. Malaysia? just
> recently, who had a local source for an AC bracket setup, and then
> someone asked about a T4 application... measurements were taken
> and sent t o the guy.. I forget what happened after that. You could
> maybe order the T4 brackets...

I expect I'll have to get something welded up, though I do have the
original T1 brackets to start from. This isn't something that needs
doing right away obviously, but as previous owners scrapped the fresh
air system and put in one piece windows, the car will be a sweatbox
without A/C....

> The transmission input shaft is shorter on the T1 equipped vehicles.
> So...
>
> If your buddy gets the T1 1600, his shaft will be too long for the T1
> engine.
>
> YOUR shaft will be too short... (focus, bro, it's just your engine I'm
> referring to here) so you have to relocate the T4 input shaft support
> bearing from the end of the crank recess to the center of the flywheel.
> The Cali book has excellent details on this.

Hmm, I must have overlooked that particular detail. Obviously I
didn't do all my reading... Anyway, it sounds like shortening the
van's transmission shaft will be required to install the 1600. Once
modified in this way, I assume a suitably modified T4 would fit as
well?

Thanks,
Harry

Harry Smith wrote:
> On Mar 17, 10:48 pm, Jan > wrote:
>
>>The transmission input shaft is shorter on the T1 equipped vehicles.
>>So...
>>
>>If your buddy gets the T1 1600, his shaft will be too long for the T1
>>engine.
>>
>>YOUR shaft will be too short... (focus, bro, it's just your engine I'm
>>referring to here) so you have to relocate the T4 input shaft support
>>bearing from the end of the crank recess to the center of the flywheel.
>>The Cali book has excellent details on this.
>
>
> Hmm, I must have overlooked that particular detail. Obviously I
> didn't do all my reading... Anyway, it sounds like shortening the
> van's transmission shaft will be required to install the 1600. Once
> modified in this way, I assume a suitably modified T4 would fit as
> well?
>
> Thanks,
> Harry

It should be ok, as long as the T4 has the support bearing mod done to
it. OR, you could swap the input shaft... use one from a 1600 van.


Jan

On Mar 18, 7:14 pm, Jan > wrote:
> It should be ok, as long as the T4 has the support bearing mod done to
> it. OR, you could swap the input shaft... use one from a 1600 van.

Swapping input shafts would complicate things terribly...in fact we'd
like to avoid tearing down the transmission if at all possible.
Sounds like I just need to finally seperate the engine and tranny and
see if it looks like it can be done without dissassembly.

Peace,
Harry