What to do ?

[veedubt2]

Hi all,

I have a 71 tintop bay, as mentioned in a previous post, my 1600 twin port's crank, or crank related items dont want to play any more .

After coming back from a trip around Devon, my plan was to fit a 1641 head kit and twin carbs of some sort, just need abit more power for those damn hills,

Now I'm in abit of a dilema, do I repair the old lump and fit said above items, or dare I say it , and go for a 2 litre, non turbo Subaru coversion ????
I've spoken to Richard at RJES, and have been to look at an Impreza, thats been wrapped around a tree :shock:. The conversion seems fairly straight forward, but would cost a little more cash !

So as the title says, what do I do ?, stay Aircooled or go over to the darkside ??
All comments welcome.
Regards

 

[K@rlos]

in my mind a scooby motor should stay in a scooby, but do what you think is best dude. its your bus

 

[Justin & Muttley]

It's a bit of a minefield this one, Subaru flat 4's are (in many ways) the ideal engine to fit in a bus (low engine height, more wide than long etc), and they're lovely and torquey, fairly efficient and very reliable too. You might also luck out and find an engine with an air-con pump and power steering gubbins.

On the downside, they're much heavier than your aircooled lump, you'll need the Subaru harness to avoid immobiliser problems and you'll need to find space to mount a big radiator (or two smaller ones) and possibly oil cooler too - you'll also find it tricky to carry out maintenance as the engine was designed to be accessed from the top, not the front.

The Scooby EJ20 engine is bullet-proof though - my old engine had piston-knock for 60,000 miles and wouldn't die!! It will work out pretty expensive all told - proceed with care!!

I think there's a write-up on this conversion on the Brickworks - might be worth a look?

 

[noddy]

Remember you will probably need to beef the transmission up to take the increased HP.

 

[K@rlos]

I would have thought for the cost and effort of fitting a scooby lump, it would be simplier to get an aircooled big bore. a well built 1835cc or 1914cc with some good carbs, decent cam and exhaust system would fit the bill well

 

[stagger lee]

would take far less effort and money to fit an aircooled 2ltr t4 engine. you can get an upright kit for a few hundred quid (t1 cooling). to me better than boring a t1 out to its limits etc. if you are unwise to the whole t4 conversion check out type4forum on shoptalk forums. all you need to know is on there. they're the way forward.

 

[K@rlos]

are type 4 engines any good, i don't no much about them tbh :?

 

[stagger lee]

alot of people don't rate them; troublesome expensive etc. but they're like any engine thats poorly setup or got significant problems, a pain in the ass. basically they're a t1's big brother. bigger, stronger, better developed. i s'pose the main disadvantage over a 1600 with them is the cost of parts to recondition one. they are well worth considering for a serious build/investment. i literally have a stack of them biding their time till i convert one for my panel. do some research on the type4forum as mentioned before. there is a wealth of knowledge and experience on there.

 

[Araon]

WHS^^^ the 2ltr T4 is a beast of an engine my old 74 westy went like shit off a shovel, pulled superbly a complete revelation....but can be hard to get parts, vis a vis cost of parts :shock: though its improving, also if your daunted by working on engines your not alone theres lots of mechanics wont touch them so unless you know a confident and reputable mechanic you'll have to learn....

Do it .... you know you want to.....

 

[BigG]

I run a stock 1700 type4 in my bus and in the last 2000 miles ive only had to change the oil,
on a recent trip down to Cornwall she cruised happily at 70 and towing and hills are no problem.
Couldnt really comment on parts prices as the only things ive had to buy were a set of pushrod tube seals.

There are plenty of type4 engines out there if you want to build one but weigh the costs up against a tuned T1 as it may still be a better option and you wont have to alter the engine bay

 

[VWAIRCOOLED]

I've just fitted a type4 engine bored out to 2.4 into a later bay,this is much easier than fitting to an earlybay though.Make sure if you do go this way that you get all the tinware and carbs etc because the parts can be hard to get hold of.Also you'll be best to fit a front gearbox mount to take the extra weight and power of the type 4 engine.Then you'll need a later gearbox to fit it too,preferebly an 091 6 rib 2.0 box so that you have a higher cruising speed.You don't want all that power and still be cruising at 60-65 mph! Although you could stay with the standard gearbox and no front gearbox mount but this wouldn't be wise.I just remembered the main engine support bar will need modifying and the chassis modifying to match up.And as has been mentioned the tinware from the type4 won't match the engine bay so you'll need to adapt the engine bay to fit the tinware.I'd use the type 4 cooling it looks better at doing the job to me.Wiring it will be fairly straight forward,just a bit of alternator wiring modification to do.
If you look around you could probably find the whole lot together from a scrapper.But be prepared for a lot of hard work and parts sourcing etc.Also you'll probably need to recondition the carbs as I've just found out. 3 sets of carbs and all the throttle spindles have worn out.So they need new bushes putting in.So it's probably best to budget for new carbs too.

It is definately a lot harder to go this way from a type 1 engine and will be more expensive.But you will end up with a nice set up if it's done right.

 

[veedubt2]

Some excellent feedback !

Ive done some researching and time to think things through, and feel it wouldnt be right to fit anything other than Aircooled .

So to start with, I'm going for a TES 1600 silver lump, ( been advised not to go for 1641, due to barrels warping),
A set of weber dual 34ict carbs, Pertronix ignitor & flame thrower coil, and a free flowing 4 into 1 stainless exhaust .

I'm told that this set up will be a massive improvment over stock, and going this route wont take me too long to get back on track, to get back doing the interior

Thanks for your imput

 

[VWAIRCOOLED]

That sounds good to me,you'll have a reliable set up with a bit of extra poke from the carbs.Maybe you could get them to put a sporty cam in there for you too for a little extra?