Anyone put a watercooled subaru engine in a beetle? Any advantages, disadvantages? I saw one in a manx once and thought I'd look into it for my baja. I know you'd have to pipe a radiator somewhere, but is it so hard?
-Wes
have a look at
they specalise in it also seen them at Santa Pod in England (just in case your in the states )
your looking at about £1500 -> £2500 for a convertion and yes the WRX engine does go in but with a load of "hacking"
John
VW Type IV engines also fit into a Beetle too -- with no hacking of the Beetle. Plus, since they produce so much *stock* power while being aircooled, you don't have to add so much weight-adding H20 plumbing. Even if you hopped a type IV engine up, it would still run cool as well as provide excellent power to weight ratio.
-Geoffe Elias
-74 Super Beetle
In last weekend's Bug Fest Malaysia, I did see one with a RX-7 engine in the car.
I understand it runs damn fast - speedo needle back up to 30 MPH or so!!!
He did complain about overheating, which will usually be the main problem with H2O in the type 1's.
I agree with the Type 4 power as suggested. That's cool if you have access to parts. Here we do not at all! (rats).
Take care and have a good time buggin'
DS3
That's an interesting question, for many reasons. I always thought it would be a fairly easy swap, both being flat fours. Best way to solve the water/radiator problem is to go to a one-peice 'glass frontend, cut some holes & put the radiator behind that. Run steel tubing through the car next to the heater channels, & insulate them (a muffler shop can bend up the tubing to fit the car). A friend did this using a Pinto engine in his baja & it was baaadasss! Recently I've given even more thought to the other way around: I want to put my Brat fwd/4wd running gear (turned aroung backward) in Annie, using my stroker VW engine. Wouldn't it be cool to have a rear-wheel drive/4 wheel drive Baja Bug with low range? *Nothing* could stop it! I've bookmarked
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