VW Engine Build-Off Input Request

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No can do. It would have been interesting, if I could use someone else's money ;) I'd be interersted in killing some typical american myths. (American engine builders in general are afraid of cam degrees and compression ratio.. a few exceptions exist)

Jan

Yes Jan, I would love to see some various views on those subjects also. VW of Brasil built some alcohol ac engines with very high compression ratios and very advanced timing which ran cool and had a lots of power in the 70s.

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So did everyone else :-)

Unfortunately, alcohol is a low energy fuel, compared to gasoline. (Methanol is about 57k BTU/gal, ethanol around 75k. Gasoline runs between 110k to 125k, depending on age & formulation.) Run straight alky and your miles-per-gallon takes a major hit. With the stock fuel tank, your range was between 100 - 150 miles... and away from the cities there simply aren't enough gas stations to make the alky engines practical.

But a lot of alky-engine PARTS made it into the United States -- and into the VW magazines, who called them 'Racing' parts of course and convinced the kiddies to buy them.

Unfortunately, with air cooled GASOLINE-fueled engines there is a fixed ratio between the size of your exhaust valve relative to its stem, which should be about 4:1. Fail to observe the rule and you'll see the service life of your exhaust valves take a header into the toilet. The big-valve heads for alky engines violate that ratio and engines using such heads typically fail the wiggle test at around 10,000 miles of California driving.

Which isn't any mystery engineering-wise nor to the editors of VW magazines. But the VW magazines are in business to make money from their ADVERTISERS, most of whom are dedicated to selling inappropriate parts to technologically naive youngsters. Unfortunately, doing so guarantees air cooled Volkswagens will go the way of the dodo. In effect, the VW-specific magazines have worked very hard to guarantee their own demise -- a kind of publishing-suicide.

-Bob Hoover