hi i have brought a 1972 1300cc vw beetle and was wondering is there any chance i can do an engine swap and put a vr6 engine onto it. i got alot of work to do ill try post some pics
there are loads going around with scooby engines and porsche engines in, any thing is possible with the right knowlege and budget tim
That does sound like a lot of work! Presumably an easier swap would be something aircooled or at least a boxer engine although I believe 911 engines are a tricky swap. Subaru flat fours are an easier option from what I've read!
interesting idea... I know of a guy running a 16v engine in a beetle... but he's had to cut a lot of the body to get it to fit. You can get rakes of power from vw flat-4 engines, there's plenty of people running 150bhp+ and the scooby conversion is also a popular route and fairly cheap... plus scooby engined bugs do this: and even running on VW Aircooled power, can do this:
Where abouts are you looking to fit the VR6? Out the back or Midmounted with the matching gearbox? The reason I ask is that the engine weighs a lot and the stock gearbox would struggle to take the power and the weight. MG
From memory when I used to customise beetles (I had four air-cooled VW's) The most popular conversion a few years ago was the alfa boxer engines. They're flat four and fit in the back without loosing too much bodywork. They pump out a reasonable 125 from the cloverleaf ones, a conversion to twin carbs (one on each bank) sees 150 bhp reliably for everyday use. You'll have to plumb in the radiators at the front of the car, and you might need a suplementry water pump (some production cars have these anyway). The gearboxes are not great, the best to go for is a late 1302/1303 or semi-auto beetle, as they have double trailing arm suspension, rather than the pants single trailing arms most have. Brakes, don't forget Beetles don't have assisted servos, so you'll have to add something else to compensate If you insist on a mid engined VR6, a trick the guys used to do is the turn the box over so it's pointing the other way & the bellhousing is facing the middle of the car. You then have 4 reverse gears However the beetle diffs allow you to turn them upside down to resolve this issue !
go for the scooby turbo conversion, there are kits out there that let you fit the whole engine in the standard mounting position and seeing as you can pick up complete (early) turbos for less than 2.5k then an engine shouldnt be too hard to come by. the advantages of this system are 1, the noise - they sound absoloutely increadable when they run up the qtr at the pod, 2, cheap tunablity, your coming out the box with about 200 horses and a few subtle upgrades (contact japanese performance magazine to get a copy of their back issue with a buying/tuning guide to series 1 imprezza t's), 3, as mentioned above, even to fit a valver requires a lot of body to be cut away so christ knows what that vr would need space wise. Good luck any way, it should be an interesting wee beetle when you've built it
hi well im not to sure what to do about the gear box but i don't mind ripping out the rear seats and and a custom see throught encloser for the engine so i can have a mid engined car also does any one know where i can get a nice engine from
