Q: What's the Purpose?
A: So that enthusiasts can drive classic VWs, rather than struggle to keep them running with a failing supply chain of substandard parts. The intent is to cooperate on developing specifications for re-powering classic Volkswagens with EJ series Subaru boxer engines.
To accomplish this, we're doing something radically new: It's called sharing. Our goal is to create a set of best practices that can either be executed by a DIY enthusiast to produce a reliable, cost effective power-train, or farm out some more difficult work (fabrication, engine wiring harness work) to other specialists who aren't going to take you to the cleaners. Contributors can help shape component lists, procedures, configurations and fabrication specs so that anyone, anywhere, for fun or profit, can assemble a well proven engine solution for their classic Volkswagen.
Welcome to VolksarU.
Where U are part of the solution.
A: Most of us who would even consider such a conversion cut our teeth on air-cooled engines and love them for their simplicity, and unique engineering cleverness. Truly, many would be content to keep pushing our classic VWs down the road with a classic air-cooled engine, warts and all. But as many enthusiasts have commented on, we are past the Crossing Point in the quality of parts available for air-cooled applications: You pay much more now for worse parts quality than you did five years ago.
The Porsche / Kales / Reimspieß engine design (and its many evolutionary descendants) expand so much at operating temperature that they must be quite tolerant of manufacturing variations. The fact that replacement parts quality has fallen so low that new parts, fresh from the factory, must immediately be ungraded by a narrowing breed of specialists tells the tale of cheap, offshore outsourcing too well. This is the legacy of VW owners being cheapskates: The habit of preferring to pay the least amount possible for parts has driven manufacturers to produce parts that let them make a profit on thin margins. Quality falls, and falls, and falls to match the prices that the classic Volkswagen consumer is willing to pay. This is a problem that will not solve itself, and will only get worse.
Secondly, the air-cooled boxer was engineered for a different era of emissions and fuel types and freeway speeds. Every successive squeeze of legislation puts the air-cooled design further from daily driver viability. If modern engines are struggling with Ethanol laced gasoline, how will an expensive, vintage, hot-running air-cooled engine fare? We're already seeing the answer: poorly.
The air-cooled engine has had a glorious seventy-five years in the sun. Certainly, there will be a continued market for air-cooled parts even in their declining quality. The classic air-cooled VW will certainly be pushed passed its Century mark by an air-cooled engine. Yet the daily driver must consider alternate options to keep their ride alive.
Q: The conversions I've seen are either shade-tree perversions or high dollar custom work. Everyone seems to solve their own problem with whatever scrap parts they have lying around. How is VolksarU going to be any different?
Standardization and Best Practice are driven by the following tiers of priority that guide product selection and design:
Reliability - Priority 1. This is in direct response to the failing quality of parts and inability to adapt the air-cooled engine to modern fuels, emissions, and mpg expectations. If an alternate power plant solution cost more, didn't last as long, and was just as mild in its acceleration performance, higher reliability for the anticipated life span would still be an improvement over the current state of affairs with air-cooled engine quality. Thus, Reliability trumps all other considerations.
Note: Reliability is different from Longevity. A product may be highly reliable for only a short period of time, so MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) expectations should be set in advance. Tires made for greatest Longevity wouldn't work very well as tires, which wear as a side effect of being highly reliable for their period of intended use. Reliability is within the envelope of 'intended use,' the total distance you will use them for. Use them outside that range, and you don't get to cry about them not being reliable. Cars, predictably, do not have a 'Longevity' amount published, because they are so complicated and compliance with the maintenance schedule can have a large effect on their Longevity.
Cost Control - Cost of a solution is not a guarantee of quality. (Consider the worked example of high dollar NASA contracting relative to the plucky low-buck SpaceX Merlin engine development that will do the same job for 1/8 of the cost of the traditional players.) Therefore, VolksarU prefers COTS parts (Commercial, Off-The-Shelf) whenever possible, low volume fabricated parts next, and finally 'one unit at a time' local fabrication from plans. Building anything based on "what I've got layin' around" is a hanging offense.
A single specification narrows the variations of implementation, and increases our highest priority, Reliability. It also creates a stable platform upon which the adventurous may experiment, improving Reliability, Longevity and Cost or, if it is their alternate desire, Performance. The first three goals are VolksarU priorities. Performance improvements are only a happy side effect. As improvements are made from the existing specification, they can be rolled back in to create later releases of the specification which in turn improves the system.
DIY Friendly - As stated above, some DIY conversions deserve the insult "perversion." The difference between a 'hack' and 'workmanship' is the same as the difference between an outhouse and a residential bathroom: Both fulfill the same function, but you don't linger to read the newspaper in an outhouse. An outhouse it often built from available scraps of lumber and so no two are alike. A residential bathroom conforms to a general set of norms. The parallel is obvious: Hacks are not something anyone would wish to reproduce, but they may get the job done in that instance.
For The VolksarU Project to function, the design of the engine mounting, cooling system, and ECU (Electronic Control Unit) need to be standardized such that ordinary home shop tools and the minimal skills necessary to assemble a bicycle without loss of blood are all that are required to perform the conversion. Those with fabrication skills or equipment may become a source of fabricated parts for many VolksarU participants.
Longevity - In 1973 the maximum lifespan of a vehicle was 10 years or 100,000 miles (Consumer Reports, 04/73.) The air-cooled Volkswagen was no different in this respect than other cars of its time which had good reliability reports. Today, the burdensome and fast moving EPA emission policies of the 1970s and following have forced the production of cars which are vastly more reliable, easier to diagnose, emit orders of magnitude less pollution and as a side effect of increasing their mpg efficiency, last longer than ever. Today, well engineered used cars over ten years old and over 100,000 miles are spoken of as 'just getting broken in.' What a change! The VolksarU Project intends to leverage that longevity so that we spend more time in our classic VW driving, and less time under the VW troubleshooting and performing maintenance.
A final benefit of jumping the engine technology forward by sixty years is that parts for the Subaru EJ series of engines are plentiful, still in production, inexpensive and durable. These facts satisfy Longevity, Cost Control and Reliability all by themselves.
Q: What about the huge Performance boost available from a Subaru engine? Isn't that a priority?
A: In short, no. As mentioned above, performance improvements are merely a happy accident, the product of Reliability, Cost Control and Longevity converging. This is a great thing for the greatest number of classic VW owners who will make use of the information assembled and then tested by participants in the VolksarU Project. But performance isn't a goal for the VolksarU Project. In the pursuit of the goal of Reliability, Cost Control, DIY Friendly and Longevity, the circle is being drawn small and manageable around engine types that will be in the initial specification. So Subaru Turbo isn't in the cards because it increases complexity, which runs counter to all four stated goals.
Inevitably, there are always those experimental souls who want to make anything go faster and would likely be content with an engine and a seat belt. (And if it would squeeze out an extra two HP, might skip the belt.) This mentality, coupled with the Subaru's reputation for building very fast, very agile cars might seem like a match made in the morgue. For those to wish to pursue it, we'll wait for your reports with interest.
Q: Don't you know that other people have been doing this professionally since the early 90s? How is this any different from previous efforts?
A: Even though no one knows who did the first Subaru to classic Volkswagen transplant, there have been a number of trailblazers in the adaptation of the Subaru engine to Volkswagen chassis. Hobart Kennedy is generally considered to be the first and his legal efforts secured the California Air Resources Board issued Executive Order #D-428-2 for conversion of Vanagons when using the Kennedy products. Other innovators include Richard Jones of RJES in Staffordshire, England, UK; Custom VeeDub in Stafford, Queensland, Australia; Fellows SpeedShop in Birmingham, England, UK, as well as dozens of independent shops in the United States and the UK have all come at the challenge from slightly different angles. We honor all of their efforts.
The VolksarU Project is different from these other adaptations because:
- It is not merely a diary of one single adaptation.
- VolksarU is not a business trying to offer a service or sell products.
- The VolksarU Project is an exercise in Open Design, based on the same ideas about collaborative development that created the Linux Computer Operating System, as well as thousands of other products that have been cooperatively developed by companies and innovators who think that the fastest way forward for everyone is by collaboration, rather than closed-door "secret-sauce" competition. As such, examples of best practices have been sourced from all over the Internet.
The Open Hardware movement has accelerated the creation of 3D Printers (RepRaps) and the Arduino micro-controller both of which are produced using the combination of COTS hardware and a few pieces of inexpensively fabricated components, just as the VolksarU Project will be.
If the idea of Open Design intrigues you, I highly recommend the free online book Open Design Now.
If you have other questions about The VolksarU Project, please comment below and I'll address them.
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