A Rainbow of Wiring

"A pox on both your houses!" 

- Mercutio, Romeo & Juliet ActIII, scene1

I cannot say how much I hate wiring. Well, actually, I can...but not unless I censor it heavily for this blog.

I'm not scared of it, mind you. Dad first set me up wielding a soldering gun and made me practice making good solder joints for electronic applications when I was seven. I've been doing my own stuff for a long time and I don't think there's a car I've owned in 30 years that I didn't wire up like Hi-Fi freak's basement when it came time to put tunes in.

Automotive electrical doesn't scare me either: 2 months after I had driven my 1977 VW Scirocco coast to coast for college, I tried to start up one chilly morning and got nothing. So I started my father's classic diagnostics: "Fuel, Fire, Air." Those diags led me to pay-dirt in 2 minutes flat, which was good because I didn't even own a multi-meter at the time: Turned the key to run, and heard...nothing. I should have heard the fuel pump by the left rear wheel come on. I'd only owned the car for 5 months, but I'd read the repair manual cover-to-cover as a sleep aid. I hot-wired ("jumpered") the pump power on, confirming that the busted part was the pump relay and drove the car into town to lose a week's income for a new relay.

So I ain't 'fraid a no wires.

From 1949 VW used a pictorial style of wiring diagram and it gave you a sense of not only what the wiring path was, but also where the components were within the chassis. as well as a literal line drawing of the starter and even where to connect what wire. DIY bliss.

While busy, the diagram is readable. The components are accurately drawn, and there are no nutty surprises.

In 1973 VW changed to a schematic diagram style which showed only a common ground and symbols for the components. The diagrams went from readable to migraine inducing. I'm not the only one. I've offered them to many of my friends who are Electrical Engineers and they've stared at them and to a man, all have said, "Well, it might be accurate but this is almost impossible to read. I wouldn't want to work on a system that required using this as a guide." Uh, oh.

A part of my soul just died.

Because of the schematic style, the wipers, starter, heat blower fan, and fuel pump are all represented by the same symbol. (There's a cookie for anyone who can think of what all of these things have in common electrically.) There was a separate key published for what component each symbol represented (in case you didn't have an EE degree) and a reference to what "current track" to ground it was on. You had to click your eyes back and forth between the schematic and the key of over 100 different components to puzzle it out. There was also no sense of proportion: A switch might be located between a component and the ground and the whole line be only an inch long, but the true distance in the vehicle is a wire running all the way from the dashboard to the engine at the rear.

A raging nightmare...unreadable.

By the way, the aforementioned are, electrically speaking, motors. So they all look just the same, diagramatically:

In 1979, VW realized their mistake and began adding pictorial style components back in to the schematic diagram, even captioning some of them within the diagram. A 1979 diagram is close to my 1977, so I often consult the 1972 (pictorial), the 1977 (schematic), and the 1979 (hybrid) all to make sure that the wire I'm staring at in the half-light really is Blue/Red, and not Blue/Black that has faded with heat and time and really is supposed to be attached to the alternator idiot light.

In short, the diagram is barely readable, the color coding often insufficient to communicate meaning, and the whole harness supports a primitive EFI system (Bosch L-Jet) where the ECU is only smart enough to squirt fuel relative to air intake. Every other part of the EFI sub-system is uncoordinated from the ECU. As a systems designer, this whole thing makes my gut go cold: So many ways for it to go wrong, both catastrophically and subtly.

Now replace the engine, EFI system and uncoordinated components with a Subaru and its much smarter brain. Have a kindly Subaru wiring harness expert make trims to remove all of the unnecessary items and send the Subaru harness back to you with the admonishment: "Three wires: 12v battery, Key ON, Fuel Pump. If you can't figure out where to attach three wires to your vehicle chassis harness, I can't help you." He's right. How hard could it be?

Harder than it looks. Subaru harnesses are notorious for subtle differences from month to month, let alone from year to year and model to model. Maybe Subaru has some serious quality control issues in their wiring assembly division, because sometimes the signalling wire from the whatsit to whizgig is Blue with a White stripe...or Red with a Yellow stripe, or ....Brown. Consult the factory service manual for the model, year, trim, and market  (Impreza MY1997, Outback Sport, LHD USA) and that diagram says the wire in question should be Chartreuse with an Indigo stripe. Oh, hell.

Usually such headaches hurt less with a Subaru because everything terminates at a fitting, and every fitting is shaped so that it can only connect to a specific component. The electrons don't care what color the insulation is, so why should you? You're guaranteed that you can't plug in to the wrong place.

Until you cut the harness. Then that certitude is lost. Now try to graft it to a chassis harness designed to support an uncoordinated Solid State EFI system only slightly more complicated than a transistor radio to a reasonably modern ECU which pretty much requires 'three wires' to make it go.

The good news is that some things don't change. Both systems use the positive stud at the starter motor as the primary junction for the chassis harness, the ECU, the battery, and the alternator output. Both systems use the chassis as a common ground. Both systems use 12 volt power. The bad news is that those are where all of the similarities between the two systems ends.

My harness man is right: If you can't figure out where to hook up three wires, maybe you're in over your head. I know what the big three need to DO, I know what the electrical path is for them to do it, and I know what the switching path is (at the front of the vehicle on the other side of where you turn the key.) What I'm having trouble unravelling is VW's baffling diagram, and which parts of the factory EFI interface I can ignore, and which ones I must route around, and which ones I have to live with.

Sidebar: When it comes to systems (technological, religious, ethical, philosophical, etc.,) all of them have fundamentals that are the starting point for everything else. This reductivism is helpful, because they restrain adherents who inevitably wish to complicate it. An example would be Jesus' directive to love God first, and then love others as much as you love yourself. Others include The Five Pillars of Islam. The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. Ken Thompson's 3 Rules of UNIX Philosophy. All systems with a limited set of starting rules. The fact that they're systems conceived for completely different purposes is irrelevant.

The T2B VW Bus electrical system has three fundamentals:

Suitable for framing, while doing VW wiring.

• Terminals #30 are ALWAYS powered, even if the key is OFF.
• Terminals #15 are only powered when the key is in the 'run' position.
• Terminals #50 are only powered when the key in the 'start' position.

Notice these are "Terminals" or connection points, not the wire in-between. It comes to the same thing as long as the wire doesn't join or branch. This should make everything much simpler. By convention (certainly not a guarantee, but good enough to guide you if you Trust But Verify) each of these is color coded:

Red is always #30 (12v, unswitched.) If you see a pure red wire, it is tapped back to the battery and is live all of the time. Other color wires may also be #30 (Red/White) so this is not a 1:1 relationship. #30 is often but not always R/R, R/R is ALWAY #30. (R/W is the trunk line power to the fuse panel and therefore, everything under the control of the driver. As soon as it joins the panel...back to RED.)

Black is always #15.  Unlike #30, #15 is always a conditional source: they key must be in 'run' to make #15 live. #15 then distributes power to other sub-connections. Find any component that only works when the key is in 'run.' Stare at the wiring diagram. Stare harder: even if you have to jump through a few conditional switches, you WILL find your way back to #15. An easy example is the back-up lighting.

#50 is always Red/Black. Thankfully, there is very little of it. It's pretty much a single wire with two ends and no branches: One at the ignition switch where it receives power from #30, and one at the starter solenoid. When you turn the key to 'start' the switch closes between #30 (R/R) and #50 (R/Bk) and the power hits the starter solenoid which pulls the starter gear into place. The starter takes care of it's own heavy Amp power switching itself. When the engine catches and you let go of the key (which falls back to 'run') #50 is disconnected and the solenoid retracts the starter gear. Now in 'run' (#15) everything that is #15 dependent is available.

Soon I'll give you a better idea of what the actual 1:1 connections are between the T2B Bus, and an OBD2 Subaru ECU. It turns out, the major challenge is knowing what to IGNORE.

Exhausting Work

It has been three weeks since I got any appreciable work done on the Bus, and it is irritating the life out of me. Not that there is much I can do about it: The latter half of my vacation week was taken up with family duties surrounding Easter, and when I walked back into work the next Monday morning, all hell had broken loose in my absence. I'm not sure this vacation thing really works for me: If I take a week off, I don't have a week's worth of work waiting for me when I return, I have five weeks worth of work, so it has been 14 hour days for more than a month, such that I return home wrung out like a damp rag. This doesn't seem like a fair trade-off. So five weeks later, I'm finally starting to see the waves above me and hope to break the surface soon.

That said, I had a pretty un-memorable time working on the Bus' retrofit by way of Rocky Mountain Westy products. This isn't a dig at RMW, it's compliment! Most memorable experiences I have when wrenching are BAD memories. So 'unmemorable' is the highest compliment I can give.

Most of the RMW solutions are straight up bolt-on. During the week when I could work, I got a lot finished: and even more mocked up. Instead of just telling what I did, I decided the best use of this blog would be to show and comment, rather than describe to death. In this installment, we'll review the Rocky Mountain Westy Stainless Steel Exhaust system.

First installed are stand-offs that the heat-shield / muffler support mounts to. They replace the cam belt cover bolts. If you can't manage this part, you should probably not be working on your own car yourself. Also, you should probably get someone else to brush your teeth. (Tech Tip: Juice up the old cam cover bolts the night before with PB Blaster so you don't round off the bolt heads. Don't use an adjustable wrench or even an open end wrench: use a socket. This is not a component that you want to get stuck.)

The standoffs come with letters stamped on their bodies and a diagram for which cam cover bolts each one is to replace. This is paint-by-numbers, made easy for the DIY installer.

Heat shield mounted on standoffs. Note un-used vertical holes to the right (for muffler bracket and strap) and to the left (for EJ25 engines which have additional points which may accept standoffs.) One part that works for both engine applications.

The standoffs hold the heat shield away from the plastic timing belt cover just enough to protect the cover and provide a finger-width distance from the crank pulley. It is a safe clearance, but replacing a belt would be cramped, and replacing the crank pulley itself would require dismantling the entire exhaust system. Still, that isn't a part that you're likely to replace on a whim. If you just MUST get your bling on with a new crank pulley, install it before you add the exhaust components.

Having bolted down the exhaust heat shield to the standoffs, I added the powder coated steel bracket for the 6" round Magnaflow muffler. Whenever possible, I flip the fasteners around so that the bolt head represent either the least ground clearance or hide the nuts and threads for aesthetic purposes. In this case, only the bolt heads are visible because they're facing to the rear where you look in at the engine: the threads and nuts are still accesible from above where you can't see them unless you climb into the engine compartment. Suffice it to say, the bracket hardware remains accessible while not flashing the less lovely bits to the public.

Powder coated 12ga. steel bracket bolted to .080 Corrugated Aluminum heat shield. This bracket is specifically designed to support the 6" diameter Magnaflow mufflers, though there is scarcely room in the cavity for anything else. The Subaru design expected to put the exhaust UNDER the engine, 

The T304 exhaust manifold for the right hand side exhaust port.
RMW provides exhaust for both single and dual port EJ engines.

Having installed all of the support materials, I started on the exhaust manifold proper. Also T304 Stainless Steel, all of the RMW manufactured mandrel bent tubing (coolant and exhaust) came with their ends capped to keep debris out of them. Excellent attention to detail and beautiful TIG welded joints and fittings.

The secret sauce for assembly is that the whole system is modular. Some folks have expressed nerves about slip-fit exhaust. If the whole thing were just held in place 'slip-fit' I'd agree. Instead, it uses Stainless Steel Torque-tite band clamps and the slip-fit joints are two inches deep (except for one, which I'll get to.)

The exhaust manifold prior to the CAT is a serpentine thing that each leg joins, then exits to the left, then swings back toward the right side via a 180° elbow to bend the exhaust flow up into the engine bay. The 180° elbow has a bung in it that the up-stream O2 sensor can be mounted in. In my case, I'm interested in the delta between the O2 values pre-CAT and post-CAT since my ECU has the capacity to measure both. (Recording the delta between the two lets you see what the efficiency of your CAT is and when it begins to fail. Some folks go without the upstream and just record the downstream values, tricking the ECU into thinking that the emissions are cleaner than they really are.)

You can assemble the lower portion of the exhaust manifold, and then work the whole thing up (according to packaging instructions) with muffler cement. Goop up the inside of the larger ID slip fit, then assemble and loosely add the torq-tite clamp.

(Note: Before you go cranking bolts down on the exhaust studs, make sure that you can get a properly fitting exhaust nut all the way up and down the stud; used studs are often pretty rusty or corroded. Running this simple exercise BEFORE you try to mount the manifold might make your life a lot easier just in the confidence of knowing that you can add new exhaust nuts to the existing studs and know that they'll come off again without snapping off the stud. Plenty of PB Blaster and some quality time running the new nut up and down the stud is worth a world of confidence when it comes to the final fit-up.)

Get the assembly under the car and bolt up to the exhaust ports, remembering to sandwich the gasket in between the manifold and the port. Tighten down your exhaust stud nuts to finger tight, such that the whole shebang wants to stay in place. Once both sides are done, wiggle until both sides are aligned, then add the torque-tite and tighten down on it until it wants to hang on. Torque-tite bolts are 14mm.

Run the same procedure for the 180° elbow. (It should still be able to pivot at both ends when finished, as you'll need to pivot around both the top and bottom portions of tubing and components as you rotate the assembly into final position.) This moves us to the top of the stack: The CAT and the muffler. Predictably, this is where it get interesting.

The muffler is the reversible Magnaflow 16450, a 6" round 18" long body with 3" long input / ouput pipes which are both offset from center on opposite sides. That CAT is also a Magnaflow unit.

This picture is a wealth of information: All of the slip-fit portions are dry fitted together and you can see some of the modifications that had to be made: 1) The left rear bumper bracket had to be clearanced, 2) The sequence of slip fit components means that each component added should have an input larger than the output. 3) the upstream O2 sensor visible behind the tubing elbow is screwed into place, 4) The muffler is BIG when lifted high into the space, necessitating the heat shield. All components are T304 Stainless Steel.

This is sort of the Achilles heel of the installation for people who want to run and gun. The components require modification for use in a Bay-Window Bus, the kit having been originally designed for the much wider Vanagon. There just isn't the same amount of space to fit the whole stack of the elbow, CAT and muffler into the narrower space available without some modification. It isn't short by much, but it's enough to cause problems that will stop the project dead in its tracks: The muffler is too long to fit in the space comfortably. The body occludes the muffler at the right rear when the muffler clamped into the support we saw earlier. The only way that this 'almost, not quite' solution works is by some judicious trimming in the right places. The following are the steps that I took to deal with it, steps that anyone with a $15 grinder and a nearby muffler shop can cope with.

First, we'll bob the inlet of the CAT, a Magnaflow 53034 recommended for this installation:

Take your die grinder and remove 15mm of the inlet end, e.g. the end opposite of the O2 bung. When you fit the CAT into the flared end of the 180° elbow, it will now shift 15mm to the left.

Take your muffler to a reputable muffler shop and have them stretch out either end (but not both) to accept the CAT's 2" OD outlet. Since one now fits inside the other, you just bought 25mm of width back. Best to take the CAT with you for a test fit. it should be as close a fit as you can manage.

Here you can see the outlet of the CAT (left, with O2 sensor above) INSIDE the stretched inlet of the muffler (right). Fitting one inside the other  buys back another 25mm, again shifting the muffler to the left. But now you must clamp these two together to make a seal: you can't 'unstretch' the muffler inlet pipe. Welding (since it is Stainless Steel) would be with TIG: Expensive. Instead, we'll make our own ersatz fitting.

Using the cutting wheel again on the inlet, cut 5 parallel relief cuts 20mm long equidistant

around the pipe, just short of where the pipe flares out to its largest diameter.

(If you pass that line where the pipe flares out, you'll never get it to seal. So don't botch it.)

Now you finally have the option of getting a clamp around this stinker and crimping down on it. As before, I used muffler cement liberally since this is the most likely spot (due to the relief cuts) for there to be leak. So I gooped up the inside of the muffler inlet and then inserted the outlet of the CAT all the way inside. Then I added the clamps shown below.

I used a basic set of 1-5/16in" to 2-1/4" dia adjustable  Stainless Steel clamps sourced from my local Lowes. (PN 48536.) The mating area is thoroughly gooped up with muffler cement, and the clamps worked down tight. Between the friction fit, the clamping effect of the adjustable clamps and the pressure of tubing which can collapse and seal the better for the presence of the relief cuts, this should be a well sealed connection.

So judicious trimming bought back enough space to be able to slip-fit all of the parts together and pull the right end in considerably. Total up all of the trims, and the muffler moved more than 1-1/2" to the left. But we're not quite through yet: We're going to shift the 180° elbow to the left, too, which will move the whole upper stack to the left by enough to allow the muffler to clear comfortably.

To shift the upper stack to the left, a compromise must be made at the bottom slipfit joint of the elbow. The elbow permits about a 2.25" overlap of the slipfit which is then covered by the 2" long Torqtite band clamp. To shift the whole upper stack to the left, I overlap the exhaust manifold by only 1.25" and then put the 2" bandclamp in place. 

This solution does not thrill me, since the elbow now hangs out to the left and forces me to clearance the left rear bumper bracket. Short of a re-engineered exhaust manifold, it is the only way to move the upper stack (CAT & muffler) the last full inch for a total of a 2.5" shift to the left for the muffler. This is just enough to allow the muffler to clear the body and still have a finger width of clearance.

The details of the trivial trim. No plasma cutter required, just an obnoxious
swipe with a sharpie to follow, and some  sacrificial cut-off wheels for my grinder.

The clearanced bumper bracket. I'll be candid: this did not make me happy. Not because I think that the extra bit of steel is going to be the difference between life and death, but because the clearance is so close, it might interfere with plans I have for an eventual tow bar installed in those bracket positions. I don't see how that will be possible with this setup without having to cleverly wade back in with the grinder.

The CAT dry-fitted to the elbow, showing the amount of clearance required.

The exhaust adaptation is by far one of the more headachy challenges that relies on some commodity products (Muffler, CAT) as well as niche production products from RMW, and neither of the solutions are ideal. It is an intensely tight fit. It works; let there be no misunderstandings. But it is awkward and needs to have a better way to crunch space to make a Bay Window fit as elegantly as it does on a Vanagon. The great news is that once you've gone to the trouble of fitting it, removing and replacing components is dead simple. The Stainless Steel exhaust manifold is extremely well made, and if there ever was a reason to replace a component, the ability to unbolt components from each other without having to revert to the sawzall is great.

There may be other designs out there which will connect to a repurposed EJ22 or EJ25, but none that are built to be emissions compliant from the word go, and none that are built to this level of fit and finish. (Fit for the engine, not necessarily this engine bay.) If you have to deal with a State which is likely to hassle you on your emissions compliance, being able to open the decklid and immediately point at the upstream O2 sensor as well as the down stream O2 sensor threaded into the CAT, this is your solution. I expect to raise quite a few eyebrows with this for everyone who still harbors the 'speed freak' assumption about engine swappers, or the 'dirty hippy' view of VW Buses in general. As solutions go, it allows you to back up to your independent Subaru repair shop and they will know where all of the important engine parts are.

Coolant's Full Monty

I've got all of the Rocky Mountain Westy designed cooling loop in place, from the engine output all the way down to the heater wye hole in front of the torsion bar and back to the thermostat side of the Subaru EJ22. I've got busted knuckles and I'm grinning like a madman. Someone finally got it right, and damned if I'm not the beneficiary!

For those of you coming in during the Intermission, here's the quick recap: The bright lads at Rocky Mountain Westy produced a beautiful vehicle specific stainless steel coolant tubing kit similar to what they provide as replacement components for the Vanagon's oddball plastic coolant tubing that runs the length of the vehicle. Through some polite discussion with the owners of RMW, and a willingness to be the guinea-pig as they worked the kinks out of beta testing and making it ready for production, I got hold of a set of these lovely mandrel bent tubes, fittings and miscellany required to move coolant down to the heater wye area in front of the transmission nose-cone.

We're focusing on all of the stainless steel coolant tubing in the left third of the above diagram.

I have my own engineered solution for the radiator and cooling, but needed the components in the engine bay to be reliable. While I'll only briefly touch on my radiator solution in this post, I did want to show off the beautiful and clever work that RMW has performed. The idea that underlies their design differs from every other one I've seen: It's called "Nobody Move!"

What I mean by that is the worst, yet most common attribute of conversions is the use of generic/universal/cheap components, fitted one to another like tinker-toys, just enough to make a path to the radiator and back. A reasonable car buyer who looked under the hood of a new car and saw what is under the decklid of most engine conversions would scream like a sheep in that Superbowl Sprint commercial. (I won't insult your intelligence by linking it. If you want to hear it so bad, Google it.)

Instead, the RMW coolant tubing design is a delight of components rigidly aligned in the engine bay, and when their support transfers from the engine to the chassis, there is a flexible coupler interspersed to make both fore and aft sections rigid relative to the component that they're connected to: Engine supported at the rear, chassis supported at the front leading down to the heater wye.

So let me lead you on a tour of the system. For clarity, I'll be using the orientation definitions in the classic How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive by John Muir: "Front is Front." When working on engines which face you when installed backwards in the vehicle...people get 'front' confused sometimes. My descriptions are based upon the alignment of the vehicle. Thus forward is toward the front, rear is to the back, and so on, use your imagination: behind, in front of, left side, right side, etc. I don't use the terms like driver's side, or passenger side or 'nearside' or 'offside': They are without a referent and are confusing. Everyone can do front, back, left and right. I DO use two nautical/aerospace terms for which there is no suitable substitute on a car: inboard (closer to the centerline axis of the vehicle) and outboard (closer to the exterior of the vehicle.) This way I can say that the vehicle speed sensor signal wheel is bolted to the inboard left constant-velocity joint. And you should know where that is, exactly.

Outlet from the coolant manifold at the top left of the engine, with hot
coolant passing through a coupler and into a 130° clockwise
rotation which sends the coolant forward down the left side of the
engine bay.

Looking left down the aluminum heat shield, we pass the first hard
mount to the engine. These "T-bolt" clamps put a threaded stud
perpendicular to the side of the tube. When tightened, they both clamp the
tube (placing compression equally around the circumference) but also
create a handy 1-1/2" long thread which may be used to secure
them and the tube to other objects.

Since this is experimentation time with the components that I was
sent by RMW, I felt a certain freedom to try different methods to
 secure the tubing. In this case, I chose to use the mounting tang
to attach to the heat shield. The shield doesn't really bear any weight,
it just restrains the tubing from moving.

Looking forward down the left side of the engine, the tubing transits 

inline with the engine and then jogs inboard , tucking somewhat in 

front of the engine to clear the body cavity of the engine compartment.

Looking forward, After the jog inboard, the hot coolant pipe straightens
out as it passes the transmission. When it reaches near the nose cone,
 there is a silicone coupler that separates the rear, engine mounted tubing
from the forward leg which is supported by the chassis. The flexible
coupler isolates vibrations from the engine from shaking the whole
tube, and vice versa: chassis movement is isolated from the engine.

Hot coolant tube and torsion tube viewed while facing forward, 

detail of previous picture. After passing the coupler, the forward left length 

of tubing passes over the torsion bar tube. This needs to be secured in 

such a way that the tubing doesn't press up against the body above, 

or the torsion bar below. It must pass through the area above the torsion bar 

with 1/4" (6.3mm) to spare above and below. The secret is in the bracketry

 which again ties on to the t-bar clamp so that the tubing stays where 

you put it. The tilt in the bracket allow the tubing to be pressed inboard, 

directly over the left rear trailing arm joint.

Without the bend in the bracket, this wouldn't be possible.

The brackets clamp around the torsion bar tube so that the forward section

 of the hot-side tubing is held rigidly in place. It's best to keep the fittings

 all a bit loose while connecting everything.

Here is where the hot side terminates, just behind the rear transverse support heater wye cutout. 

(Out of frame, to the right,) I found that by loosely putting all of the components in place and then tie-wrapping the outlet/inlet tubes together at the wye cutout, when everything is tightened down and the tie-wrap is removed, the tubes want to stay in place. Note that the hot pipe coming down (middle of the frame) is SUSPENDED between torsion tube and floor. Once all of the fittings are tightened down, it's not going anywhere. Try to give it a shake and you'll just injure yourself.

Now we've reached the transition where the VolksarU system takes over. For the purposes of this overview, we're going to assume that the tubing has transited into the central box area of the frame, passed through the radiator and exited back through the other tube, 

forward on the right hand (top of frame.)

The cold return tube (foreground) while looking to the left. Return coolant travels back to the engine, but first vaults over the torsion tube the same way the hot side did on its way to the radiator. There are two critical differences on the return: the coolant re-enters the engine at the bottom, and the pipes and brackets are shaped completely differently to accommodate that need.

 Facing to the rear, the front right tubing passes over the torsion bar and joins
the rear right tubing for its final external portion of the coolant run.
This happens just behind the torsion bar, to the right of the transmission nose cone.
Note that the bracket on the return side (right) is shaped differently and located
differently (inboard of the swing arm joint, instead of outboard.)

View facing the right rear. We're past the return coupler and are on our 

way to the thermostat. There's a lot of bob-and-weave, though: 

The final tube at the right rear comes up to clear the carrier bar 

(black, foreground), and then with another t-bar clamp and 

mounting tang, transfers it securement to the engine.

So there we go! That's as complete a circuit as I can make of the RMW coolant tubing kit. I can say that between the brackets, clamps, silicone hose couplers and the perfect fit only possible with CNC bent and beaded 16ga Stainless Steel tubing, the value (price I won't mention, since this isn't a production item yet) is phenomenal.

I still have the expansion tank to get hoses on, and then it will be time to mount the radiator which has already been dry-fitted and only waits for some fan electrical fittings and the time to perform the work. At the moment, I'm flat on my back and sick as a dog from having pushed myself too hard at work and some virus got me and gave me a smack down, which is the only reason this got written.

The Urge to Purge

About six years ago, I wrote an article on The Samba about rebuilding your M26 vapor recovery system for the Super Beetle. The article was very well received, mostly because it was the first time that anyone on that forum had taken the time to explain in small words and simple diagrams that the vapor recovery system was not some "power robbing emissions junk" (unlike the EGR or Air Pump) but rather a simple and convenient way to save fuel, not rupture your fuel tank or...well, catch fire.

The simplest version of the EVAP system ( as it is now known) is to capture fuel vapors coming off a warm tank full of fuel (which is trying hard to become a gas and escape) in a matrix of charcoal (absorption) and when you restarted the engine, purge the canister (adsorption) by pumping fresh air in one end and air + vapors out the other to the air filter, where they get sucked into the engine and burned. No fuel wasted, the cloud of gasoline vapor captured and safe from some bum flipping his burning butt under your Bus (FOOM!) and fewer Hydrocarbons for everyone to breathe. Everyone wins. Prior to 1970, all vehicles just dumped excess vapors to the atmosphere, which is why SoCal had smog that could just about kill on contact. A lot of good has come this simple change.

The Super Beetle User Manual's description of the M26 EEC system. It is hard to get it much simpler than this.

This is not a complicated system: three hoses (fresh air input from fan housing, evaporative tap from fuel tank, purge hose to the engine air filter) and one canister to hold the charcoal where the three hoses meet. Yet somehow over the years, M26 has developed a reputation as being more trouble than it is worth...until the driver wonders why they're constantly finding their garage or vehicle cab smelling like a refinery. At that point, the M26 system has usually be gutted and the parts thrown away.

Modern vehicles have improved methods of performing exactly the same job. The methods differ because now we have vehicle ECUs that are smarter than most drivers. The ECU consumes huge amounts of data to improve performance, reliability and reduce emissions, and here's where I run into a collision of cultures: A vehicle from the early days of emissions control, and a post 1996 On Board Diagnostics (OBD2) ECU standardized system, in this case by Subaru. OBD2 based systems are bristling with sensors and actuators that aren't on the vintage VW and can't be economically added. So again, we must make substitutions and do primary engineering to interface the two incompatible systems from different eras.

The VW has only a fuel level sensor wired directly to the gauge. In OBD2 vehicles, there is a level sensor, a fuel temperature sensor, a pressure sensor, and actuators as well. All data passes through the ECU, which is either great engineering or tin-foil hat scary depending on your temperament.

I started examining the OBD2 system and immediately got confused. The VW system is based on positive air pressure from the fan housing, pushing the vapors out of the canister and into the air filter where the air from the canister would be metered by the mechanical Air Flow Meter (AFM.) By contrast, the Subaru system is tapped to the intake manifold (downstream of both the throttle AND the MAF) drawing a vacuum through the carbon canister. So how do you keep from sucking unmetered air into the Subaru engine and running lean as a result? Would the earlier system be better, because the reclaimed fuel vapor was at least metered by the AFM?

After studying for several hours, my understanding of the OBD2 is improved enough that I have a plan for how to tackle it. To describe the adaptation though, I have to explain what an OBD2 compliant EVAP system is actually intended to do. Hint: It isn't just a blind system anymore. Self-tests have finally become the norm, admitting that any system will fail if it has no way to sanity-test its own safety systems. By contrast. the VW L-Jet ECU in the late Bay Bus is just barely smart enough to inject fuel.

Here's how EEC (Evaporative Emissions Control) worked in the early days:

1. The early 1971-1974 EEC forcibly pumped air into the carbon canister any time the engine was running. Any trapped vapors from the fuel tank were expelled to the air cleaner. 
1. Pro: Dumb as dirt and worked as well as legislation required at the time. 
2. Con: An uncontrolled dump of an unknown amount of hydrocarbon rich air mix on each start. No way to moderate or react to the purge of the canister; just stumble and gag until you had enough fresh air to smooth out. Not a good long term solution.
2. +75-(L-Jet EFI) Same as above, but with vacuum based EEC valve. Still a forced air system, but the air cleaner had a vacuum valve on it which required full ignition advance before it would click open the EEC purge valve and dump the HCs when the engine was already guzzling fuel and wouldn't notice the slight change in enrichment.
3. The common failing of both the early and late systems was that the pressurized air from the fan housing did not pass through a check valve. With the engine off, once the charcoal canister passed the saturation point, fuel vapor could find its way out-the-in-door of the fan housing fitting that provided the pressurized air.
4. Because there was no method to measure the efficiency of the vapor reclamation, VW's sole directive was to replace the carbon canister every 40,000 miles. As you can imagine, this maintenance was rarely performed, if ever.

While an improvement over dumping raw hydrocarbons overboard on a hot day, that's about as smart as VW's EEC system ever got in the Air Cooled era. Obviously, there was massive room for improvement.

15 years later and along comes OBD2. With the same intent as EEC, but with an ECU and processing capacity newer by 15 years and required to meet even more onerous emissions regulations. EEC is now referred to as EVAP and the EEC vacuum valve has been replaced with a Canister Purge Solenoid (CPS), a valve toggled by electrical signal rather than vacuum. Two big changes happened with the advent of OBD2: more parts, and more smarts.

There are now two controlled connections to the carbon canister: The CPS (Purge) and the CVS (Intake Vent.) The tank vapor recovery system still dumps there. So far, this just sounds like they put an extra valve on the carbon canister and switched from vacuum signaling to electrical signaling. If OBD2 were doing exactly the same job as EEC, that might be true. It isn't.

I mentioned that OBD2 included a fuel tank pressure sensor. I had assumed that if you had a pressure sensor, you would use a detected pressure to cue the CPS and CVS when there was excess pressure in the tank and to open the CPS to relieve the pressure. Wrong. SO wrong.

The fuel tank pressure sensor is not used at all in the regular maintenance of trapping and routing tank vapors for burning. In fact, the fuel tank pressure sensor is misleadingly named. Yes, it measures 'pressure,' but no-one said pressure has to be positive. The sensor is designed to measure vacuum. So let's ignore the fuel tank pressure sensor for a minute since it doesn't have anything to do with the EEC/EVAP management process that we are trying to graft together from incompatible 1970s and 1990s technologies. We'll come back to it.

The CPS (Purge) behavior is completely automatic and operates on a periodic cycle with the CVS (Vent), via a regular pulse sent to them by the ECU based on engine rpm. These two solenoids cycle open and closed together, momentarily admitting a very small amount of unmetered air mixed with fuel vapor straight into the manifold to be burned. (Question: Why not dump it into the air filter housing like the old EEC style system does? Answer: Because a MAF or MAP airflow meter doesn't respond well to being fogged with fuel vapor, especially hotwire MAFs! FOOM!)

So why the addition of the CVS (Vent) valve? When the car is off, you don't want the vapors escaping to the atmosphere from the canister by going out the fresh-air-in door. The VW EEC was exactly that kind of system, with the fresh air port wide open on the carbon canister without so much as a check valve. In an OBD2 compliant vehicle, when the power is off, the engine facing CPS and atmospheric facing CVS close, which means any vapor captured is really, truly trapped in the carbon canister. The system is sealed up tight, fore and aft.

So doesn't OBD2 just put a one-way valve on the fresh air inlet and when the draw stops, it closes? This is a simple solution, but the self-test systems that OBD2 brought to the party require more programmatic control that a check valve can offer. Similar to how the addition of an O2 sensor in the exhaust stream made ECUs enormously smarter because they could test how their changes actually altered the output at the tailpipe, a self test program of the EVAP system checks the status of the components by performing a clever and simple test.

My assumption that the addition of the tank pressure/vacuum sensor was to tell the system when to purge was a bad leap of logic. Instead, the tank pressure sensor is there to run sanity checks at regular intervals on the integrity of the whole fuel handling system. The regular pulse open/close of the CPS and CVS is the regular running program. But after a certain amount of engine run time, the ECU runs a diagnostic on the EVAP system.

Here's the EVAP self-test program in a nutshell:

1. The ECU commands the CVS to close. No more fresh air. The fuel system should be sealed.
2. The ECU commands the CPS to open. Now the engine intake is pulling about a 1/4 PSI of vacuum, and with the CPS open, it pulls that vacuum all the way through the whole fuel system: the hoses, the CPS, the charcoal canister, and even the fuel tank. The whole fuel storage and venting system is under vacuum.
3. After a set period of time pulling this vacuum, the ECU orders the CPS to close.
4. When the CPS is closed, the ECU takes a reading of the vacuum in the system.
5. It waits for a period of time, and then takes a second reading.
6. If the readings match, there are no leaks: The fuel system has passed the EVAP self test. The clock is reset for the next test, and the CPS and CVS go back to their regular opening and closing program, mixing captured fuel vapor with air from outside and then purging it into the engine for burning.
7. If the vacuum readings *don't* match, there's a problem. The ECU sets a pending fault code, but doesn't switch on the Check Engine Light (CEL or MIL, depending on how long you've been working on cars). It could be a fluke: A gas cap that didn't get tightened correctly, etc. But there is most certainly a leak.
8. If the ECU executes the fuel system sanity check a second time, and it fails again, then it lights up the CEL and throws a code.
9. If the sensor detected the same value both times, and it equals the same as the barometric pressure outside the vehicle, the test reports as failed: Not enough information to even guess.
10. If the sensor detects wide changes in values between the first and second reading, it throws the code for a LARGE EVAP leak.
11. If the sensor detects slight change in values between the first and second reading, it throws the code for a SMALL EVAP leak.

And that is what the tank pressure sensor does: It just gives the ECU a nerve ending to self-police its own design and cry for help if it is failing.

Unfortunately if the tank pressure sensor is missing, all of these tests fail and the OBD2 system will be dropping CEL codes like depth charges: your CEL will be on permanently, so you'd be likely to miss a code that you really care about. I have no tank pressure sensor to measure and no CVS (vent) to control to seal the system for the self test. To make the OBD2 ECU viable run to my engine, I'm going to have to lie to it, confining it to the sensors that I actually have, instead of the ones it wishes I had.

When adapting a Subaru into a vintage VW, folks like me use the Small Car Interface Board to provide faux-data that the ECU is expecting but is not available in the chassis being converted. The Interface Board pretends to be the fuel tank pressure sensor (and fuel level and temperature sensor) and responds with the same perfect vacuum value every time the ECU triggers an EVAP system test.

I still don't like the idea of an over-pressure tank being able to spill fuel vapor out of the fresh air inlet for the carbon canister when the engine is off just because the system has to be able to breathe IN when running. I can't put a stock Subaru carbon canister on my VW: the cost is astronomical, the wiring a headache, and the actual emissions win marginal. Instead, I'd prefer to use the stock VW carbon canister because despite its limitations and simple design, it has two things that beat the hell out of the Subaru canister:

1. The engine compartment already has brackets in place to mount it. If I use another solution, I have to cut those brackets out to make way for other components to be mounted there AND I have to fab a mounting system for the Subaru canister system in an engine compartment (or under the vehicle body.) The back of the vehicle is already becoming crowded with ancillary bits for this conversion.
2. The Subaru canister is a unitized replacement item and is expensive. The VW canister can be disconnected, opened without destroying it, and have new media loaded. New media is available, despite the difficulty in sourcing it.

Here's where I think there is an elegant compromise that allows the Late Model Bay Window owner to re-use a stock carbon canister and mounting bracket: Some modified fittings for the stock canister to the CPS valve, and a simple (VERY simple) petrol resistant nylon check valve available from McMaster-Carr: http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-check-valves/=wxezc0

When the CPS (purge) opens, vacuum is created, which opens the check valve: Fresh air! Inhale the fresh air with the trapped vapors and into the manifold we go. When the CPS closes at the end of its pulse, no more vacuum, so the check valve closes, too. No way out for fumes. No fancy self test, but at least no dribbling fuel vapors trying to gas me in my own garage.

If you've wrenched or programmed or thought about these emissions systems and you can see a simpler way to get the same result, drop me a line. I'd love to hear about your solution. My goal is compliance with the spirit of the law. Yes, I have to lie to the ECU about the missing pressure sensor, but I can at least close the darned door on the carbon canister when we're done purging so that I'm doing better keeping my stink-hole shut than a Type4 or Type1 VW engine.

Top Gears

I'm getting all pumped up for my vacation in a week when all of the parts that have been specified have been delivered. I'll have mostly clear decks to go into the garage and work as hard and as fast as I can on this project that has gone through several retrenchments. Someone pointed out a nasty side effect of switch to Subaru power eight months ago and I've been looking at it since. It's called gearing.

While any number of adapter plates can put all sorts of engines into your VW, that doesn't mean that your VW transmission is going to appreciate 2-3 times the horsepower than it was designed for. Not only that, but you might not much like the experience either.

The VW transmissions were built with a basic idea about their power plant that goes all the way back to the Nazi era KdF-wagen: Top speed is cruising speed. In the KdF-wagen 100kph was as fast as the vehicle was expected to go, so everything about the engine's design was made to meet that goal and not a bit more. That means that the RPMs required are quite high by comparison, not for acceleration, or passing, but just for cruise: maintaining a mostly constant speed. So the engine is designed to produce its peak power and torque at the RPM needed to maintain cruise. At any RPM faster than max power and torque, both fall off rapidly: You can turn the engine faster, but not more productively.

So let's use an example to wrap our heads around this: The 1977 VW Bus has a designed top speed of 75MPH. With the right size tires on (185R14C which are a type of truck tire) the tire stands 25.7 inches tall. Every rotation carries you a certain number of feet forward. The taller the tire, the further forward you travel per rotation. So, pass the diameter of the tire, the engine RPM and the various gears in play in the transmission, and you can get a nice chart of what speed you'd be going in 4th gear for any given engine RPM. Confused? Relax. Here's what we've got, given a completely stock engine and transmission setup from the factory. (A 1 to .82 gear ratio in 4th, e.g. one rotation of the tire for 0.82 rotations of the engine.)

Speed (MPH) per RPM
2000	2500	3000	3200	3400	3600	3800	4000	4200	5000	5400	6000	6500	7000	7500	8000
38	47	56	60	64	68	71	75	79	94	101	113	122	131	141	150

So the top speed of 75MPH is achieved by turning the engine at 4000RPM in 4th gear. Coincidentally, maximum torque for the stock 2 litre Type4 engine is achieved at 3000RPM, and maximum power at 4200RPM. So 75MPH is a good spot for that engine: it can work at that RPM effectively and efficiently for a long time. It's designed that way. The maximum torque starts falling off after you've reached freeway speed at 3200RPM (60MPH) and then it's all about horsepower to keep things turning that fast or a little better.

As vehicles got heavier over the years, different gearing was installed in transmissions to match it to the peak efficiency of the engine, trying to stay in the sweet spot. The engines and their output kept changing too, as manufacturers struggled to comply with emissions regulations, usually resulting in engines that were less powerful: A constant dance between the weight of the vehicle, the power of the engine, and the transmission in between trying to mediate the constantly flexing relationships between the two.

So why the lesson in ratios? Because the EJ22 SOHC Subaru has a very different power and torque profile. It produces so much more power and torque than the poor old Type4 many people just assumed that it's a win to just swap the engine. What they don't count on is that the whole rest of the drivetrain, from the clutch all the way out to the tires, is expecting 4000RPM for cruising speed. This means that the EJ22 is capable of wailing away under the rear deck at 4000RPM and still have more power available. But it's LOUD. The RPM required to make the engine happy (where the EJ22 makes the best balance of torque and power) is much lower.

My EJ22 is from a 1997 Impreza Outback Sport which has an unladen weight of 2915 pounds, 127 pounds lighter than the 3042 pounds of a 1977 Deluxe Bus. So what RPM would the EJ22 cruise at if it was at home, coupled to its favorite Subaru 5MT transmission in a similarly weighted vehicle?

Speed (MPH) at RPM
2000	2500	2850	3000	3200	3500	3800	4000	4200	5000	5400	6000	6500	7000	7500	8000
43	54	62	65	69	76	82	86	91	108	117	130	140	151	162	173

Aiee! 4000RPM, while well below redline for the engine, is still flailing away making a lot of useless sound and fury for no good reason. To produce good cruise behavior, this engine only needs to be doing 3450RPM. Something has to give: either the engine needs to be completely redesigned or at least get new valve cams at a minimum, or the transmission in the Bus needs to be a closer match for the engine. Messing with the engine's behavior is expensive and a little ridiculous. Putting the Impreza 5MT transmission in the Bus is do-able, but very expensive. Having the 091 transmission in the Bus rebuilt with different gearing is not cheap, but it's less expensive than either of the other options. But there's a third option that has real merit...if you're willing to embrace some 'lifestyle changes.'

Remember I said that the tire diameter is part of the equation, moving forward a certain distance for each rotation? If you increase the diameter of the tire, you go further for the same number of rotations. That means, working backward from the tire, through the drivetrain and gearing to the engine...the engine turns more slowly. So it's only a matter of playing with the tire diameter until you find the (pun intended) golden ratio. Make the tire too big and it will have rubbing, grabbing and interference issues with the suspension and the body. So there's an upper limit. Thankfully, there's a tire that will fit, and produce an improved change of total ratio: instead of the 185R14C at 25.7 inches tall, we replace it with an Offroad/Onroad multi-purpose 27X8.5R14LT. (Yes, the sizing format changes to an older truck tire standard. It's roughly the same as a 215/70R14, a nick bigger at 26.8 inches tall.) 

So what do we get for running a big, scary off-road/on-road truck tire?

Speed (MPH) per RPM
2000	2500	3000	3200	3300	3600	3800	4000	4200	5000	5400	6000	6500	7000	7500	8000
39	49	59	63	65	71	75	79	82	98	106	118	128	137	147	157

Now we're getting somewhere! It isn't perfect, and 3800RPM is still much higher than it needs to be relative to the 3450RPM the Subaru 5MT gearbox would need for 75MPH. If you want to do better, you're going to need to regear: either a different transmission, or the same transmission worked over with different ratios of gears.

Fortunately for me, I don't have any desire to go 75MPH in my Bus! It is a 40 year old vehicle now, and has a reputation for far too much 'float' in the front end at high speed. I'm not in such a hurry to meet my Maker that I want to spend most of my time at that speed. So a John-Law approved 65MPH will put me at 3300RPM with gobs of headroom in torque and power if I need it. That's about the best I'm going to get without the $1700 for a rebuilt and custom re-geared 091 Bus transmission, or a rebuilt 5MT specially modified to join a VW Bus: $4150.)

I have to buy new tires anyway: the last time the tires on my Bus were healthy was when Clinton inagurated. They hold air...barely. So it's a bargain at $500 for four tires (General Tire - Grabber AT2 27X8.5R14LT / Load Range C) that will provide me many years of roadworthy travel and may lead me into adventuring in places that street tires might not take me. Everybody wins.

Decisions, decisions...

I've joined a few new forums recently to fan the flames for VolksarU. I don't want to do this solo; that's boring! But I am finding the number of people who have both experience *and* opinions to be thin on the ground. Opinions....you know what they're like. When it comes to the 'Conversion Perversion' crowd, the proportions change for the worse: 5 people in a room, 9 opinions.

I turned to the Vanagon crowd who have been doing conversions to their already liquid cooled vehicles for years. They've been very helpful, though all struggle with imagining the challenges of having to design the whole coolant system themselves. They're already plumbed for it. Burp the baby, and hit the road! A Bay window conversion? Not so much.

I've found a quite appropriate parallel to posting my solutions online only to have it shot at by those who've never worked on a Bay conversion in their lives: On the Discovery Channel, the program Mythbusters has a maddening fanbase. On the one hand, they're faithful to the idea of Confirmed, Plausible, or Busted. Where they differ is in the excruciating details of making a pop-science show that has to honor the scientific method on a modest budget while producing 42 minute episodes that entertain and educate. The pseudo-scientific second guessing (they're not taking drag into account! They've called it complete wrong!) got to be so bad that Discovery finally started producing an inexpensive 10 minute video blog to defuse the yelling. "Want to know why we did what we did, and didn't do what we didn't do? Log on..."

I'm inevitably in the same pickle. I can at least consider the opinion about my wiring from someone who has converted a Vanagon. But they're not qualified to comment on my radiator or coolant loop. You have to have tried a Bus conversion before I'll consider listening to comments about cooling. If you've actually succeeded, you have my attention. For everyone joining this blog in progress and who doesn't want to roll backward through two years of torturous decision making, here are the edited highlights.

But first, a word about international 'short-run' products: For the enthusiast in the USA ordering from the UK, the exchange rate and shipping usually winds up increasing the price of the component by at least a factor of three...or more. Add on your Federal, State and local taxes (all of which you are responsible for) and an 8 lb component from England can cost more in shipping than in the purchase price alone. Unless you are already shipping mounds of goods from abroad, you will get murdered on the shipping.

Therefore, most of my kit is from Rocky Mountain Westy in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. They had two things going versus the UK conversion components: Their solutions required very little injury to the body of a vehicle being converted and they produce very high quality product at a reasonable price. They are a production shop, not a custom shop. If you ever want to standardize (one of VolksarU's chief goals) you have to have standardized interchangeable parts. I compared the quality of the following products that come from them with their competitors. They're also the only game in town in the Americas for production engine carriers.

So gaze adoringly at the T2B Bus EJ engine carrier, because its the only one on the American market. It's made of high quality materials, is mandrel bent for improved clearances and powder-coated for longevity. Sure, you can have your fabricator over and he'll weld up something that you can drill holes in the frame and bolt on. That's the solution everyone else offers for the Split and Bay bus. This makes every conversion an outhouse: put together with parts-on-hand to fulfill the bare minimum of utility. Parts from one aren't compatible with another. I've written elsewhere that this is the difference between an outhouse and an indoor bathroom. You're willing to read the newspaper in a standard bathroom, but an outhouse is 'minimal utility to do the job.' Not a place you want to linger.

So if you are doing a Late Bay Window as I am, the RMW hanger is the only design that locks the carrier into place in three degrees of rotation, and does so without requiring any cutting or welding on the body, re-using stock mounting points. In it's own way, it is the perfect demonstration of the VolksarU ideal: Installation is DIY friendly, no body mods needed and is compatible with two decades worth of Subaru EJ series engines. A lot of smart engineering, jig and fab work went into this carrier.

To my knowledge, only two other companies which offer carrier bars "cash and carry" rather than a custom fabrication each time. Both are both in the UK. (RJES & Fellows Speed Shop.) While good products and being weld-in compatible with many different models, this requires someone to do the welding, so they aren't as DIY friendly (unless you already weld.) Also, watch out for the international shipping killer costs if you aren't local to them.

My transmission adapter is made by Outfront Motorsports for Rocky Mountain Westy. Again, this is a CNC fabricated part, not a 'bespoke' one-off. Sure, Kennedy Engineering has been machining these adapters for years. Yet in my experience, they're also trapped in the technology dark ages, have a 20 year old web site, don't respond to email inquiries and often not to phone calls. They won't commit on delivery times or shipping. By contrast, there are several competitors who concentrate just on the Subaru to VW market and have taken the fit and finish to the next level. Why would I want to pay more for Kennedy's product when their quality and service has become demonstrably less? (This is my experience contacting them. Your Mileage May Vary.) It left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I decided to buy from someone else. Back to my friends at Rocky Mountain again.

I also needed a throttle valve reverser (TVR). While I can have this fabricated locally, why would I want to do that if I'm looking for standardization? RMW ships me one off of their shelf. When they run out, they fabricate new ones on their jig. Rinse and repeat. That jig can produce thousands of TVRs before it will need to be refreshed, and all of them will be as alike as pennies pouring out of a mint.

One area where some folks try to save some money is doing their own wiring harness. I took one look at that and while it is in my wheelhouse (My father taught me to do high conductivity electrical solder joints at the age of 7) I concluded that I wanted someone who had done a number of these and knew some of the pitfalls of the Subaru harness instead of finding them all myself...and ruining the harness in the process. So I put my ear to the ground and the name that kept coming up was Jeff Robenolt. Not just because he had done many Vanagons, but because he was willing to work with something unorthodox like a Bay bus and work WITH me. Jeff's contribution to the harness was invaluable.

So now I've got a backlog of product that I'm going to need: A Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS), an OBD2 error suppressor, not to mention coolant tubing for the engine compartment and a complete exhaust system. When I went shopping for the VSS, I looked at the product quality offered by the vendors and shrank back with horror at some of them.

This vendor can look me straight in the eye and tell me that
I'm supposed to pay money for this ghettoo-rig engineering?

"To adjust the VSS distance to the trigger wheel, bend the bracket under the trigger wheel until you get a good signal."

Great slithering crow! I don't want that bracket to bend! I don't want it to even move! In any solution bolted to a vintage VW transmission, the VSS detects vehicle speed by watching a trigger wheel bolted to the Constant Velocity assembly on the outside of the transmission. On a Subaru, the VSS is inside the transmission where it's protected. Sticking a VSS on the outside of the transmission means it's implicitly more vulnerable, even if it is the only way to get a reading on a vintage transmission. Putting it under the CV, closest to the ground, is plain crazy. By contrast, the RMW unit is plasma cut from 10 gauge steel sheet, both the trigger wheel and the bracket. You don't bend the bracket to adjust it (you couldn't without tools: 10 gauge is stout.) The bracket bolts high on the transmission body to avoid debris that might remove it, and you adjust it using locking nuts on the VSS body.

Guess who's VSS I'm buying, even if I have to pay 30% more?

Right. Because I'm getting more than 30% more value.

Finally, I need an exhaust manifold that will fit a T2B Bay, and that won't crack on me. Why do they crack? Because often the chap whacking together his exhaust doesn't realize that for a structure this short, when one end is attached to the engine and the other end is attached the body (or just left hanging!) a crack is almost a guarantee. The engine vibrates and the body doesn't want to wiggle in time with it: crack.

A fully emissions compliant solution for both Vanagon and Bay,
and the components (muffler, CAT, sensors)
are all Commercial-Off-The-Shelf. (COTS)

The RMW solution connects both ends of the exhaust to the engine, so when it vibrates or rocks back and forth, so does the exhaust. It all moves together as a unit. No cracks.

Certainly, the RMW solution costs more than various fabit yerself solutions. It is built to last, not merely just to work until "It's Miller Time." Compared to what some 'write a check and walk away' vendors want for their solution, the RMW design is incredibly DIY friendly.

In the final analysis, I chose to source 80% of my solution from Rocky Mountain Westy because they were the only ones making solutions that were:

1. Engineered for Reliability
2. Cost Conscious (Not cheap, but not a price on the moon, either)
3. DIY Friendly
4. Cross-Compatible Solutions (More on this in a moment)

These attributes come so close to the ideal for VolksarU (Whenever possible, buy NEW specified parts. Fabricate from plans when necessary. Only fabricate without plans when otherwise unavoidable.) How could I not support their business and their willingness to support both T2B Bays and Vanagon?

I'll close with a riff on the cross-compatible solutions that I alluded to above. In my business (high performance computing) vendors are constantly pushing some amazing solutions. There's a dark side to it though: Instead of conforming to standards, where components from different vendors can be mixed and matched by the customer to scratch their special itch, you are sold a monolithic stack of products which all work together, but allow for no substitutions. It's called 'vendor lock in' and it's reprehensible when it is done only to cripple customer choice. Speaking as someone close to engineering, its also understandable. Getting everything to work together is enough of a challenge when you own all of the pieces, so it takes a manufacturer a lot of effort to go above and beyond to try to make their products compatible with some of their competitor's components, even when there are supposed to be standards everyone is conforming to.

While Rocky Mountain Westy isn't 100% compatible with Vanagon solutions from Kennedy or SmallCar, they take every opportunity to be compatible. For example, If you're unhappy with the exhaust you bought that cracked, you're not going to want to go back to the same vendor to buy another one, fully expecting it to crack again. RMW gives you the option to substitute in some of their parts for sub-standard parts from their competition. This is more than just smart business, this is a considerable engineering effort. They're so far out front with conversion products for the T2B bay Window, other vendors who want to get into the space will have to follow them. An arbitrary standard is often better than no standard at all. A well thought out standard (as RMW has managed) is a pearl of great price.

So don't assume that self fabrication is better because it's faster. Even when it is faster, it is what's referred to as a 'point' solution: A solution that is only good for one set of circumstances: one vehicle model configuration, one engine, one transmission. When you do the second one or someone else wants to follow in your footsteps, and any variable changes, another point solution has to be reworked from scratch.

That's why Modularity and re-usability is where its at. That's how you get Reliability, Cost-Conscious, DIY Friendly and Compatible Solutions. That's how many people collaborating can get usable solutions and keep the cost down at the same time. That's why I'm giving away my radiator design: Because anyone can buy that standard part, add some minor fab and have a working solution, a solution that others have time and experience with and can be vouched for by others in your community of enthusiasts.

So don't settle for 'it runs.'

Don't settle for 'It's Miller Time!'

Don't settle for anything less than 'reliably useful.' If that's your fundamental demand, it will guide your buying habits in ways you've never dreamed.