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Ok, now I don't want to offend anyone here but as far as I'm concerned you can never have enough grunt, poke or push. When your hauling a big'ol Baja Bus around you need every bit of urge you can get so obviously a standard VW engine isn't going to be enough for everyone. Things are made even worse if your running a full-on camper with a big set of tires. Don't forget these Baja Buses ain't no light weight like the Baja Bug is. There's a few options open to you, but I'm only familiar with one and that's the much talked about but seldom-seen-in-VW-circles engine swap. A lot of guys out there will sneer at anyone that dares to stick a non-VW engine in a VW but if you've just lifted the bus and hacked the rear fenders then they'll sneer anyway so what does it matter?? Ok, that's enough justification for a swap, now I'll show you mine. It's a 4.4lt all alloy V8 from an Aussie passenger car, the P76, the original design was based on the Oldsmobile Skylark alloy V8 which was bought by Rover and then stretched to 270cid and used by Leyland. You'll also see this engine, in a smaller capacity, running around in LandRovers and RangeRovers and a few other Rover vehicles. The real cool thing here is the engine only weighs 185kg thanks to the alloy block but puts out about 190hp in standard form and can easily put out a lot more. Mine chucks out about 230hp and 330nm of torque with just a 4 barrel Holley and a few other bolt ons. Below's a picture of the engine stuffed in the back of the Bus.
This isn't my current engine but it's the best picture I've got showing how it all fits, I've replaced this one with a $800AUD engine and just gave it a tidy up. As you can see there's a heap of room back there and really it's a pretty easy fit so there's no excuse for not doing it especially since the total cost of the engine was about $1000AUD with new gaskets and timing chain. Try getting 200hp from a VW engine for that price!! Those copper pipes to the left run off to the radiator and the only major change was running an external water pump as the engine was a bit long to fit with the water pump on the end.
Here you can see it all together with the water pump off to the left looking like an A/C pump or something. Oh yeah, this is my current $800AUD engine!! You can also sorta see where the exhaust runs on this pic too. With that single muffler it sounds more Ferrari than V8 when its on song!! The only other bits you need are an adaptor plate, which should come with a flywheel, a modified cross member to hold it all off the dirt and a new exhaust system, Oh don't forget the radiator. Here's some pictures of the adaptor plate, flywheel and exhaust
The adaptor bolts to the engine through the holes around the edge and to the transaxle with the studs at the top and two holes at the bottom, pretty simple eh? The flywheel is a VW one with a modified centre, notice how its got six bolt holes instead of five.
The exhaust was custom made and cost $250AUD, which, with the current exchange rate, is about two boxes of matches and a row of beads in USD ;) What you end up with after a conversion like this is a Bus that'll eat a lot of other cars on the road and have enough torque to go anywhere all for a fairly cheap outlay if you do it yourself. I've never got stuck due to a lack of power!! Oh yeah, you could build up a tuff 2.0lt engine etc etc but with the bang for your buck why bother ;) |
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