Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Start

This blog is to chronicle the process of pulling the stock 2.0L aircooled engine out of my 1979 VW Westfalia Campmobile Deluxe to replace it with a 2001 Subaru 2.2L watercooled engine.

A lot of documentation and even aftermarket support parts exist for this conversion into the VW Vanagon, which utilized the waterboxer watercooled engine, but very little cohesive details exist on doing this conversion with a late model Bay Bus as I have. So, in an effort to support the community, I hope to create a chronological account of my trials, tribulations, parts collection, and engineering to help others interested in doing this conversion to a late Bay model VW Bus.
* Photo courtesy of the Amazing Mr. Styles singer, song writer and lead guitarist of The Odyssey Favor

11 comments:

  1. Dan, you are my hero! Good luck and I expect a ride in it when you are done!

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  2. And by The Owl it means you old buddy Ron!!

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  3. Awesome Ron. Good to see your comments! A ride you shall have; we'll head over to your bakery and enjoy the efforts of both our hard work (although yours is substantially harder and more involved then mine).

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  4. Yes. I like everything about this! Well, except for that non-credited photo of course. Who is your permissions department? I look forward to watching your progress.

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  5. Good luck and Godspeed my friend. Don Quiote has nothing on Dan Record and his VWs and Scouts.

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  6. I just bookmarked this page. Hope to see it on the road soon. I have been wanting to do this to my 71 bus for quiet sometime.

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  7. Trinh,

    Glad you joined. Feel free to comment and as as many questions as you want. I am no master mechanic and am figuring this out as I go, so extra thoughts and feedback are appreciated!

    I'll also update the parts page as I go because plans have changed several times already (and I've purchased some parts that I probably won't need now...).

    Dan

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  8. Hello Dan

    Is this project done now? if so how does it run any problems to share? Im getting ready to do the same thing on my 1977 Vw transporter any help would be great

    Thanks
    Aaron
    compmrklein@msn.com

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  9. Hi I have a 1976 vw camper and years ago installed a 2.2 subaru engine with adapter plate for use with the 091 transmission.I put the radiator out front and two heaters in the cabin area. My fuel mileage went from 16 to 26 mpg.We also wrote a book to tell you how to do the conversion.In using an automatic I think you may have to flip the crown gear and pinion over to get the axles to turn the correct direction. I also had the third and fourth gears changed out for stronger ones and a different ratio to increase fuel mileage. I now run 3000 rpm for 60 miles per hour rather than 3300 for the original 091 transmisssion gear ratios. I can be reached at billhall2009@gmail.com if you any questions.

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  10. I may have misread the part about the transmission. If you use the existing auto transmission in the bus then you would not have to flip the ring gear. However if you were going to use the subaru transmission then that would be a different story.One of the best conversions I have read so far is the subarugear kit using the 5 speed manual subaru transmission with the original subaru engine with a flipped ring gear and pinion.I am considering this conversion for my camper van

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  11. Hi there!
    i am looking for engine mount for my late bay. Do you have any measurements?

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