What are the best engine upgrades to a old vw beetle for the money?

I wanna get an old bug and do some quick upgrades and get the most noticeable difference for my money and was wondering what I should get. I eventually want to get a new bored out case, stroke it out and completely beef it up but for now just some little stuff will have to do and I was wondering what was the best deal, thank you.What are the best engine upgrades to a old vw beetle for the money?I'm diggin' the idea of Porsche engined Bug.



I have a '73 Beetle; I rebuilt the engine and I'm restoring the rest of the car. While my engine is essentially a stock rebuild, I did a lot of research on what works and what doesn't with the classic Beetle.



There is so much information out there on what you want to accomplish; online info as well as book information. I would strongly suggest you get the following for your "Tech Library":



"How to Rebuild Your Volkswagen Air-Cooled Engine" by Tom Wilson



"The Volkswagen Official Service Manual" (aka "The Bentley Manual") by Robert Bentley



"How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" by John Muir



These three books will give you a great overall idea of how the air-cooled VW engine is built and what it takes to keep it running. All three can be had from Amazon.com and are not expensive. You cannot make *intelligent* choices for performance upgrades if you do not have an understanding of the engine in its stock condition. For instance, VW engineers did not install any type of oil filter on the engine ...there is only a screen under the sump drain (to keep the really big chunks from fouling the oil pump). A highly recommended "performance" mod, for any engine, is installing a full-flow oil filter system with a spin-on filter. Sure, you can put a set of huge jugs on it, bore the case and add multiple carbs but if you do not respect the limitations of the air-cooling aspect of the engine you'll end up with a pile of junk for a motor in short order. Some jugs don't require boring the case but, they are too thin in the piston area and are prone to warping because they cannot handle the heat. Same thing with setting the compression ratio on a rebuild ....do it wisely as you will never hear the tell-tale "marbles in a can" sound of detonation on an air-cooled engine ....there's just too much other noise. The Beetle is a *very* light car and as such does not need huge amounts of HP to make it go. You make intelligent, sano mods to your Bug and you'll be smilin' for many happy miles; do it wrong and you'll end up spending a boat load of money on a lot of pain and agony. You may be tempted with the wealth of "turnkey" performance motors out there ...ready for the "plug and play" thing. If you are tempted to go this route ...*DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THESE ENGINES* ...many of them are crap with poor assembly practices and built using sub-par parts. Most classic VW guys will tell you the best built engine is the one you build yourself.



In looking for a good car, concentrate on the body; you want the body to be as solid and rust-free as possible. There are important areas to check when buying (like the heater channels which are structural members as well as conduits for routing engine heat up to the defrost system) and you need to be familiar with what to look for ....do your research ...and there are different areas to look at depending if the car is a sedan or convertible. If the engine is in decent shape consider that a bonus; it's a whole lot easier (and cheaper) to rebuild the engine than it is to repair rusted out body parts and structural members. Most guys tend to stay away from the Super Beetle versions ...especially if this is your first experience with the car ...the Super Beetle McPherson strut suspension is prone to some handling quirks as opposed to the standard Beetle with the torsion bar front suspension. And by all means avoid the VW "Automatic Stick Shift" cars. A great project when you've gotten some mileage under your belt but not a first-time project.



Websites:



www.thesamba.com (super online forum)



http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/v鈥?/a> (excellent mailing list ...great to post newbie questions)



http://www.roadwaves.com/vwlinks.html ( a huge list of VW links ...can't comment on how many are still viable but it gives you a great place to start)



Have fun, do your research on the car ...if you have any appreciation of mechanical design you'll be amazed at the humble Bug. Ask questions and don't think everybody on the internet is an "expert"....



Except maybe for this guy:



http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/



Bob Hoover has some very credible advice for anyone considering the air-cooled VW. Many guys don't like him because he flies in the face of many engine builders who believe the more chrome and crap you can place on the VW engine the better off it's going to be. He is acerbic in his humor ...bordering on curmudgen-ism (if that's a word) ...but bases his ideas on proven concepts used in aviation. Unfortunately Bob succumbed to cancer in August of last year so enjoy his spirit as it lives on in his writings.



Seeya,



Mike

73 Type 1What are the best engine upgrades to a old vw beetle for the money?The best thing you can do for that old bug, is a good tune up, and have the valves adjusted (every time you do a tune up) those old bug engines will run dang near forever if you adjust the valves each tune up. We used to do what was called a Big Daddy kit. this was a cam rebuilt heads with bigger valves, and one or two carbs, and the two into one exhaust on each side, with an external oil cooler. This would give you a bug that would bark the tires in second gear. The trans axles in an old bus were gear reduction and bullet proof in a bug and took the hp no problem. but if you want to make the super coolest bug, this is what we did, my high school buddy put a porsche motor in his. (direct bolt in. What I liked about it, aside from the fact it was neck snapping fast at 65 mph. was the silence. The precision porsche engine was whisper quiet, as you shot past some guy in his muscle car on the freeway.

Save your money, you can buy a late model targa engine out of a wreck with the engine trans axle and computer and wiring and make one bad to the bone sleeper that no one hears coming!!! best of luck, look online, type in vw magazines, I know in safeway stores in portland there were vw guys making 10 second street strip bugs, so find you a club somewhere and make your bug your own.