So it all makes me wonder what the way forward is. Do I look to try and buy a second hand type 4 engine, or spend £1200 on an aluminium case and then start buying new parts for that case. Or do I gamble on a second hand case and get that machined. Is there any threads with a general consensus on the best general specifications for a 1776. I would ideally like to use as much as I can from my parts. I just tried to look at The Engine Shop 1776 specification but I can't find the website anymore. All I can find is The Engine Company and no mention or link to a 1776 anywhere. I am starting to feel even more lost now than when I started as to what to do. I am not happy with the engine I currently have, the compression isn't great as the figures I posted on here last year would suggest. It also seems to bog down and just seems gutless. I normal have a Westfalia interior fitted so that adds weight and I want something reliable for going abroad. For the avoidance of doubt I am not interested in fitting a Subaru or any other type of engine. One thing that I don't understand is how is it not possible to improve the current type 1 cooling system. It clearly isn't as otherwise everyone would have done it. What about changing the pulleys so that the fan is spinning even faster, what about cutting and welding two fan housings together to create a double fan housing, what about cutting two fan housings and widening the depth and making the fan longer in length, what about the CSP style porsche fan?
Looks cool but apparently the cooling is worse than stock. The air stalls, there's a max that can be shoved through the fan housing.
I have no idea about most of your suggestions, but I do have a modified doghouse on my 1776cc fan shroud, enlarged to take a Type 4 oil cooler (7 flat fins instead of 5, which although it doesn't sound much, is actually close to 50% extra cooling area). That, combined with the velocity ring, seems to have dropped the oil temp by 10-15 degrees. External oil coolers would probably do the same. So there are things you can do to help, but they cost time, money, and a modicum of skill. I'm sure a decently built engine, set up nicely and running as efficiently as possible, would also be an improvement. You don't want to use the engine case from your current engine, you can't use the old one with the hole, you don't want to buy an unknown one in case it's been machined already, and you can't get or don't want to spend out on a new case. At least if you bought a turnkey or even a short block, from a decent company, you'd have some form of warranty? I believe The VW Engine Company gets reasonable reviews -I think @Dubs has used them?
Yes I basically ended up with a VW engine company all-new 1641 and that engine did not need additional cooling. But as I had fitted an external full flow filter and cooling system for the awful Vege engine the bus had first of all, I swapped the oil pump over for the CB Maxi 3 in-out style pump I had already fitted. And the things you can do for the cylinder heads is maybe the velocity ring idea, make sure the cooling flaps are present to help direct the air, proper head tins with air deflectors in them, airways in the cylinder head cleared of casting flash, and the little deflector plates underneath clipped to the studs. And then fit a cylinder head temperature sensor, set the timing right and slow down when it tells you CHT is getting hot. The oil temperature lags a lot and can be too late when that rises too.. My engine failures 1. After about 25K miles, a worn out clip on rocker arm assembly in Vege engine cylinder head caused an exhaust rocker arm to slide sideways. Misfiring caused vibration that shook the flwheel loose knackering the crank that was already drilled for 8 dowels. Replaced with a rebuild, to "save money" recycling maximum number of parts including buying a £51 AS21 somewhat corroded case. 2. 20k miles later...Dropped valve smashed piston, conrod big end bolt punched a hole in the top of the case. Probably the valve that had had the rocker arm walk off it before ( recycled apparently good parts???) . Bought JK Preservation parts engine. 3. Timing advance mis-setting due to faulty timing gun caused piston to burn through. Replaced one cracked cylinder head, ( may have happened some other time)four pistons and cylinders. That lot has taken me 105000 miles.
The way forward depends on your budget and ability. The cheapest way to get a newish engine is probably to buy an Autolinea case and 1776 B&Ps and an Engle W90 (or Scat C20) cam, then refurbish your existing heads, crankshaft and con rods. In a bus engine use the Engle W90/Scat C20 cam to keep the torque low in the rev range or Engle W100/Scat C25 if you want the power at higher revs. Case, barrels and pistons from the VW Engine company are £1,490 inc vat and delivery. https://www.thevwenginecompany.com/online-store Improvements can be made to the Type 1 cooling as scrooge95 describes and for a 1776 that’s probably all that is necessary. Some things you don’t need for a bus engine: Magnesium crankcase Lightened flywheel Heavy Duty oil pump Forged pistons Polished valve ports H-beam con rods Straight cut cam gears Lightweight cam followers Chromoly pushrods
Well put ...... Enthusiasm is one thing but ability is another and reading between the lines probably the best option for the OP is an off the shelf replacement be it 1776 or just a stock 1600 and whilst i`d be happy enough rebuilding an engine i had nowhere to work so had my old 1600 refurbished 9 years ago by Rob Parry - still going strong despite my abuse and neglect !! A good , well set up 1600 is a pleasure to drive . I can see the appeal of a 1776 but unless you`re willing to put in the legwork sorting out the cooling and fine tuning the carbs etc you`d get more satisfaction from refurbishing your old engine - a basic top end rebuild for a few hundred quid to get the compression back up and go from there .. Just a suggestion .
It depends what you expect from it. If your goal is to have an engine you don't have to thrash so much to keep up with the traffic around you 1776 is good. If you want "performance" you'll hit the cooling/carbs/cam problems. While there's nothing wrong with a 1600 it annoyed me that in many situations I'd have to rev the nuts off it in 3rd so that when I changed up to 4th it didn't just slow down again. Some would say just stay in 3rd and drive slower until conditions allow but it's not in my nature. Here's a strange thing though - where I live now, people drive so frikkin slowly everywhere a 1600 would do me fine. I think as a general rule in the UK, the closer you are to the south east the more people rush around. North West for the win.
No, because everyone has a different opinion of what is best. Have you seen this thread? https://www.volkszone.com/threads/n...-our-1776-engine-build.1572338/#post-16428466 It looks like The Engine Shop Ltd in Erith have ceased trading.
I personally love the 1700 type 4 engine . Convert it to upright cooling and it will look and perform . Not many people on here have actually built an engine from scratch ! YOU need to decide what you want as so many variables. A few years ago I was in the US and bought a copy of VW Trends .they had an article about building the perfect bus engine . I helped a guy at work build the exact 2052 ? Engine from a 1300 case for his early. Bloody lovely engine .
Me too, but it could have more grunt (for a bus). They're a bit like a 1776 but stronger and with better cooling so you get to cruise faster. Once up to speed I'd overtake my 2L buddies on long motorway hills, but getting up to speed they'd pull away significantly faster than I could, so, again it depends what you want. If I had the choice, much as I liked my 1700 I'd have chosen a 2L for it's generally better lower rev performance. OP - type-1 cruising whatever the size IME 63mph is the point where the heat builds faster than they can cool. You can make a big type-1 bus cruise at 90mph no problem but you can't actually drive it that fast for more than a few seconds. Stock type-4 cruising more like 70mph without having to drive to the gauges. In fact I've never driven one faster for extended periods - maybe they can cruise even faster? There are inexplicable (to me) outliers - I can cruise all day at 80mph in my very very mild 2.4l type-4 - cool as a cucumber, no Idea how it does it TBH but it has a stock cam. I like it - very little need to change down the gears searching for power. Final point, anyone who has driven a bus at 70-80mph knows you can only do this on a calm dry day with very little traffic around, it's just not safe. I usually drive mine at 60-65-70mph depending on conditions, it's more relaxing. When the weather ducks align and the traffic is sparse I go faster and often up to 80-85mph to pass those chunks of lorries you come across when the traffic is generally light, just because I can. No fear of the fast lane.
Yes, 63mph actual GPS speed is what my 1641 will run at with limited temperature rise until a hill beats it. Or 70mph on the clock because I have non stock wheels. I can get it to about 68-70mph but the gauges tell me to slow down, and to be honest the number of EVs getting in the way is increasing even at 63mph. I overtake trucks on flat roads but on steeper sections they have a habit of catching up again (except that time I melted a piston..) So while it looks like I may soon be in a position to afford a bigger engine with a massive price tag, I probably wont bother.
This is partly why I bit the bullet and converted to type-4 Mike. 63mph is a bit useless - it leaves you stuck in the crowd kind of like the lorry slow overtake thing where the one with the minutely higher speed limiter slowly creeps past downhill only to be slowly overtaken by the other up hill because it has more power/less load - leapfrog. Sometimes in the 1600 it was more relaxing to cruise at 55mph and just let everyone overtake.
Welcome to my world Steve It goes well but 55 - 60 is fine by my me , always gets me there but as you said earlier anything above 65 it gets scary - and mine handles and stops pretty well !!
The basic problem is the engine case . I still have my first engine case sitting in the garage but it was once a Vege .. so it has had unnatural things done to it in order to make a cheap recon engine back in 2005. Somewhere down the line, the No1 bearing dowel pin has worked loose. It has obviously been align bored .. and there is a crack below the oil cooler but that can be internally sleeved, and I cant remember the bearing oversizes , probably too many times through the rebuild. Just looked on eBay there was/is a job lot of engine parts including two cases going for £800 the lot , no bids , closing tonight ... a deceased VW specialist's workshop spares. I would have a word with the vendor... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/33528631...uid=EQOYZ9GYR8i&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
I get the strong impression that you do a lot of miles at the highest speed you can, driving to the gauges. While you're still (your engine) in one piece might I suggest you have time to bargain buy your way to a 2L type-4? Pretty sure if you had that in mind and were patient you'd get there eventually relatively cheaply either with a lucky "whole one" or in parts. Being in a hurry is the £killer. I started with nothing and for under £2k and being canny I built my 2.4L turnkey (apart from the actual carbs but including manifolds and linkage) at a time when the eggspurts were saying a long block rebuild would be £4-5K. Next - you get to a hill on a road nobody can overtake and go slower and slower down the gears with an irate queue of cars building up behind you. Some just shrug their shoulders but I personally didn't like that.
That isn't a regular feature of my escapades , its happened a couple of times but forward planning usually means I'm going as quick as 45bhp will allow and certainly quicker than most caravans . That said a bit more grunt would be nice but you get used to it ... Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
@Bay Dreamer theres a 1600 case on marketplace in Leicester if you interested wants £300, can find more details if you interested
