I thought I would post a couple of scans
courtesy of Hot VWs Mag from March 1978.

There was some interest generated about this from Ian Swinkles' post
when he began modifying his heads to water cool them.

Of interest was this was before VW develped their Wasserboxer engine, but very similar if you know what I mean.

Cool Dave. Thanks. Will make for some interesting reading

Impressive alright. Rare as hens teeth now i'll bet. Seems a lot of cool parts were made back in the 70's for the vw scene, many by scat before they went cheap to the chinese market.

If only they'd break out the designs for some of their old school performance parts again like this and their split port heads and killer cases. Not enough people into vw's to make it profitable now though i guess.

heheh...yes very interesting thanks Dave. kinda blurs the line if you were a VW purist(which i'm not) ...like it would be ok if you had scat case crank rods and watercooled blocks and heads...good thing some japanese engineers didn't read about that wonder what those japanese gentlemen would name their project...hmm scatveedubyou...what could we shorten that to?

Quote:

Originally posted by rocknrob ...good thing some japanese engineers didn't read about that wonder what those japanese gentlemen would name their project...hmm

I don't know why everyone in VW circles gets so cranked up about subarus? Seems like the obvious next step VW/scat never took.

Do I sound "cranked up"?

I am not.

Not my cup of tea, but nothing wrong with Japanese technology.
Some say the Japs copied the Germans,
but the way I see it, the Germans did some copying of their own with the Wasser.

Oh yeah - credit were credit is due - the Japanese are BRILLIANT at refining and evolving almost any kind of technology, and in the process making it more affordable and widely available.

Subaru and AWD are I think the perfect example at that... Audi essentially pioneer'ed it, but it's definitely Subaru that's made it main-stream.

It seems to be a fine line with the purists between what is acceptable and what isnt with regards to air cooled and performance. There are brands like Gene Berg, Scat and Bugpack that are the corner stones in air cooled hot-rodding from back in the 70's. And while these are acceptable to most purists, the later two brands are making too many parts in china these days to really hold any loyalty to the real purists I think.

Reading the technical archives on how gene berg approached making performance engines, his approach too cooling, displacement increases etc seems to be a very purist method.

Now days though you can have a 95mm ln engineering nikasil cylinder and reliably make far more power with higher compression engines than was thought possible years ago. I'll bet the purists won't use an LN engineering product though. Probably because there is no warm and fuzzy feelings from the 70's and Berg's VW factory training backing up the LN engineering product development.

I suspect that gene berg would have never developed anything that was water cooled, and when scat did in the minds of many vw enthuesiests that line was crossed.

I think Gene Berg ran Nikasil's in '93 or '94.
So what who engineers it, if it works........use it.

I recently coated some engine parts and the difference in temperature is obvious, therefore we increase the comp for more power and the temps stay within an acceptable limit.

Its using what is available within a buget for an outcome.

Lots of factors that are different....but the Volksie's holds us all together.

Hi

I had many conversations with Gene Berg about the WBX motor when he was in Australia. He actually fitted one of his strocker cranks to his personal WBX Vanagon.

I think given more time he would have done more with these motors.

Steve

I have a complete scat water cooled motor under my bench,

must get it out one day....

Can you share some history?
Was it used for racing or aircraft use?

i dont have any issues with subaru engines in vws, but i really like staying with the orginal format and making it perform as best as possible. It makes for a good stir after beating a late model car and the most common comment made is it must have a porsche or wrx engine, but when they find out its still vw they cant believe it...

i just love upsetting these young uni students that mum and dad by them a new wrx and they think they cant be beaten, the look on there face is priceless

Would love to see some pics of this baby that's for sure!!