TheSamba.com :: View topic - New bay window owner/Watercooled Conversion

Tue May 15, 2012 2:17 pm

Just because I haven't been updating the thread doesn't mean progress has stopped. I've done some little things lately, mainly to tailor it for camping for us. I drilled the silver socket plug under the glovebox and installed a regular US style 12v outlet, I also installed a vanagon table and bracket. The bracket is bolted to the back of the passenger seat pedestal right inside the slider. The table will pivot outside the bus and will also swivel up behind the front seats, pretty handy.

I also have been investigating interior lighting options as well.

And just today,

Mercedes CLK 320 wheels. These are often done on a Vanagon, but the only thing I found here on a bay was one pic of a wheel with no tire up on jackstands and no further posts. If you're wondering, yes, they fit great.

No spacers needed. I purchased special lug nuts from T3 Techniques (loogy). They are shaped to fit the smaller ball seat on these wheels, but threaded 14x1.5 for stock bus studs. $40 shipped for the set, look and work great. I did have to drill the lug holes slightly. Sorry to disappoint the samba poo poo gallery, but I used a hand drill and a standard drill bit size (9/16 would work, but I had a 37/64 on hand so I used it). Honestly, you aren't drilling much at all, so you really can't screw it up by hand. No laser guided granite base nuclear precision needed here no matter what the experts who only run stock wheels say.

These tires are 205/50/16, and while they are the same size as the 195/60/14 or whatever that was on my bus, they don't fill the wheel wells very nicely.

Future plans are to try a 205/70/16 in the rear (I want a taller tire to kill my highway RPM, the water cooled motor turns way faster than needed at 60). I may try a bit taller tire in the front too, but I'll wait until we lower the bus (just a bit, to get rid of fender gap at the front and make it a bit easier to get into the bus).

You also may be able to see the receiver hitch just under the back bumper. The plan is to tow our 1200 lb rail buggy on a dual axle car trailer 2.5 hours up the interstate to the Ocala National Forest for Memorial weekend next week. I still have to add some loops for the safety chains and add trailer lights. I'll keep everyone updated.

Tue May 15, 2012 5:48 pm

How's it running, and how are the engine temps? CLK's look good, if I hadn't dropped over $700 for a set of BFGs (five tires) at the end of 2010 I'd be tempted .. sorely tempted.

It's gotten "warm" here in the PNW (almost 90*F yesterday) and I'm finally seeing temps of 190*F .. and it stays steady at that point. With the previous radiator in the same weather it'd float around 190-210*F .. so the new one works better even though it's tucked up higher. Still no ducting of any kind...

Tue May 15, 2012 6:28 pm

love it....tell us more...and go do more! :D

Tue May 15, 2012 7:07 pm

Still no ducting here. Temps are hovering around 190 which is where the new thermostat opens at. Next weekend will be the test. Extended driving during the heat of the day towing a trailer. If I have a good summer temps wise, I'll raise the radiator up a few inches so I can lower the bus some.

It's running awesome though. I really haven't been stressing it too hard though. We took it camping a couple of weeks ago about an hour away, but we were only going about 45mph because my buddies bus is so low and has such small tires that's about it for him. Other than that just driving 10 minutes to our weekly taco get together at night.

Tue May 15, 2012 9:47 pm

Give it a good long run and let us know how it's working out all the way around. I've got new injectors to swap into mine and a vacuum leak to chase down, plus the weather here is heading back to highs in the mid 70's .. grr. At least it's not raining...

Oh, and buff out that paint, it'll look better. :P

Wed May 23, 2012 12:39 am

So today marked a good milestone with the bus. Today I finally tried pulling a car trailer with a car on it with the bus. Here's my experience.

The trailer is a 14ft deck wood frame double axle car trailer with no brakes. It has heavy steel ramps hinged at the back. I'm not sure how much the trailer weighs, but I'd say around 1000 lbs? I'll post a pic tomorrow.

I had our VW powered buggy loaded on the trailer, which I'd say weighs 1000-1200 lbs.

The trip was to our weekly taco meet, about 8 miles away, on a 4 lane divided highway. Just a test/confidence builder before heading to the Ocala Forest this weekend which is about 100 miles away down the interstate.

Power
If I'm on short grass or a road, I can just ease out on the clutch and get the bus/trailer/buggy moving without touching the gas, from a 900 rpm idle. Going through the neighborhood, it still accelerates better than a stock engined bus, you really don't notice it's back there. I did stretch my shift point to about 3500 RPM (normally I'm shifting by 2500-3000) just so it didn't lug the motor once in the higher gear.

Once on the highway, I moved pretty briskly up to 55mph. I wasn't in any hurry, and never am when pulling a trailer. TPS open percentage was about 30% while accelerating to traffic speed. Cruising at 55mph TPS is at 19%, compared to I believe 14% without the trailer. I did go up to 60 and it felt fine, but the speed limit is 55 so I didn't stay there long.

I also did a "test pull" from about 50mph (3000 RPMs), I eased the gas to the floor (still only 70% throttle at the motor, have to trim my pedal stop). I wanted to see if I needed to speed up a bit or come up on a hill how it would react. I have to be honest that I was kinda disappointed in the acceleration from 50mph. It sped up, but not as fast as I feel I would need to for some type of evasive maneuver or hill. I think next time I'll try throwing it into 3rd to get the motor up in the RPMS (the torque peak is 4600 RPMS on this motor).

Cooling
No issues here. I did notice on the way there that the temp crept up from the normal 190 to 195, and it stayed there, so my cooling system may not have enough reserve to cool it down when towing. On the way home it was pretty chilly so it ran at 188. I'll know more after towing 100 miles during the heat of the day this Friday. I'm not too concerned because the motor obviously should be running warmer than 195 anyway, but I like alot of reserve. If it shows that it runs warm or won't cool down on the highway, I may revisit my air scoop under the bus.

Handling
Towing the trailer/buggy felt like driving the bus on a windy day. It never felt uncontrolled, but did give me some body roll and wiggling during turns and steering adjustments. I think putting some newer/better shocks and some anti-roll bars on would help quite a bit.

Braking
This is what I was most nervous about, and to be quite honest, this is what the bus excelled at. Honestly, the bus stopped the trailer/buggy better than my 01 S10 extended cab truck does. I didn't get into a panic stop situation, but I did try one quick stop on the way home and it was drama free. Gradual stops, the bus doesn't feel like it's pulling any extra weight.

This trailer doesn't have brakes, but the new trailer we're buying does have brakes. The new trailer is also bigger and heavier though (1900 lbs) but its longer and wider to fit our next buggy, a 4 seater, that will weigh close to 2000 lbs).

So all in all, it was a very encouraging, but short trip. I'll post another report after its first true stress test this weekend.

Wed May 23, 2012 4:59 am

Doing some research a while back on the Ecotec eng i read that Delta Marine who uses this eng in boats has a 4-wire hookup ecu for the conversion, anyone familiar with this item??

Wed May 23, 2012 6:57 am

I've read about it. I think the ECU/harness is $1200 or more, which is why I never bothered researching it more. I did my own harness, flashed the ECM for $100, and can tune in the future if needed. I doubt anyone is tuning the marine ECM.

Tue May 29, 2012 8:07 am

We finally got back from our memorial day camping trip and got unloaded and some rest (plus I worked last night) so now I have time to update. I don't really have a report since I don't know much from the weekend, but here's my story.

To bring everyone up to speed, we towed our 2 seat VW powered rail buggy (approx 1200 lbs) on a double axle car trailer with no brakes, about 100 miles to the Ocala National Forest for the long weekend of camping and riding.

Friday, on the trip up, once on the interstate and moving along about 55mph, the temps started to rise. I kept a steady eye on them, but they never got out of control. The highest temps I saw were 215, but that was going up a "hill" (best we've got in Florida) but once on the other side temps dropped quickly. Increased speeds did increase the temps, but cruising at 3200 RPM resulted in temps about 211. As as I got off the interstate and got to a light, the temps came right back to 200.

OK, so we're towing up there, my wife is following me in our normal tow vehicle (Chevy S10 4.3 auto). The bus was towing the trailer pretty well, but I started to get some sway once I got into the hills or the big trucks were blowing by me. It only really got out of hand once on a long down hill run, but I was able to keep it in my lane.

So we get about 20 miles from our interstate exit, and a state trooper pulled me over. He said I was swaying alot. I assured him I was safe and that the bus wasn't overloaded, and that I wasn't drunk or stoned. He suggested we get off the interstate to take the back roads. I didn't want to do that because I don't like going through small towns where idiots can pull out in front of you or stop short, but since he suggested, and could see me as I passed the exit, I decided to take his advice.

So we hit the back roads, where we encountered some construction and idiot drivers. Luckily the brakes in the bus were more than capable of stopping the trailer and buggy!

So we were about 20 miles from camp, on the backroads, bus is doing great, when all of the sudden it lost all power. It would idle, but not accelerate. I pulled over, popped the hatches, and started looking around. I had plenty of fuel pressure at the rail which ruled out vapor lock. All of the wiring seemed intact. I decided to call AAA to have the bus towed to the campground, and put the trailer on our chase truck. As I jacked the trailer up to swap tow vehicles, I noticed I had no tongue weight on the trailer (the buggy wasn't far enough forward). I'm 95% sure this is why the bus was swaying so bad.

So I start the bus up to idle it out of the way of the trailer, and I notice it's running fine. So we hook the truck to the trailer and make it to the campground.

The Ecotec I'm running has one big ignition module with coil packs that sits on top of the valve cover. The motor is pretty tall, so this module's heatsink is stuffed against the top of the engine compartment. I'm thinking the towing and prolonged trip caused the ignition module to get hot enough to stop advancing timing beyond base, hence it would idle but not accelerate.

So we get to camp, setup, and have a pretty fun weekend. My wife really wants to tow the trailer with the truck to avoid a long trip home late at night, so I agree, even though I wanted to try and verify my suspicions on the engine issue (I was going to leave the top engine access off to allow the module to get some cool air over it).

Sunday night we pull out to head home. Get out of the campground, and I see the temp is climbing in the bus. It gets up to 220 pretty quick, which was definitely not correct since we weren't towing with it, it was dark, and raining. So I find a closed gas station to park under to borrow their awning. I feel the top radiator hose (output from motor to radiator) and it's definitely not hot enough for 220 degree water to be running through it. So I gently pop the cap, get lots of steam, but not much water. I top off the cooling system with about 80 oz of water (water bottles from the cooler), tap the thermostat housing a few times with a hammer, and it drops right back to 188.

We get on the interstate, and I notice it's running cooler than it ever has. Since I replaced the thermostat a month or two ago, it's been running 190, but this time, it was running 184-186 all the way down the interstate. I'm perplexed by the cooling thing. The thermostat is a brand new Stant fail-safe so it shouldn't have failed closed. Here's my theory. I think I had an air pocket somewhere in the system. When at the campground, the bus was parked on a slight incline for 3 days. Over this time, the air pocket worked it's way up to the engine where it stopped flow and caused the hot running issue once on the road.

So, as you can see, I'm left with more questions than answers, but I have data that I can build from. My goal for labor day (our next towing opportunity), is to have some taller tires on the back of the bus to drop cruise RPM's. I want to see what affect this will have on cooling temps. If it checks out, I'll re-build my radiator setup to raise it up a few inches.

Tue May 29, 2012 9:18 am

I had the same issues. Don't change a thing yet. I have a solution I'll be posting later.

Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:27 am

Very interesting read, and great work! Hopefully will be starting an Ecotec swap in my rail in the next few months.

Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:31 pm

I haven't posted an update in a while because I really haven't been doing anything but driving it.

Tonight, on the way to our weekly VW meet, a buddy of mine was driving in his 2000-ish Honda Civic automatic. We were at a light together on a wide open road, so we decided to go for a race.

I can officially say an Ecotec powered bay window is faster than a Honda Civic automatic, at least to about 70mph.

Also, the bus made it through the Florida summer without getting over 200 degrees (unless pulling the trailer, it saw 215 on an uphill run). So I can officially say the radiator setup works. Over the winter, I'd like to re-mount the radiator up higher. I want to lower the bus a bit (dropped spindles in the front, 3-4" plates in the rear) and don't want to run out of ground clearance.

Oh, I almost forgot. My neighbor, friend, and fellow VW owner is the MC for a water ski team in the area. This team puts on weekly shows for free. 2 weeks ago they were having their 70's themed show so he asked us to bring our VW's out. We had a good group of VW's, but he wanted a bus to make an appearance in the show at the beginning for the skiers to jump out of. I agree'd to do it since our bus has been outfitted for camping so it's not as delicate inside as some others (no sink cabinet, rubber floor, etc). A buddy of mine snapped a pic of the skiers jumping out. We had 22 people in the bus, luckily I only had to drive about 30 ft.

Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:01 am

cool pic! 8)

Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:52 am

I'm going to do the water cooled conversion to my 79 bus....gathering all the bits and pieces needed to get it done...my current 2.0L runs well but I don't trust it to make a cross country trip and back....I'd rather pull it out while it still runs OK and put it up for sale.....I have two engines to choose from...the first is a 1970 Chevy 2 inline four banger 153 c. i.....the other is a 1993 Chevy 4.3L V6....both are freshly rebuilt....I want to be able to tow a small camper trailer without having to worry about cyl. head temps getting critical....the four banger is the same weight as the VW and is all cast iron...a bonus....the V6 will provide grunt aplenty....the tape measure says both will fit and Kennedy Engineering has all bases covered with clutch and adapters...the same for either engine.....which one should I choose?

Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:54 am

I would do the 4.3. If you're going to do the swap, you might as well get the most power and torque that you can. Plus the aftermarket for the 4.3 is much bigger than the iron duke, and you can still find the 4.3's in junkyards across america if the need should arise on your cross country trip.

Good luck with your swap!

Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:50 pm

Mr. Unpopular wrote: I would do the 4.3. If you're going to do the swap, you might as well get the most power and torque that you can. Plus the aftermarket for the 4.3 is much bigger than the iron duke, and you can still find the 4.3's in junkyards across america if the need should arise on your cross country trip.

Good luck with your swap! ....Thanks much for your input...I'm looking for a bit more grunt and the 4.3 just might find its way into the engine room....the four banger is a pre- Iron Duke unit....I'm doing the conversion old school...with a carb....nothing exotic...I don't want to make max hp.....just torque....and it must be trouble free and worry free....I read your threads on your conversion and now I'm hooked.....and both engines are in the garage and they were free.

Mon Oct 08, 2012 11:18 am

Mr. Unpopular wrote: I would do the 4.3. If you're going to do the swap, you might as well get the most power and torque that you can. Plus the aftermarket for the 4.3 is much bigger than the iron duke, and you can still find the 4.3's in junkyards across america if the need should arise on your cross country trip.
...Well the 4.3 had to go back into the pickup that it came out of(sigh) :cry: .....that leaves me with the 4 banger...I called Kennedy Engineering the other day and placed my order with them...they said between three and four weeks for delivery of the flywheel and adapter plate...exactly the same one as a small block chevy....I'll stay with the banger, however, because I don't want to overpower my transaxle....it should be a simple swap...no ECUs or anything like that...just points and a carburator, but an increase in displacement and torque, and best of all...HEAT !! 8)
Good luck with your swap!

Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:41 pm

Time for an update.

A friend sold me a really dry 69 squareback project. I decided to test the new trailer with the bus to bring it home. This new trailer, while quite long, is pretty light, and is a dream to pull, even with the bus. I snapped a pic of the whole rig to get an idea of how long the trailer is.

Towing the square home, the bus never broke a sweat, ran 186 degrees, and I was accelerating to cruise speed on the highway with 26% throttle angle. The bus also stopped well, even without having the trailer brakes wired up.

I also recently acquired a vanagon rear engine hatch and the surrounding sheetmetal (a friends vanagon was side-swiped going through an intersection by a red-light runner). I'll probably wait until after camping season is over next year (once summer hits) because I want to pull the motor (makes cutting and welding safer, plus I need to fix an oil leak at the flywheel), I'm also going to mount the radiator up higher, and run new coolant lines.

Wed Nov 21, 2012 9:51 am

Holy tongue weight.

Wed Nov 21, 2012 9:55 am

I think it looks worse than it is.

The bus always sits nose high, and of course has butt sag.

Plus, this was the first time towing with this trailer, so I wasn't sure where the load should be. If guessing wrong, I prefer too much tongue weight over too little. Too little is scary.

The guy I bought the trailer from had it raised (axles under the springs, and a new set of spring hanger bolts 2" below the factory ones) because he was dragging the back when he had the trailer hooked to his 4x4 dodge taking the trailer down crappy trails out to ride 4 wheelers. I'm going to put it back to stock so the trailer sits level when connected to the bus.

This trailer was built right. As big as it is, I can still easily pick the tongue up and move the trailer around by myself.