bad day for my 75

[dashdriver]

Pretty sure I dropped a valve on my 1800 engine. If I'm going to have it fixed, which I will, how much inprovement can I do?
1) can hydraylic lifters be retro'ed to a 1800.?
2) how big can I go on displacement with the 1800?
3) what am i forgetting?
I just want a reliable strong engine to carry me and the westfalia weight up and down the hills of virginia, no drag strips, turbos, or NO2 stuff. just a little more power and fewer valve adjustments.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
sutton

[airkooledchris]

You have a lot of reading to do, but don't fret - all of your answers are out there.

1. Lifters match the camshaft. You have a solid cam so you have solid lifters. You can't change the cam without splitting the case, which means a total rebuild. Maybe you just need new heads and if your lucky enough to get away with just doing that - be happy and keep adjusting your valves. It's better anyway because you should be able to track what your engine is doing by noting the differences in clearances when you adjust them.

2. You can use the same case and take it up to a 2.0 if you need to rebuild the whole thing anyway.

3. Bentley manual.

Find a good aircooled mechanic in your region that isn't scared of the Type 4 engine and find out what really happened.

[ccpalmer]

[dashdriver]

I've got a good mech....I was wondering what can be done to improve performance. I figured if I was going to have to drop the engine anyway, I might as well upgrade. It's not that I have too much money, just what would you guys do to this engine. I might add that I've already added weber carbs to replace the single carb that someone else replaced the FI.
Can you go up to 2.2 liter or is 2.0 as big as you can go without exotic machining, or creating excessive stress on the case.
Still lots to learn, thanks in advance for the help.
sutton

[Randy in Maine]

It would be nice to rebuild the webers and get them correctly dialed in for use with the new engine.

Also an ideal time to have a look inside the fuel tank.

If you do decide to make it a 2.0L (and I would not go larger than that), you would be well served to get the 091 transmission to go with it to gear you up.

Personally if it were me, I would keep it a 1800 (with some improved heads and a matching camshaft/solid lifters) as that is a nice high reving engine and would keep the transaxle you already own to take advange of those revs.

[dashdriver]

Now that's the sort of info that helps me get up to speed, keep it up guys.
sutton

[Wildthings]

I would stick with the 1800 and go with flat topped pistons to get your compression up, and then do head and cam upgrades. The compression will get you 10 hp and the head and cam upgrades can get you much more.