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Sat Feb 08, 2025 4:42 am

Hi, some of you may have read my diary on building my dream car, a 1965 Karmann Ghia Convertible. I will describe the engine build in this new thread.

The story:
It has always been clear to me, not to drive the car with its 34hp, even though I restored the original 1200cc engine to factory specs and had all the sheet metal powder coated. This is how I drove it arround in Michigan. First plan was to use a newly build, old-school Gene Berg 82x90.5 (2110 ccm), motor instead. This one has sold to a very nice guy in France ;-) meanwhile.

As the car project developed, I wanted something bigger, with less cam and still somewhere in the ballpark of 200HP. I decided for an 86x101.6 (2788ccm) Oxyboxer and started making and collecting parts for it.

I ran into a big issue with the cylinder heads. I bought raw heads from Thorsten Pieper and had them flow bench ported from a tuner in the deep south of Germany. Let us call him RB for now. He did a good job on the porting, however messed up the valve seat install big time. The intake rings where not fully seated, on the first time I received the heads back:

Second time around, almost one year after had I sent the heads back to him, he just pressed the rings deeper into the head and chamfered the rings way into the head material to make up for the now too low installed ring:

This set me back and I did not know what to do first, until Thorsten Pieper offered to repair this mess – Thanks Thorsten!!! He pulled the seats, had the head laser welded and installed new, special made longer and larger valve seats:

This whole odyssey did cost me 1-1/2 years and not just time :evil:. I want to get my car on the street for its 60th birthday this year. To speed up, I put this project aside for now and will make a used 2.6 Oxyboxer work in my car. I will use many of the parts from my original plan.

Sat Feb 08, 2025 5:40 am

Thanks for detailing your build here, it should be very interesting to read !

Sat Feb 08, 2025 6:47 am

What's a Oxyboxer?

Beautiful Ghia!

Sat Feb 08, 2025 9:50 am

Willin wrote: What's a Oxyboxer?

Beautiful Ghia!

Water cooled Vanagon engine,aka, waterboxer converted to air cooled

Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:25 am

Thanks for your interest guys.

Yep, waterboxer from vanagon, water jackets milled of. This makes the strongest Type1 case VW ever made. And the cylinder stud spacing is larger, aka allows for bigger bore cylinders.

Further specs for this 2,6 oxyboxer:
Wbx converted to Air
2576 ccm
82mm stroke Limbach
100mm Pistons: Porsche GT3
Cyinder: Alu Nikasil Type 4 modified
Cam: FK 98
Rockers: Pauter 1:1,4 IN and 1:1,3 EXH
Heads: Competition Eliminator IN 48mm EXH 40mm heads completely ported and reworked by Dirk Scheffer Edelweiss
CR: 12,8 : 1
Valves + Pushrods Titan

I will complete this block with:
Ron Lummus dual street clutch, flywheel lightned and trigger milled
Porsche cooling
Drysump oil system
EFI Throttle bodies: Jenvey heritage 48 IDF
Distributerless ignition
Not sure what ECU to use yet. I have a super old Haltec, never used, but this may be none sense.
Header will be custom made 45/48/55 stepped 4 into 2 into muffler and I will try to fit a Porsche 911 sport muffler under the Ghia apron

I'll post more pictures as I progress

Tue Feb 11, 2025 7:20 am

Are the heads Type 1 or Type 4 ?

Cool project!

Tue Feb 11, 2025 8:09 am

The heads in the pictures are CNC milled heads for Oxyboxer from Thorsten Pieper, they are somewhat similar to a Type1 with larger head stud spacing and much more cooling surface. They will go on my 2.8 project.

The heads on the used 2.6 are modified (stud spacing and ported) Comp. Elis.

Thu Feb 13, 2025 5:37 am

Loving your attention to details (German Engineering at its best!) and having seen some of the fantastic parts for this engine, I can't wait to follow this build!

Thanks for sharing all of this Lars!

Antoine

Thu Feb 13, 2025 6:18 am

mcmscott wrote: Willin wrote: What's a Oxyboxer?

Beautiful Ghia!

Water cooled Vanagon engine,aka, waterboxer converted to air cooled
This is also waaaay beyond my paygrade but I'm *really* curious to see what a waterboxer longblock converted to air-cooled looks like fully assembled, before tins are in place.

Halbug, I hope you add many pictures to your build!

Sat Feb 15, 2025 12:26 pm

vamram wrote: mcmscott wrote: Willin wrote: What's a Oxyboxer?

Beautiful Ghia!

Water cooled Vanagon engine,aka, waterboxer converted to air cooled
This is also waaaay beyond my paygrade but I'm *really* curious to see what a waterboxer longblock converted to air-cooled looks like fully assembled, before tins are in place.

Halbug, I hope you add many pictures to your build!
Sorry for hijacking, but here is a picture of an oxyboxer

Sun Feb 16, 2025 9:03 am

Very cool build! Following!

Sun Feb 16, 2025 9:40 am

flat4olsen wrote: vamram wrote: mcmscott wrote: Willin wrote: What's a Oxyboxer?

Beautiful Ghia!

Water cooled Vanagon engine,aka, waterboxer converted to air cooled
This is also waaaay beyond my paygrade but I'm *really* curious to see what a waterboxer longblock converted to air-cooled looks like fully assembled, before tins are in place.

Halbug, I hope you add many pictures to your build!
Sorry for hijacking, but here is a picture of an oxyboxer

Wanted to do a 2.6ltr also but the cost for the heads were high so i did my engine kit with the los panchitos. What i like about the oxy is that the block will be the last t1 type block you will ever use because of its strength. The block is 1/2 inch wider so the liners are shorter hence they should be able to stay round ( a lot stiffer ) when torqued correctly you can also safely build from a 1600 all the way up to a 2.9ltr engine with this block.

Sun Feb 16, 2025 10:22 am

Build-threads on each of these mills????

I've got a stalled Oxy-build a-waiting. 4 full swinging inches... Suitable heads seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth, except for JPM. Just gotta figure out how to afford them...

Marcus...

Sun Feb 16, 2025 2:31 pm

Yeah JPM was what I wanted but the cost was heavy. If in the future I can come up with the cash it could be a possibility. I already have the king cover from JPM to remind me what I had intended to build.

Mon Feb 17, 2025 12:19 am

All good! No hijacking, don't worry.

The 2.6 I am making to work now has been build already.

Here is a thread of a build, with nice picures, one that relocated the cylinder-head-studs-spacing back to Type1 and is making advantage of the much stronger case (only). However much easier for cylinder and head selection.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

Rocky Jennings used to have a nice web-page with a step by step documentation. I can not find this page anymore.

Oxyboxers used to be more popular when parts where less costly and better available. Meanwhile there are good aftermarket cases on the market as a good alternative. They are more plug and play also. And of course the type 4. It's all a question of liking and philosophy I guess.

Mon Feb 17, 2025 7:30 am

something to note for those that dont know is WBX came with flanged cranks and the 2.1 has a longer stroke. im sure that was really appealing back before flanged cranks were readily available.
im also pretty sure you can put a WBX crank into a T1 case with some case modifications?

Mon Feb 17, 2025 7:36 am

Flanged cranks? Are you sure? I am just aware of Type 4 flywheel standard on all WBX.

Mon Feb 17, 2025 11:54 am

BFB wrote: something to note for those that dont know is WBX came with flanged cranks and the 2.1 has a longer stroke. im sure that was really appealing back before flanged cranks were readily available.
im also pretty sure you can put a WBX crank into a T1 case with some case modifications? The flywheel connection and main journals are the same as a type-4. The 2.1 crank is 76mm, the cylinder spacing is like a Type-1, as are the rod journals. Really nice crank. It has thrust plates instead of a thrust bearing. I had a 2020 (76 x 92) wasser crank type-1 engine, it was super smooth.
Definitely appealing to me as a bus owner to be able to use a stock 227mm flywheel and clutch on a type-1 engine.
The main problem is when you decide you'd like to make it a longer stroke - you can't, you have to start from scratch. In my case I scratched my chin and abandoned for a better cooling type-4 build which as you know is the same kind of size before you even start so maybe it's limitation was a plus in the long run.

Mon Feb 17, 2025 1:28 pm

Zed999 wrote: BFB wrote: something to note for those that dont know is WBX came with flanged cranks and the 2.1 has a longer stroke. im sure that was really appealing back before flanged cranks were readily available.
im also pretty sure you can put a WBX crank into a T1 case with some case modifications? The flywheel connection and main journals are the same as a type-4. The 2.1 crank is 76mm, the cylinder spacing is like a Type-1, as are the rod journals. Really nice crank. It has thrust plates instead of a thrust bearing. I had a 2020 (76 x 92) wasser crank type-1 engine, it was super smooth.
Definitely appealing to me as a bus owner to be able to use a stock 227mm flywheel and clutch on a type-1 engine.
The main problem is when you decide you'd like to make it a longer stroke - you can't, you have to start from scratch. In my case I scratched my chin and abandoned for a better cooling type-4 build which as you know is the same kind of size before you even start so maybe it's limitation was a plus in the long run.

What where the showstoppers for larger cranks you ran into? My 2.6 has a 82mm Limbach crank and my 2.8 will receive a 86mm crank, both with type 4 flywheel flange.

Mon Feb 17, 2025 1:44 pm

halbug wrote: Zed999 wrote: BFB wrote: something to note for those that dont know is WBX came with flanged cranks and the 2.1 has a longer stroke. im sure that was really appealing back before flanged cranks were readily available.
im also pretty sure you can put a WBX crank into a T1 case with some case modifications? The flywheel connection and main journals are the same as a type-4. The 2.1 crank is 76mm, the cylinder spacing is like a Type-1, as are the rod journals. Really nice crank. It has thrust plates instead of a thrust bearing. I had a 2020 (76 x 92) wasser crank type-1 engine, it was super smooth.
Definitely appealing to me as a bus owner to be able to use a stock 227mm flywheel and clutch on a type-1 engine.
The main problem is when you decide you'd like to make it a longer stroke - you can't, you have to start from scratch. In my case I scratched my chin and abandoned for a better cooling type-4 build which as you know is the same kind of size before you even start so maybe it's limitation was a plus in the long run.

What where the showstoppers for larger cranks you ran into? My 2.6 has a 82mm Limbach crank and my 2.8 will receive a 86mm crank, both with type 4 flywheel flange.
What i meant was that once the case is machined for the WBX crank, you can't go back to a very readily available stroker type-1 crank without a new case. To be honest once I'd bought a raised roof case and sold the WBX crank engine I came to my senses over the limitations of type-1 cooling for the load a bus puts on one, sold the case, put 104mm B&P's on an otherwise stock 2L and for such a simple and crude conversion it's very nice for a bus.