Need help identifying squareback engine.

[speedracer89]

Hello,

I have 1969 Type 3 Squareback that was supposedly a FI and Auto car originally, The car still has the automatic transmission, which I have posted about before.

I was looking at doing some engine upgrades for better drive-ability, and here is where my questions start.

I thought 1969 was suppose to be a DP 1600? This is based of articles I have read, But this car has single port heads with a dual carb conversion. I know the dual carb conversion was a common swap so that does not concern me the single port heads do concern me.

The next thing I noticed was where the engine number was suppose to be on the Type 3 it is stamped MAINS .020. So that tells someone was inside this engine and possibly put better mains in with possibly the 50mm crank.

The only way I know for me really to tell is tear the engine apart which I really don't want to do.

So here are the questions.

Does anyone know if the engine number should be anywhere else? If the engine is a type 1 case I know I will have to take the front fan shroud off to verify.

What are your thoughts on the single port heads? is that true to the year of the car? Or should it be a 1600 DP? Also could this be a 1500 SP engine from factory for the year of the vehicle?

Does anyone else know of a better way of figuring out what is inside this engine with out tearing it apart?

I am just trying to do this without taking the car to much apart as I have a bus on the lift right now I am trying to get done for a show.

Thanks for any help in advance.

[sjbartnik]

It could be anything.

Mains .020" means that the engine has been rebuilt and the case was align-bored, thus requiring main bearings that are .020" oversize to fit the (now larger) bearing bores in the case.

If the engine number is not stamped on the top of the case near the seam, then it is not originally a Type 3 case. It could be a Type 1 case or it could be a universal replacement case in which case it would likely not have an engine number stamped on it anywhere.

Usually when an engine is rebuilt it is rebuilt as a 1600 as nobody makes 1500 parts anymore. It also could have been built larger with aftermarket parts but there's no way to know without tearing it down and measuring parts.

It is weird that it has single port heads but I don't know when the transition was made from single port to dual port. I believe 1600 single port showed up on the Type 3 in 1966 model year but I'm pretty sure it would have been dual port by 1969 - I believe all the FI cars were dual port and FI started in 1968.

So...you have some sort of frankenstein engine.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[speedracer89]

[sjbartnik]

Does the case have the normal Type 3 oil fill tube with dipstick or does it have the dipstick on top like a Beetle?
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[speedracer89]

[sjbartnik]

Likely a universal case then. So no point in pulling the fan housing to look for an engine number.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[speedracer89]

[Mike Fisher]

Single port heads/intake manifolds are sought after because they are supposed to make more torque!
I wouldn't be worried about changing them to dual port if they're still in good shape.
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https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[Bobnotch]

It's possible that someone ground/machined the engine number off, and stamped it with .020.
Single port heads were used thru 66, with 67 being the first year for the duals. It's not really an issue, unless you want to convert the engine back to FI, in which case you'll need a set of dual port heads. As Mike said, there's a little more torque found in the single port heads, but it's not enough to force a change to dual port heads for a 1 hp gain.
If the engine works and doesn't have any issues, I'd leave it alone and just drive it.
_________________
Bob 65 Notch S with Sunroof
71 Notch ...aka Krunchy; build pics here;
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249390 -been busy working
64 T-34 Ghia...aka Wolfie, under construction... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=412120

[speedracer89]

Thanks for the help! I might just leave once I get it running a little better. But I believe the drive-ability issues has to do with old points and no balance tube between the two carbs, because the car acts up once it is warm like very doggy not as much power and almost will have a miss.

The reason I question is because whoever built this car before seemed like they were in a rush. I have already rebuilt the trans because of some bad work that was done previously.

Then I see the motor with the .020 so it make me question if the person knew what they were doing or were just throwing parts at the car.

Another great is example is using the SVDA dizzy on dual carb setup and the 2nd mistake was not hooking up the vacuum to the dizzy. I have seen guys static time these SVDA dizzy before but I personally don't think it works as good that way (I would just swap for a 009). I tried it like that on my dune buggy and had flat spots on acceleration after sitting at a red light for a few minutes. I fixed the problem on my dune buggy by hook up the SVDA correct and timing as it was suppose to be with the SVDA.

[Bobnotch]

[speedracer89]

[Bobnotch]

[speedracer89]

[sjbartnik]

I would assume it can be done, consider the Type 3 got FI in the USA but in some other markets it remained dual carb, so presuming that the automatic was optional in those other markets, there would have to be dual carb automatic versions that existed.

Granted they are probably pretty rare as those other markets were likely majority manual transmission back then, USA being the big market for automatics.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[ataraxia]

[speedracer89]

[sjbartnik]

[Bobnotch]