"Marvin Barnard" wrote in message
...
I agree with your choice, and fly VW myself.
If you don't mind a redrive, VW Gene Smith offers an
excellent version for type 1 VW which will turn a big prop and produce
100 hp at 200 lbs. installed. If you build it the cost is aproaching
$3000.00 bucks.
A direct drive (for aircraft like Texas Parasol, Teenie, M-19, or
VP-1 etc.) can be built for 700.00 bucks if you start from a good core.
VW type 1 is the most proven engine in the world considering it's
billions of hours time in ground vehicles and a lot of airtime as well.
No engine design ever built even comes close to the aftermarket
development data, performance data, endurance data, cost economics, and
parts availablility as the type 1 VW. ..........None.


I put around 100 hours on a VW-powered Karatoo with redrive. We never
really got it dialed in but I was impressed with that big prop out there
ticking over and acting like an airbrake on final. And when you shoved the
throttle in, that thing could do some climbing too. The redrive used a
cogged belt which gave some trouble but could have been tweaked out with
time and effort. It was not my project but I enjoyed flying it. One time
I was out over Lake James when the VW engine seized from overheating and
barely made it to dry land. Plenty of power from an EA-81, and then an
1835cc VW. The VW engine always got too hot, but now that I look back on
it, it was because they hadn't cowled and baffled it right and should have
used a bigger oil sump and oil cooler. I had a 3-liter Porsche Targa which
held about 10 or 15 qts. oil and a big cooler up front for cooling it. You
have to educate yourself and look around, be circumspect.

Yeah, I'm sold on those type 1 VW engines --- simple, durable, light, cheap,
fun to rebuild and tinker with and you can run them forever. But if you
turn one up to 3k-3.5k rpm, you're going to have to be especially careful to
cool it. Have you seen the Piet with that huge radiator up front to cool
the Ford engine? If I were building a Piet I'd go with the Ford and be
patriotic about it. Besides, that low-revving guttural engine purr is,
well, indescribably sonorous.