alternative to six-ing it up..., turbo + waterboxer ??? Options

[dtravni]

hello, 914-ers - i'm sure this is not a new topic - the problem is that i'm new to 914club. anyways, here goes.

my son & i bought a pretty nice 'california car' coupla years ago & we're debating pros/cons of pushing in a 911 6 - not exactly a glide (& not exactly cheap, either). it seems to me that a worthy alternative might be
a 2 (or 2.1) 4 cylinder watercooled Vanagan engine (waterboxer) -
all things considered, a better alternative. in fact, if the aircooled 914 4
could take the thermal loading, adapting a turbo in IT would be even better. i'm of the opinion that the performance would be comparable to a
2.7+ 6, and a whole lot more agreeable in the installation (transmission, motor mounts, cabling, etc). the plumbing (exhaust, intake, & cooling seem to be more straightforward too, compared to the adaptation required for the 6-er).

i'm sure that there are some out there that have considered/done this
installation - i'd be most interested in hearing your advice & tales of joy/woe.

[Mueller]

welcome.....

one thing to keep in mind is the purpose of the car once built...

at least in our region of the PCA, installing a wasserboxer* engine would not let it be eligble for driver ed events or points in an auto-x....

there is one 914 in Hawaii with a wasserboxer engine, it was not built for performance at all, it basicly looks like they needed basic transportation and just thru the 1st available engine they could find into it...total stock wasserboxer motor....why bother unless you are at least doubling your horsepower....

*now what would be legal last time I checked was that it would be okay to install watercooled heads onto the Type IV motor, however, it wouldn't be easy or practical using any of the wasserboxer parts so everything would have to be custom made.


kwales,

look at the mods he's done, did you ask what kind of money he has into it?? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/wacko.gif)