I never thought I'd find it but I figured VW MUST have researched and prototyped a pushrod flat 6 sometime in their history. I've been googling on this subject for sometime, but never quite hit the right combination of keys until this morning (literally after a dream last night). For those of you who know all about this engine, please excuse this if it's redundant, but it's just too tempting to look at this engine as a potential VW swap.. afterall.. it's "Factory".

VW was developing the WasserBoxer 4 cylinder, and had a 6 cylinder variant also in the works. Market Research suggested that it was not worth the tooling/ development for the 6 cylinder, so VW sold the design to Oettinger. The Vanagon experts can chime in but as I understand it, Oettinger built a "Tuner" synchro Vanagon, and offered two versions of the six.

I understand the engines use all the same moving parts as 4 cylinder in terms of valves, pistons, pushrods, rocker arms, etc. Not much more info on the web, but am interested if someone has the whole "Story".

Thanks

Brian

Now there's something my wife would LOVE to have dropped into "her van" - or 88 2WD Westy!

.... then the neighbors will call her "the wheelie lady"!


I wonder what HP & TQ that sucker turned out?
... with our stock 91 HP 2.1L wasserboxer 4 we'd get 18-22 mpg on the highway & 12-18 in town, & I would expect this to be lower, but at least you'd have some zip!

So far she wants a GoWesty 2.4 or 2.5L built-up wasser-4 with 110 - 115 HP & better TQ than stock for the "next engine" if/when this one dies.

I can't speak to this much newer water cooled engine, but if I remember correctly Porsche design and test various prototype variants of a six cylinder engine for the original 911 six in the early 1960's including a pushrod version. I think there are photos of these in "Excellence Was Expected".

Are you going to rebuild and drive this engine? Cool look.

Have a look here

http://www.wbx6.com/

I've seen that engine which was a Porsche design, but this 6 was VW "proper". The power outputs were pretty low for the displacement (one was/is 3.7 liters, but under 200hp). I think they literally copied and pasted the 4 cylinder's head design with torque and emissions as the primary goals.

Basically a corvair upgrade, with the hindrance of a water system.

Dammit.. you are totally right.. now my enthusiasm is all gone..


and like every wasserboxer, the head to cylinder water-jacket joint is a ticking time bomb ready to fail

Still cool as hell, but I LOVE my corvair engine, and you cant beat the price.

to get the connection to the teener:

back in 2006 I visited the Salzburg Oldtimer Fair and there was a ravenna green teener, that was a "experimental car" from Oettinger
guess what - it had an old watercooled flat six in it
the guy told me that the car was the 1st and only prototype car that had this engine in it - and he had all the paperwork and constructive information with the car

I can't remember all the details he told me, but I found two old photos:

Hell, the entire car was cool as hell. My Great Aunt who lived in Greentree near you had a 63 Monza since new, I wanted a 67-68 Corsa Turbo in the worst way during HS in San Diego, but cost was out of reach.

Corvairs & esp. Corsas were/are the most underrated hot sport coupe of the day IMHO, even if not the fastest of all - certainly far better than the Nader BS scare implied.

Oh shoot, now I want that 3.7L 180 HP Kit (don't need the body parts) for our 88 Westy!

Click to view attachment

... but then that's one more thing to get in the way of my 914's resto & help drain the account faster!

There is a guy in the Fatherland who rebuilds these, i will see if i can find his details...

What a great find. Thanks for sharing this. VW sure dropped the ball in regards to the Vanagon and this engine could have solved a lot of ills, although it sounds like the same abomination of cooling and exhaust systems that plague the wasserboxer4 was carried over into this engine. Oh well, fortunately Subaru stepped in and did proper development on horizontally opposed engines for the masses.

Well, it stand to reason somebody would have tried it. Thanks for posting, that car has a paint job and wheels I'm envious of


I'm guessing that the 3.7Liter 180HP flat six must have had a somewhat agricultural torque curve. The average torque output almost always calculates out to 1 foot-lb per cubic inch on any engine built in the 1950's and onward, so I'm going to guess that at 222 cubic inches (3.7 liters ~ 222ci), there was 200 ft-lbs at hand. Isn't this somewhere near the limit of 1st gear in the 901 transaxle?

Brian, that "agricultural" TQ would be perfect for a "brick on wheels" Vanagon/Westy, especially loaded for an XC trip with the stuff for 2 kids & 2-3-4 weeks on the road. Our 2WD - 91 HP 2.1L WBX4 - Auto (it's also my wife's DD) would slow to 25-35 uphill going through the Rockies on I-70!

So 2x the HP & 1.5 - 2x the TQ would've been a welcome addition!

So I agree with Marc on VW dropping the ball on the Vanagons & engine development, much as they did at VW-Porsche then Porsche with the 914s.

Plus, couldn't Porsche have figured out how to upgrade the 914-6's in engine & trim that was somewhere between the $5k+ 70-72 6s & a $16k+ 916 which topped all but their 930s & about equaled the 911S cost!!??

Dr. Evil:
Oh you are TOO Evil: The Corvair engine was the biggest mistake GM every made, only to be matched by the Vega, decades later.

The engine was a diabolical POS....I tried to make one run back in the late 60's.

Terry

I disagree, Terry. But, you are entitled to your opinion. From the factory, the engine may have had some issue, but they are easy to rebuilt, correct, and run. I have one in my bus that has been "modified".

Brian, the listed tq limit on the 901 is 300ft/lb....however, the amount of time it takes to apply that tq matters as well. All at once would = kaboom.