Re: Dual Carbeurators

["Steve Bradley" <scscomp@mindspring.com>]

Well Meghan, 1st of all, this car was originally fuel injected, not
carbureted. Depending on who you converse with on this list, the fact that
it was converted to carburetors can be good or bad.

I'm on the fuel injected side. I have a 71 squareback too, and I would
suggest that you locate missing fuel injection parts and restore your car to
its fuel injected glory. If you did this, you wouldn't have those ugly
things sticking up in your cargo area at all. Also, the fuel injected 1600
engine, IMHO, is superior engine to a carbureted 1600.

If you do keep the carb setup, I don't think the holes in the engine cover
will affect your cooling. The engine draws it cooling air from the louvers
in the rear quarter panels, pulls it in though the rubber bellows in the
front of the engine, travels over the oil cooler, cylinders and heads and
out the bottom. The holes would make the interior of your car pretty noisy
and warmer than normal though.

If you stiill have access to the (so called) mechanic that sold you the car,
he may have the original fuel injection parts or some of the people on this
list may be willing to sell you some. Also, if you did this, you would need
to make sure that you have the stock heads, cylinders and pistions as the
fuel injection will not work properly if you have oversized ones.

Steve B.

-----Original Message-----
From: mekennedy@stkate.edu <mekennedy@stkate.edu>
To: type3@vwtype2.org <type3@vwtype2.org>
Date: Thursday, June 25, 1998 3:36 PM
Subject: Dual Carbeurators


>Greetings to the list!!
>

>I recently bought a 1971 squareback.  The previous owner of 6 years was a
>VW mechanic, as was his father for 20 years before that.  So he did a fair
>amount of work on the engine--it was recently rebuilt (he didn't give me a
>mileage figure--about two years ago), and has dual Weber carbs installed.
>To fit the carbs in, he cut a hole in the top of the engine cover, so they
>stick out into the engine.  When I bought it, I didn't know enough to
>realize this wasn't how it was supposed to be--the previous owner told me I
>should be able to buy the "missing" engine cover piece from Rocky Mountain
>for $10-20...  He said he was using an upside-down glass mixing bowl until
>it broke.
>
>Now I don't have a problem with having it stick up, cosmetically, and I'm
>sure I can come up with some bowl variation or build something to cover it
>well, but I wonder about the effect this hole on the engine cover has on
>the cooling system?  I would imagine it completely screws with the airflow!
>I also am not sure if he modified the engine at all to run better with the
>dual carbs--I do know he included the original single carb in the buckets
>of parts he gave me with the car.  I'm trying to decide if I should pull
>off the dual Webers and reinstall the singles, especially since I don't
>really care about performance/ pickup/speed.
>
>Any suggestions?