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--- Steven Ayres <comwest@att.net> wrote: > Yes, the fan is steel, and if you're thinking of > building one with > lighter materials, you get credit for high ambition, > at least. Quite a > project. And a fairly dangerous one. I'd not want to be standing anywhere near a car with an experimental fan turning 4000rpm or so. Steel is used primarily because the fan has to be fairly strong. You might be able to make a carbon fiber fan if you have access to an autoclave and know structures and materials pretty well, but it would be a very ambitious project. Shaving a bit of weight here isn't going to pay off much. Most of the power sapped by the fan is consumed by the air it has to push around, not by the mass of the fan itself. The overall weight of the engine package would barely be affected by even cutting the weight of the fan in half. Replacing some of the engine tin with lightweight CF or fiberglass might pay off a bit, but it would still be a fairly small benefit. The cooling provided by the stock setup CAN be improved substantially (note the vast difference in head temps between the right and left banks of cylinders), and improving the cooling can lead to other tuning techniques can be exploited (like higher compression). Part of the problem with trying to save weight in air-cooled VW engines is they're already very light. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~