325 hp? that's insane!!! At 212, it would lift the front whells of the bus when you punched it. Much less a bug!
We did the van as sort of joke. The engine was for my friend's 67 bug that he was turning into a drag racer. He got rear ended hit and run and screwed the bug. It was the only yeat they made the engine hatch in that style and he couldn't find one. Took him a year and half to find another
So, we called the guy in LA that made the engine and transmission and he worked it to fit into the bus and put in a "freeway' gear in the trans. Badass party wagon that thing was. Can kick myself in the ass for selling it, but had to move back east to take care of some family things for my wife. Sold it to a friend's friend in Healdsburg, CA who still has it. Thing is worth a fortune now...
If it was one of the multi-windowed buses, then it's waaaaaay thru the roof.
I had help with picking the parts for the engine, being it my first and only V-Dub build. My buddy, that builds mainly motorcycles, also loves and has built many bugs.
I went to him for those reasons. I had the idea to adapt the stand-alone engine management system he uses. We had to change out parts, get creative with fuel and ignition and do some sensor dancing, but it was the same basic bones he used on motorcycles. He installed his software on my laptop so I could tune it.
The system worked great! Tuning it was another story. Really, boost control was the only hard part. His software could control it fairly well, it just that the processor was getting taxed and the com buss was pretty slow. It worked insanely well with the turbo just on spring pressure. With no intercooler, boost built very quickly and ramped extremely quick..... too quick. It would just blow tires...............and not skinny stock tires. When I used the ECM to also control the boost, either the cpu or the data buss was just too slow. I had to slow the ramp rate of the boost quite a lot so the cpu was able to get the corrections to fuel delivery, spark timing and boost levels, where they weren't outta whack with each other.At that time, there were several good boost controllers I could have used, but it just wasn't in the budget.......the additional dyno time and street tuning time could have paid for it and would have been even more quick.
It still made the same peak HP, but peak TQ was down some. Still an insane car to drive!
I could do it today far easier.
....the sheperdess works with the farmers here....after they harvest a field the goats/sheep come down and strip the fields....
....great guarders....
Trust me to pick an Alpaca Aficinado..........
