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Reply to "Overheating pobs ?"

I knew nothing about VWs when I bought my first speedster in 2000.

N O T H I N G

I was a corn-fed white boy, which meant you were either a Ford guy or a GM guy (weirdos with their Mopar stuff were not part of the club). My tastes had evolved a bit since the knuckle-dragging days of the '70s, but not much. I bought the first speedster because my wife told me, "anything but a Corvette".

Cooling is just a non-issue with "normal" cars. If a hot car ran hot, we just put a thicker radiator in it. Done and done. Tuning? Pffft.

That first car was a 1776 with all the tin and whatnot and it ran HOT - like vaporlock hot. I sold that one after a year and had JPS build another one, with a very similar "100 hp" 1776. It ran hot as well.

Since then, I've had a 2210, a "200 hp" 2332, a 2276, a different 2110, a 2276 with a twin-plug and dry-sump setup, the second 2110 back for a repeat performance, and a 2234 (still on the stand waiting to go in). None of them ran as hot as either 1776.

Of course you need good surround tins. Sled tins are nice as well. The stock VW doghouse tins are reputed to be better than the 36 hp "doghouse" tin everybody sells, but I've never noticed a bunch of difference. Same with the thermostatic flaps - flaps, no flaps, there wasn't an enormous difference. I've had the Raby (now LN Engineering) DTM shrouds on everything going back to the first 2110 (except for the second 2110), and it works well, but again - it's not enough to make an enormous difference.

You know what does make an enormous difference? Two things:

  1. Heads
  2. Exhaust


Stock heads running through stock heat exchangers and a "hot-dog", EMPI Monza, or other <$100 exhaust are going to run hot. They'll run hotter than they do in a VW Beetle because the airflow through the speedster's engine compartment is pitiable. How (exactly) to get more air back there is a matter of substantial discourse (as well as the subject of lots and lots of folklore and common interweb knowledge) but it's not as big a deal as your heads and exhaust.

If a guy's car is running hot, I'd start with a better exhaust. "Better" means something tuned (4 into 1). Equal-length is better (an A1 sidewinder is not), but said Sidewinder works great. Non racer-types report good success with Vintage Speed exhausts.

... which gets us to heads, which is an entirely different conversation. Free breathing heads are better. Free breathing heads that have well considered fins are even better yet. CB's Panchitos are really hard to beat in this regard.

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