Air Cooling Research

??

So anyone connect a large hose to the fan intake and create a type of scoop to serve as an intake to direct cooler air from the front? I have to figure that where the fan is located and the cutout location it has to be 50 degrees warmer on top of the case than from up front.

Please limit responses to 200 words or less if possible!!!!

You'll find that FF/CMC and VS all had opening in the cooling time above the transaxle.  In addition to that open area, there was a piece of fiberglass cut to allow more air to the cooling fan in the shroud.  The engine lid grill with the rain shield does not provide much air to a bigger than a stock engine.  Even Porsche recognized that more air was required and they added a second rear grill in '62/63.  VW also did the same and added vents to the engine deck lid to supplement those vents below the rear window.  Many here also had louvers to the rear engine lid or make a prop to hold the engine (in the hot summer)  open 2-3 inches.

I need to keep researching this area.

its very important 

It's all muffler bearings these days. And don't forget the Fetzer valve.

Don't forget blinker fluid.

^^^^^ See, @DannyP  verbatim.

Highlander356 posted:

I need to keep researching this area.

I'd recommend that.

Firsthand knowledge gained by doing is the best kind of research.

That should be your motto, Stan.  (Maybe it is)

Firsthand knowledge gained by doing is the best kind of research.

Yep, definitely cooler with my head in the airflow. 

^ Right? You'd never know that by just reading about it.

This topic is critical.

People have died due to this problem.

You can all joke about this and go on about your experience etc etc...

If you know of any reputable books or source material let me know.

i also have experience using the toilet bowl, unfortunately it doesn’t make me a plumber.

This series of books is recognized globally

Highlander356 posted:

This topic is critical.

People have died due to this problem.

You can all joke about this and go on about your experience etc etc...

If you know of any reputable books or source material let me know.

i also have experience using the toilet bowl, unfortunately it doesn’t make me a plumber.

You just pulled information from how many pages of information from John Muir’s book and you’re asking for reputable material????

If Muir’s book isn’t reputable I don’t know what else is. 

And please reference one incident where someone died because they’re engine didn’t have proper cooling. 

You’re a bit dramatic. 

Air cooled kills (as does lead poisoning).

Engines have died due this problem.

I did several searches and could not find an incident where a person died as the result of an overheated air cooled VW or Porsche engine. Maybe I conducted lame searches.

If an engine compartment got excessively hot and the fuel filter melted that could mean a fire and maybe a driver or passenger couldn't get out and died. I tried that search too. Bupkus, nada, nothing, zip, zero.

Perhaps you could provide an example of this happening?

WOLFGANG posted:

Air cooled kills (as does lead poisoning).

@ALB what say you?

I've been avoiding this thread for a couple of days. I had put up and taken down a pretty incomplete and unkind response. I'm going to try to be more complete and reasoned with this one.

Like motor-oil, this is a subject where people have very strong opinions, but none of us (or anybody else) has any real data to back up those opinions. I'm not immune to the "everybody is entitled to my opinion" way of looking at things, so here's how I see it:

The Muir book is great... for guys with 100% stock VW Type 1s, and no background working on machinery of any kind. The title says it all: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat (sic) Idiot. While a lot of guys look at the Muir book as being the Bible of VWs, it's really a lot like the "Dick and Jane" books you likely learned to read with-- good, insofar as it teaches a person what they need to know to gain more knowledge, but not the final word on anything.

If you look at the Type 1 engine objectively, there is some real Rube Goldberg engineering, and all of it is centered around cooling. The oil relief pistons and flaps-n'-stats are the most Micky Mouse parts of an otherwise elegant design. It works, for sure-- but there would be no engineer anywhere in the world who would (or could) say that this setup is not prone to problems and ultimately to failure. It was the best Her Doktor could come up with at the time.

As I said above-- nobody has any hard data to provide a definitive answer to say, "this is best"-- just opinions and observations regarding what has worked for each of us (individually), and others (collectively). As it pertains to cooling, I truly doubt that even the Sainted German Engineers had the measuring capability to fine-tune the airflow across the heads and oil cooler back in the 30s and 40s (when the cooling was being designed), since the ability to do so was not even invented yet.

The title of this thread is "Air Cooling Research", which is a bit of a misnomer. "Research" means one of two things:

1. Literary Research, which is pulling together information (considered opinions) from various sources, and collating them into a single cohesive narrative. I would submit that cutting and pasting from a single book written 50 years ago, by a guy who could not even spell trying to explain to "compleat (sic) idiots" how to work on an economy car. Such "research" would get an 11th grader a failing grade on a term paper, as does not rise to the standard of good literary research (3 or more independent sources).
2. Scientific Research, which is performing experiments and looking for clues regarding why things act as they do. This is a lot harder than literary research because it involves accurate measuring tools and an open, inquisitive mind. It requires training in whatever discipline is the subject of inquiry, and involves lots and lots of time and work. It is my belief that the Sainted German Engineers with their labs and time did a bit (but not a lot) of this kind of research. Once they had something that worked well enough, they left it pretty much alone for another 45 years.

I'd love to actually see some scientific research into cooling, because at best, all we've got to work with is literary research. We all do what we think is best, based on the experiences we've had personally, and what we read from other people. Jake Raby did some actual scientific research into cooling systems about 10-15 years ago, but it was so expensive and took so much time that he was reluctant to give the data away. Some of us just took Jake at his word (because he generally doesn't blow smoke), but this is more faith than science.

The thing about the internet is that anybody can say anything, and if it sounds good, it's repeated until it becomes the accepted narrative. Gene Berg was a really smart guy, but he didn't know everything. The same can be said for all of the luminaries in the hobby today. All of them would readily admit that they know a lot, but have a lot to learn. This is what makes them good at what they do.

What I can say for sure is that almost all the good trial and error effort has gone into how to make more power, not in how to cool better.

That's a shame. Good research would be invaluable to all of us.

Worth noting too that most of the research into making more power with the Type 1 engine has been centered on drag racing applications which often use no fan or shroud since they only run for a couple minutes at a stretch.

My vehicle is currently being inspected by Porsche Australia.

Experience with a brand name.

All I know is the better the cooling the more power and safety.