anyone running a bergmann motor

www.bergmannvw.net

Never heard of him before your post but I will check him out since he is only 30 minutes east of Oklahoma City. Looks interesting!

I really like the look of the fan shroud, did some research and heard the same thing more than once... "Its a good engine if you want a colored case, other than that stay away.

paul

I will back Bergman's name any day, he has been around aircooled since Moby Dick was a minow. I have had two of his engines (see pix) they were a work of art both in performance and cosmetics. ~Alan

Bob,

I think it was Gordon's write up in the following link that really stood out in my mind. See below, it is a good link to the discussion you are looking for. I am guilty of remembering the bad over the good. Hope this helps.

https://www.speedsterowners.com/forum/readmsg.asp?t=11009

paul

Engines that look the part can sometimes not play the part..
Just do your research and buy for the right reasons..

It seems like I read a lot of negative stuff about later Bergman engines on Samba.

I still stand by my earlier comments. I bought a long block that should have been run-in a bit on a bench (I would have done as much - all it takes is a test stand with a starter motor) but it wasn't, so they never found that the #4 bearing was tight. Instead, I found it, accompanied with the subsequent disappointment and added work on my part.

If you're buying a turn-key engine, get him to run it in for you. He is also a proponent of deleting the VW cooling tower and, instead, running two external DeRale 16-pass oil coolers. I would recommend, instead, keeping a Super beetle VW oil cooler, run original , salvaged, GERMAN VW cooling tins (1971 or later), get him to full-flow the case and run a single DeRale 16-pass cooler outside of the engine. this is especially since most of us have little or no experience with Bernie's fiberglass cooling shroud - I simply don't know how good it is (May be better info on the Shop Talk Forums).

Bernie is still opinionated and he's very knowledgeable, but take his (and other builders) opinions with a grain of salt until you can confirm the data provided.

Also....I thought Bernie was out in Southern Cal somewhere (San Diego?) When did he move to OKC??????

Bernie lived in Hemet before moving east. Hemet is in the middle of nowhere, halfway between LA and Palm Springs if you take the back roads.

Before that he was in Escondido, about 20 miles north of San Diego. I visited his shop there in 2001 or 2002. Yes very opinionated. He seemed frustrated if you didn't buy anything, and he was always pushing you to buy something. By all appearances, a very good craftsman, but I don't know how "state of the art" his work was. In the 70s and 80s, a "Bergman built" motor was worth a premium for reliability. When he moved east, he sold his name to a local motorsports store here in San Diego, don't know what his current relationship is with that shop.

Bernie was building engines for Dune Buggies back in the late '60's and just kept with it, still building VW stuff when a lot of other VW guys moved on to working on Harleys. When he's good, he's very good. When he's less than that, he still stands behind his work and fixes it.

Nothing wrong with that...