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Project water cooled

flatfourfanflatfourfan
Well many may know that I was planning a type 4 (4 cam lookalike motor) and in the intrim was using my engine builders type 4 so that I could get the car around to get stuff done. A few moons passed and the type 4 was acting up an air leak was suspected and was prompty sorted out, intake studs were stripped. In the year and a half or so that I had the motor I put on a little over 900miles because I didn't like driving the car in the current state, it even came to the point that I wanted to sell her.

Then after speaking to a friend he suggested a 2.0 upright 4 banger from a VW polo. Total price with adapter kit, (locally made by GILO) was a little under $1000.00.

Disadvantages:
1) Well it's no aircooled motor and popping the hood will not be as impressive as what was planned for it in the first place.
2) There is a lot of work to get everything where it's supposed to go, I want the radiator in the back, fans, oil cooler and battery, ECU.

Advantages:
1) I have a working 2.0 motor from a written off polo going in, that cost me R3500 and it has less than 50 000km on the clock, with the adapter plate, stock management I'm still south of $1000
2) The only person that I honestly trust to work on my type 4 was me engine builder IMPI, and the fact that it's a round trip of about 600kms, going watercooled puts at least 25 people within 20minutes from my house that can do anything serious to it.
3) 125bhp and 172nm torque on a stock motor before doing anything to it.
4) Fuel consumption of anywhere between 10 and 15km/litre. This obviously is down to gearing, which will mean a visit to Bugger.
5) Cheap parts - A service kit can be had for a few hundred and the motor is simple enough for anyone to work on. Plus I can get the parts 5 minutes from my house.
6) This is being built to drive, not to go to shows. As my life priorities have changed over the last few years, so is what I wanted out of the car. With married life, 2 kids, playing in a band and have more hobbies than a toy store owner, I want to be able to just wipe her down, climb in and then go for a looooong cruise without thinking if I forgot to set something or tinker on something else?
7) The gearbox will have a cross member on top, which will allow me to lift her up an inch or so to get the rear down some more.
8) Service kit on a type 4 would cost me a little over $300 and would pretty much have to be imported.


1955 Kit Car Centre(Speedster)

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flatfourfanflatfourfan
Well many may know that I was planning a type 4 (4 cam lookalike motor) and in the intrim was using my engine builders type 4 so that I could get the car around to get stuff done. A few moons passed and the type 4 was acting up an air leak was suspected and was prompty sorted out, intake studs were stripped. In the year and a half or so that I had the motor I put on a little over 900miles because I didn't like driving the car in the current state, it even came to the point that I wanted to sell her.

Then after speaking to a friend he suggested a 2.0 upright 4 banger from a VW polo. Total price with adapter kit, (locally made by GILO) was a little under $1000.00.

Disadvantages:
1) Well it's no aircooled motor and popping the hood will not be as impressive as what was planned for it in the first place.
2) There is a lot of work to get everything where it's supposed to go, I want the radiator in the back, fans, oil cooler and battery, ECU.

Advantages:
1) I have a working 2.0 motor from a written off polo going in, that cost me R3500 and it has less than 50 000km on the clock, with the adapter plate, stock management I'm still south of $1000
2) The only person that I honestly trust to work on my type 4 was me engine builder IMPI, and the fact that it's a round trip of about 600kms, going watercooled puts at least 25 people within 20minutes from my house that can do anything serious to it.
3) 125bhp and 172nm torque on a stock motor before doing anything to it.
4) Fuel consumption of anywhere between 10 and 15km/litre. This obviously is down to gearing, which will mean a visit to Bugger.
5) Cheap parts - A service kit can be had for a few hundred and the motor is simple enough for anyone to work on. Plus I can get the parts 5 minutes from my house.
6) This is being built to drive, not to go to shows. As my life priorities have changed over the last few years, so is what I wanted out of the car. With married life, 2 kids, playing in a band and have more hobbies than a toy store owner, I want to be able to just wipe her down, climb in and then go for a looooong cruise without thinking if I forgot to set something or tinker on something else?
7) The gearbox will have a cross member on top, which will allow me to lift her up an inch or so to get the rear down some more.
8) Service kit on a type 4 would cost me a little over $300 and would pretty much have to be imported.


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  • bare dummy
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flatfourfanflatfourfan
So this weekend, I dropped all my projects and went to my fibreglass buddy and promptly dropped in the dummy motor, adapter plate and the intake/ exhaust so that I could check for clearence issues. I'm over the moon. Besides the fact I chose the WORST time of the year to start this as pretty much everyone is closed for Christmas, it gives me time to plan out everything that needs to be done. Now that the dummy engine is in, I can have the exhaust done as well as mounts for the radiator (out back), Radiator will be a dual core jobbie from a civic as well as it's fan and cowling. We will be fabbing ducting from the rear quarter to go through the radiator. The intake manifold will have it's intake blocked off and done on the other side so that will buy me some more space to install a stock VW polo air intake, overflow tank out back and I'm pretty much done. The last to be installed will be the motor, but we will pretty much everything in place, so that as soon as I get the motor, I can do a service, cam belt swap etc and then put some miles on it as I have a month to find out if it has issues or now.

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FM Former Member
Gary, there are a lot of us over here on this side of the Atlantic who feel like help is pretty far away sometimes. You must feel like you're on a different planet most of the time, huh?

Good for you for not only sourcing an ideal engine and such, but for taking the extra step of balancing what you wanted out of the car mid-stream. I remember when you first got started, and how you weren't daunted even a little bit by doing bodywork to make things work better.

My hat's off, man. If you ever get to Washington, I'll be buying your beverages in exchange for stories about some of the stuff you've done to that car!
flatfourfanflatfourfan
Barry - Oh there is no doubt that I can get it to work, my friend has done this conversion in the back of a beetle a few times already and I have about double the space to do the same amount of work. Even the radiator support, overflow bottle, air filter box is all basically simple fab work. I picked up my civic dual core radiator today as well as the cowl and fan set up for a little over $50, so work on the mounts can start soon. I even have enough space for 2 silencers and a muffler back there.

Cory - You have NO idea how we look at the US and drool as to what you can order and how easy it all is. There are perks to living here though that few people see. Labour is pretty cheap and many guys are in trades that would be pretty much dead anywhere else in the world. We get 8-9 months of gorgeous sunshine and winters where I can easily still drive with the top down with no worries.

I'm fortunate to have great friends who will help me out at the drop of a hat. My body man Willem has been a mate of mine for years and never expects anything in return and he's agreed to help me with anything I need as long as I learn to do it myself, which is fine by me. Even my old engine builder (IMPI) went out of his way to fit and loan me a type 4 to get the car rolling. He built a great motor, but at the end of the day he lives 300kms away and if I had any issues, then the down time would kill me. The issues I had with his loaner motor appear to originate from my lack of knowledge of it and also a carb washer being dropped into the intake manifold.

The same if you're ever in the Capital of South Africa.
David Stroud IM Roadster DDavid Stroud IM Roadster DOttawa Canada '83 IM Soob
I'm very interested to hear more of your progress when it's available, Gary. I was going to sling a Jeep Cherokee rad across the rear end up and ahead of the rear bumper but it became to close to my aftermarket exhaust header so I moved the whole shebang up front and the rad is now slung onto the front bumper brackets. This necessitated long runs of al. tube to get the coolant forward but it seems to work well. I'm envious of how an inline four can take up so little space and leave room for a rad right where it should be. Keep us posted.
FM Former Member
Garry this may be a stupid question... but are you safe driving a convertible in SA, when l was there last the car jackings were getting pretty bad ... your right about the US, even from Australia we look and dream about what they have....and we dont
by the way, my kit started life in SA
flatfourfanflatfourfan
David - This is the main reason that we're doing the rad out back as I want short water lines, I could of run the pipes down the side as I have an overhang where the pipes can fit inside, but the plan of action is as short as possible and everything in the back (if possible).

Barry - Once I'm done with the engine swap, I'll jump back into the steering wheel. If you're happy with the work done on mine, then we can talk, it's not going to be in the next 3-4 months though as we're having some building done at casa del gary, so all my attention is going to that and my speedy engine swap as this stage.

Bill - Nah, not really it gets a lot of looks, but it's for the right reasons. Car jackings are mainly done with cars that can be chopped, stripped or sold of without causing too much fuss. BMW's, SUV's and and low end budget cars that can be sold for parts. But if someone wants it, I wouldn't put up a fight, I've got it insured for the full value of what I will have in it, (about 15k US). So I can build another one, but I don't think like it's going to get stolen, I just enjoy driving it.

Ps, someone actually did this before, but I have no idea as to why theirs looks so cramped, maybe the engine compartments on South African speedsters are a bit wider. Because I have place for everything back there, including the radiator down the side. I also want to fit a stock VW polo airbox back there as well as I don't like the chrome pipe with a cone on idea that many seem to adopt.

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