I bought my Speedster from Kirk 5 years ago at the end of summer. Having owned 3 beetles (bought new) in the 60's, two 356's, 912E, 5 911's and a VW bus, I thought I knew my **** with air cooled engines. The first thing I discovered as the weather turned cold this thing had NO heat. My VW's had heat why didn't this replica, hell it is the same thing. OK I realized the top was not sealed at all, but why no heat from the engine. I then discovered the missing flaps and thermostats. Kirk explained most of his cars are sold to warm areas and not driven in winter otherwise. I live at Lake Tahoe and even in the Summer it get's cold. I found flaps and a thermostat and put them on. The engine got warm a little faster but still no heat to speak of. I had Kirk install the external oil cooler when I purchased the car based on my previous experience with these engines. I then figured out the lack of heat was the engine just not getting warm in the cold weather. Larger engine than VW, takes long to warm up. I then added a temp controlled valve on the external oil cooler so it would not open until the oil hit 90c. Big improvement, engine warms up and puts out heat. Not enough air flow to overcome the air leaks. Kirk tells me there is a mod to bypass the frame and get heat from the exchangers directly to the vents. i install this mod and OMG I have heat and air flow. However in the NV dessert the wind blows 50mph frequently in cold weather. The wind just blows through the window frames. So this summer I had my boat canvas guy enlarge the windows by a couple of inches. Now they fit tight with the top up. You have to fit them with your fingers but it stopped most of the air leaks. Today I drove from Lake Tahoe to Carson City. It was 38F at 10:00am. Within 5 minutes I had some heat. In 15 minutes I had lots of heat, and no air leaks except the top of the windshield and through the E brake handle. When I got to the desert the wind was blowing 50 MPH and I had almost no air entering the cabin. I had to turn the heat DOWN. I generally do not drive in the winter, but it was nice to know you can get heat out of these things short of adding a gas heater. I hope this may help others that are venturing out in the cold.
