VW Bug 1975 fuel Injection

Is it a Super Beetle?

Later year FI Beetles (when they ran right) were ok ( think emissions here) the good news here is that you can easily adapt a FI engine case to run on carbs.

Not a super beetle

Also oil chart does any one remember the oil chart someone was proclaiming to have the beat oil listings?

I’ve done both and found the carbs MUCH easier to deal with and less expensive to rebuild/maintain.  The FI systems from VW in those days used a pretty high pressure fuel pump and recirculating system.  This was the cause of many a fire if a leak appeared in the engine compartment. My brother’s burned after a hose cracked. I had a guy yell to me that something was leaking big time at a stop light.  Turned out to be a cracked fitting on the bosch pump.  Anyway, I prefer the carbs... my 2 sense... 

IaM-Ray posted:

Also oil chart does any one remember the oil chart someone was proclaiming to have the beat oil listings?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/5...ar-test-ranking/amp/

The Valvoline VR1 dino oil came out the best if you compared the ZDDP content to Brad Penn. 

I had a '72 1.7L Porsche 914 (T4 not T1) with the fuel injection.  It started and ran great BUT when I added larger P&C (to make it 2L) - the FI could not be tuned enough (even with 2L injectors) to supply enough fuel.  I went to dual Webers - never did get it to run as smooth as with the FI.  Always dead spot off idle jets.  This was before internet and Jake Raby interest in the T4.  Now might be a little different but its now old technology and parts are hard to come by.  With T1 your starting with just 60 hp so why for a Speedster?  At least a 2L T4 was 106 hp.  T1 FI NOT worth effort and $, IMHO.

Porsche had a recall ('73 or 74?) on the injection hoses - they cracked and with the fuel under 35 psi cars caught fire! Leaking battery acid added to fuel lines failing too. Fix was new hoses and plastic cover for battery - not nice stainless steel covered hoses even!

Type 1 FI was a VW rapid fire response to US emissions laws....  The pump and fuel lines were problems unto themselves, along with the distributor having two sets of points. ( one for ignition and one for injection timing.....  For some reason no one checked that second set of points very often.......The contacts would look good, but the phenolic rubbing area on the points would be worn away.....     The price and availability of injection parts are a source of much anxiety and pain.....  

All this is easily corrected with carbs.....   

Robert M posted:

IaM-Ray posted:

Also oil chart does any one remember the oil chart someone was proclaiming to have the beat oil listings?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/5...ar-test-ranking/amp/

The Valvoline VR1 dino oil came out the best if you compared the ZDDP content to Brad Penn. 

Thanks for the info.   Actually i should of mentioned that I have a subie 2.5l and wanted 5/30. Or 5/40 full.  Synthetic 

IaM-Ray posted:

Also oil chart does any one remember the oil chart someone was proclaiming to have the beat oil listings?

Ray, here's the oil comparison/testing results.

the highest ranking oil (#3) without additives was Amsoil 5x30 at 134,352 psi lubricity, it also held up under extremely high temperatures better than most other oils and the bonus of using Amsoil is that they will test your oil sample at oil change time for free and let you know what's in your oil at that point.

Wow, this is straining the brain cells, but IIRC Fuel injection first appeared on VW Beetles in 1975, so that would be a first year FI car.  Bosch came out with the L-Jetronic system in 1974 and it was kind-of thrown onto the VW engine right off.  It was an Analog system and measured airflow into the engine with (believe it or not) a vane in the intake connected to a potentiometer for the "computer".  It was limited in what it could do since it was highly tuned to the engine displacement, intake and exhaust systems of the day for that engine.  Unlike today's smarter, computer-based EFI systems, this one was transistor-based and relied on specific fuel injectors and a primitive, static firing mechanism (compared to today).  Mess with any of those and it got persnicity, but if it liked what it saw, IMHO it was superior to any carburetored VW of the day.  

I think it was standard on the SuperBeetles (along with an upgraded interior - go figure), while the "Standard" Beetle got a carb.  When it was working well, the FI was fantastic - it was the Bosch L-Jetronic system which, as someone mentioned, was rushed to market to help comply with USA emissions regs.  

The VW technicians who worked on it got special training and I would hope that they got a Druid Robe for graduation as there was a bit of incantation and throwing of chicken bones involved to diagnose FI issues back then.  

I would NOT call it a "performance" system.  It was more of a controlled-emissions and reliability system (that wasn't really any more reliable than any other engine) and really didn't provide any more power - probably less.  Of course, we also had to put up with those ridiculous and super-heavy "5 mph Impact Bumpers" starting in 1974 so everything seemed less powerful with an added 200 pounds of bumper hanging on it. 

I would suggest that the only major drawback to using this system on an engine today is that NO ONE will be familiar with it (and don't look at me!), and getting someone competent to work on it might be almost impossible, depending on where you are. 

There is a whole community of VW air-cooled FI people on the Shop Talk, and most of them are retrofitting more modern EFIs onto the engines—everything from the CB Performance rig and Megasquirt or Speeduino to even junkyard stuff. Interesting group if you're a wires & black box kind of car guy, which pretty much nobody here is.

I had a 1969 Squareback with factory fuel injection. Ran great. 

Yup.  That was the even earlier D-Jetronic system that was originally designed (I think) for Mercedes watercooled engines and then adapted to the aircooled Type 3 (Squareback) by replacing the water temp sensor with a cylinder head temp sensor.  It worked well, but was sensitive to fuel pressure and intake manifold vacuum level (it went nuts if you had an intake vacuum leak and made you run super-rich or something).  Maybe Wolfgang can help, but I remember the EFI being called an Eizenspritzer? or something like that.  Maybe that's what my non-German mechanic friends called it.

The Bosch systems were used all over Europe, and a friend had a dual D-Jetronic or L-Jetronic running in his Jaguar V12 XK  -  That was a factory set-up, too, and replaced the three-carburetor set-up they had been running to improve cold-start fuel consumption.  The three carbs were on really long intake runners which were really hard to get warm so the usual cold-start procedure was to pump the living hell out of it until it ran poorly, then keep pumping (sometimes minutes) until it pretended to run smoothly.  All that would take 1/8+ TANK of gas, just to get underway.  Owners weren't happy with that so Jaguar, which had been expecting a similar British-sourced EFI which went belly up just before going into production, opted for the Bosch system a year later and THAT was the Bosch Jetronic.

I think, IIRC, that the 1969 Squareback was also the first VW to offer a fully automatic 3-speed transmission (someone on here a few years back had one, in North Carolina). 

Mine was a 4 speed. Paid $50.00 for it. Sold it for 4k in 1994

A friend had a fast back 72 auto I drove it for my driving test ...  My favourite was the notchback 

Funny that the T-3 never caught on.  Way more luxurious than the bug and not that much more weight.  Same 1600 cc engine - same hp too.  Guess it was the cult nature that the bug garnered.  Or maybe the colors - I only remember baby lt blue and dirt tan.

I loved the notchback and I thought the same... the type 34 ghia was also awesome a near Corvair in size... I would love to get one but I hate rust.

I think that all of the emissions requirements starting in 1974 meant the end of the aircooled Volkswagen in America and Europe.   It was just so much easier, at that time, to reduce emissions on a water cooled engine while still getting more horsepower out of it (just think of all of our Speedsters running perpetually rich!).  

Heavy Exhaust Gas Recirculation  and a "smog pump", primitive as they were in reducing emissions levels, took their toll on engine power and the early EFI systems, while lower in emissions, just weren't all that much cleaner, just more reliable.  Put that all together and "Presto!"   The water cooled Volkswagen was the winner!  They started with the NSU after VW bought NSU in the late '60's, then VW brought out the Passat and Scirocco in the early '70's - and then everyone started hot rodding them with aftermarket parts!