Aircooled VW South Africa

You need to remember your stock ACVW motor only produces about 60 Hp if you add 10 hp to that you will def. be making a diff. that is a 17% increase in power, just for the carbs, most def. worth it. You need to remember a lot of gains in Hp are made in small changes and doing several changes ads up to big increases in Hp, they tend to complement each other, idealy you would be looking at twin carbs, mild cam and heads cleaned up with an extractor exhaust, you can easily bump up the Hp to around 80-90 hp, no problem with a 1600, that will put a big smile on your face.

that's what I was thinking, small changes. so can you recommend a cam, and where can I get my heads cleaned.

Ja i thought so...but where do i start?i just want to start with the cam just to get the motor reving a bit higher.my dad had a 70 bug that he had the cam done and twin solex carbs.is this a good route?i just want to atleast give a 1100 uno a run...

My 1600 engine had to be rebuilt with a almost zero cash budget from bits I had on the shelf at the time (I was working for Mr Delivery at the time).

Previously I had installed new heads which I used stock valves on. 3 angle grind on the valves and seats. I have a die grinder, so I ported out the intakes slightly and polished the combustion chambers, not doing much to them. I also had them cut for an 8.1:1 CR.
To those were mounted a pair of 36IDF carbs.
I also had an EMPI 4 into 1 exhaust.
Then I had to rebuild.... so I pulled the engine apart and slapped in a 272 P2 grind cam (stock cam reground with a smaller base circle and more duration). 272deg 11.1mm lift on the valve.

The rest of the engine was stock. I ended up with 94hp on the flywheel and this car screamed. I could take a 320i from the traffic light all the way to over 100km/h. Also with idle at 800rpm, I could slowly release the clutch in second and she would pull away. More torque than the stockish engine ever had. And yes, 6000rpm 1st and second no problems. Not good for the engine, but hey, it was fun.
Snapped a cam follower a few thousand kms later

im in the same situation very low budget...but just to get the cam done for is al i want...so how do i do it do i take my stock cam to an engineering workshop or what?do you think a single downdraught wil work good with a cam?how much is a engle cam?

a cam will set you back about a grand. A single downdraught will work, but nowhere nearly as well as twins will.
Just remember, if you build an engine cheaply thats exactly what you get, a cheap engine. My engine wasnt built properly, it was built out of necessity. I had to borrow the money for the new bearings - thats how short changed I was.
I did hit a good combo, make no mistake, but if I had built the engine properly it would have lasted much more than the 10 000km it did.

Spending betw 6 and 10 grand on an engine that you already have is a good start for something reliable.

Dual carbs on Vw's
The reason dual carbs work better than a single carb on a VW motor is very simple. Look at the firing order. Two carbs will fire on one bank then the other 2 will fire on the other. Kind of out of balance for the single carb manifols.
basicly, the fuel/air charge gets sucked out of the intake runner to the cylinders on the exhaust stroke and then has to completly reverse the flow on the next intake stroke.
It is what gives vw's it charistirstic Idle. Add dual carbs and you can get a very low smooth idle.

If you dont have access or can afford webbers I remember people using dual 30 and 34 solexes. Should be cheap there.just need the manifolds and you can make the linkage. ran real good from what I can recall.
Just a thought

i would love to go double carb but i want to use what ive got...al i want to know is,is the cam a good route to start seeing power increases a what it cost to do it...but tony said about a grand...but where do i get it the cam grinded?

Pewee at Camtech in JHB can do a grind on a stock cam close to a Engle 100 his C35

but im in dbn?how much would he ask to do it?and what are al the things i have to get to get the cam done?

I just browsed the cam section on aircooled and cb performance, and a lot of the time they mention rockers. Will there be need to change the rocker assembly when changing the cam?

many many cams are designed to use stock rockers.
You should upgrade your rocker shaft, but the rockers can remain stock

It is cheaper to change the cam to a hotter one than to get ratio rockers.

Hey dubster send me your stock cam and I will get it to Camtech let him cut it and send it back to you, if you are interested, you will also need to send me your original German cam followers to get refaced and parkarised the cam lobes will also get the same treatment.
There are 2 grinds C35 for use with twin carbs and C25 (milder) if you are only using single carb.

Parkarised being what exactly?