Aircooled VW South Africa

So if you budget 10k for your engine when you finish it's closer to 20k.....

usually, I estimate you will exceed your budget by 100%

Dont use my engine as an example, I changed my mind a few times, so have a few extras sitting around waiting for me to get to, hense the budget is shot a bit more than 100%

My 2110cc 94x76.4 is on R14000 excl. the carbs and manifolds those are worth another R6000 but I got them for next to nothing, just needs to be put together as all the parts are there.
The other motor I have in the pipeline is a 2165 94x78,4 is on R13000 at the moment and growing, the heads still need to go to the machine shop and get the 42X37 valves fitted, the block also needs to be opened up for the 94mm pistons, but I am holding back on that for the moment as I am planing on bringing in a new high roof ally case from the US, once this one is done it should be around the R25000 mark easy, again the carbs and manifolds worth R8000 came for less than half that, on this one the sub assembly is all 100% new parts, only external bits are second hand, it is not possible to built a big HP motor on a budget, whatever you are planning to spend it is more than likely going to cost you twice that. My previous 2020cc 92x76 I budgeted for R6000 6 years ago and using many second hand bits, in the end I stopped adding up but it was well over R10000.
There is no replacement for displacement. Don't take short cuts it will cost you a lot more in the long run, oh yes it will come back to bite you in the ass.

its cheaper to do it right once than to get it wrong twice

There is a saying I have here at work, "There is never time to do it right the first time, but there is always time to do it properly later" due to deadlines. In short, do it right first time, and once only. Think things over more than once and be sure of what you want in the long run.

Measure twice, cut once!

I got to ditto both of you on the above.

I haven't thought of a precise budget yet and probably won't later either. I was just planning on starting with a nice motor for general use. When it's finished and I want more power I will start with a new one with bigger and better parts. This isn't a short term thing, I plan to use these engines for quite a while still. I'm not planning of ever beeing without a aircooled car beetle or combi.

Oh that explains everything........ Tyre Kicker you are.