Prior to this adventure I knew almost nothing about the Type 1 VW platform. A friend of mine had a yellow Super Beatle in High School, I think it was a 1973? It looked like this…
While we drove around in it we smoked one of these…
While rocking out to our music choices at the time. One of our favorite jams to cruise around in the yellow bug with the ol’ corn cob was
All good times for sure.
Digging into this buggy allowed me to learn a great deal about the Type 1 VW platform and understand just how friendly it is to repair, servicing, modifications, and basic reliability. No wonder so many of them were manufactured and so many people owned one. They really were the “people’s car.”
So here is some information on the engine case numbering over the years for the Type 1 VW. Type 1 Engine Information:
This engine case is a 1F08 number, so a 1966 1300cc 40bhp DIN, 50hp SAE engine case. Here is a close up of the numbering on the case.
After measuring the cylinder diameter and the crank stroke it seems that I am dealing with a 1300cc block that has had 85.5mm pistons and cylinders bolted on to a stock, 69mm stroke crank. So, based on the math..
it is a 1585cc, or more commonly called a 1600cc displacement. A good starting point for this budget build and I almost forgot to mention that it is a dual port intake manifold and cylinder heads, so with a decent small cam and high-rate valve springs and bumping up the compression ratio this thing should run pretty decently. More to come… stay tuned…