Itinerant Air-Cooled

The official line is 65 mph top speed maintained, but how fast can you really go in an early bay before you destroy the works? I'd imagine too high engine RPMS could be very problematic.

Hiya Bob,

54 mph. Downhill. With a tailwind.

Rebuild your engine with a counter-weighted crank and go 80 MPH!

Oh, it's counterweighted and dynamically balanced yessir. You mean you didn't read my 1,000,000 page thread?

No science behind these figures, but my wife's bus with the 2007cc reactor and the 091 transaxle will easily go 75. At that speed there is still LOTS of room between the accelerator pedal and the floor. I didn't have the nerve to push it any further.

Is that a true 75 or an optimistic-bay-speedo 75? I cruise at "70" all day even though it's actually 55 by radar and me timing mile markers. I have plenty of pedal left too but it just sounds happier there.

Don't take this wrong... just curious is all. If you're actually pulling 75 then wow more power to you!

Speedo and GPS are in lockstep. It's kinda scary that fast!

Hmmmmmm...............

I really wonder about these claims that more ponies make the crate go a whole heckuva lot faster IF the transmission is not changed out also. Seems to me that the tranny is big limiting factor in the eternal quest for the EarlyBay land speed record.

There was some yokel (from Portland no less) over at TS who claimed that an EarlyBaywindow bus would do 85 mph. Says he was a dealer mechanic back in the day and all that speed was why they had to replace engines in the Baywindows. Hah! One guy replied to him that he doubted a Type 1 Baywindow would do 85 mph if it were pushed off a cliff.

I can cruise for hours at 65 MPH (flatlands ). But I could go faster easily. It just sounds like the RPMS are getting pretty high. Yep that transaxle limiting things. But it sure is nice in the woods to have that powerful low end gearing.
Nobody knows? I'll bet Colin does. Bell curves.

I always thought 70 mph was about the top end of safety freeway driving in a early bay...yeah, lots of folks went faster but their bus's were the ones in the shop getting rebuild motors....

With my 77 I have cruised at 85 for 2 hrs to make up time in Eastern Wa without any problems...but that isn't my idea of fun.
now 100 mph is fun in the 914!
70 is scary in my Ghia.....

Volkswagen set their "top speed" at the horsepower peak where the engine honest to God is happy to cruise all day. That would be 65mph up to August 1970. Dual port 1971 buses were good to cruise at 68mph.
The '72-75 buses were good for 79mph, horsepower peak was 4,800 rpm.
1976-1979 buses had a lower top/cruising speed because the longer stroke was tough on longevity.

This all said, of course you can do 86mph in an early bus, 97 in the Type 4 bay windows through 1975, and 102mph in the late bays if you decide to wind out the engine to redline. But you don't want to. I cruised at 70-75 with plenty of relaxed 75-80s on downhills. My engine was happy to maintain 4,000rpm, it did not care. If you have a balanced engine well tuned and built, go out and enjoy the horsepower peak, aprroximately 4,200rpm.
Colin

Hiya CK,

Amskeptic wrote:.......This all said, of course you can do 86mph in an early bus.......

I don't believe it, not for a minute. Not even downhill with a tailwind.

Mike I think you're right, it's all in the gear box. The PO of my wife's bus got it right when he mated that monster motor with the 091 tranny.

If you wanna have a shorts changing experience try going 75 in a splitty.

After the first change you get used to it.

spiffy wrote:If you wanna have a shorts changing experience try going 75 in a splitty.

After the first change you get used to it.

75 in the bay today, 4100 rpm, for once it was fairly pedantic, wondering if 97 is possible as CK claims...

What a blast!