ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

In the past, I built a 74x88 thick at top, slip in.... using AA 5.325 rods, only machining was the
heads to 90.5/92 bore and had to trim the skirts off the A pistons.... had to do nothing to the case,
only had to use .020 shims
to get my desired deck height .... had a Web 163 cam, 041 heads, 39x35, merged 1.5"
merged, with stinger, with Kads .... ran great!
BTW: was an E-85 build

I built a 76mm x 87mm 1807cc for my Dad's VW Thing and I also put it in my Karmann Ghia to run at Bonneville for Speed Week and World of Speed last year. I was able to get 118 mph out of it. It drives great on the street and has lots of torque. I used 5.4" rods and forged 87mm A pistons.
[BBvideo=560,315]https://youtu.be/V55FTheBTWY[/BBvideo]

José at DPR can offset-grind a stock crank to "Chev" 2.00" journals and gain ~4mm of stroke, if you're going to be buying new rods anyway there's not much cost difference between Chev & VW-journal rods. It's a way to salvage a counterweighted VW-journal crank that's beyond use with VW rods, although if it's too far gone he'd have to weld up the journal which'd add to the cost...starting with a .040"-under VW journal you'd need to go to .020"-under Chev just to get ~72½mm stroke, which you might not consider worth the effort. With 5.325" rods the piston deck should be close to ideal, but I don't know of anyone offering those in I-beam, and H-beams would be overkill IMO...with 5.394" rods you'd need to shim the barrels ~.060-.070".
85.5x73 => 1677cc, 88x73 => 1776cc (about 12cc less with 72.5mm)

Good to know. Great for displacement limited racing. 72mmx94mm=1999cc