Air cooled

[Dyslexic Viking]

5 minutes ago, bigstraight6 said:

Additional Eberspacher (I’m not entirely convinced that’s the correct spelling) heaters were also available, much like the cab heater as fitted in all todays artic units.

They were common here. Dad has fond memories of  beetles being able to easily turn into a sauna in a short time with these.

[garethj]

Petrol heaters were a common option in colder climates but rare here, except on Type 4 cars when they were standard but the timer was an option.  Lovely to see all the cars in the street covered in snow except for the Volkswagen which was completely clear and had steam coming off the roof 😀

My Tatra 603 had a petrol heater which worked well and the 613 had two of them, one for the cabin and one for the windscreen.  That was like a fucking dragon’s breath.

[artdjones]

1 hour ago, richardmorris said:

Rubbish.

I'm not entirely sure why you feel able to be so peremptory. A heater has to do more than produce heat. It has to do it controllably . There's no air-cooled car made that has a heater to compare to an air blending one like the one in a Mk1 Cortina. And  the main heat source in an air cooled car is often the exhaust, so there's the danger of combustion gas leakage, and the fact that bits of sheet metal bolted to an exhaust often deteriorate quicker than one might hope.

[garethj]

5 minutes ago, artdjones said:

I'm not entirely sure why you feel able to be so peremptory. A heater has to do more than produce heat. It has to do it controllably . There's no air-cooled car made that has a heater to compare to an air blending one like the one in a Mk1 Cortina. And  the main heat source in an air cooled car is often the exhaust, so there's the danger of combustion gas leakage, and the fact that bits of sheet metal bolted to an exhaust often deteriorate quicker than one might hope.

That’s a slightly unfair comparison, I think.  Plenty of water cooled cars didn’t have air blending heaters right into the 1980s.

As far as I know, aircooled heaters do blend the air - the heat source is always on full and the control is how much cool air you mix with it.  That’s what the VWs and Tatras do.

The drawback is that the amount of heat isn’t very consistent; if you’re trundling along at 1500 revs the engine isn’t putting much heat into the exchanger and on many aircooled cars, because there was no booster fan, the airflow was poor too.

[somewhatfoolish]

14 hours ago, Sham said:

I like an air cooled engine, and I don't really see why air/oil cooling can't be used on moderns to create efficient engines - I'm sure there's a reason, but oil cooling should be able to be as efficient as traditional cooling systems.

Oil has a poorer heat capacity and poorer heat transfer qualities. It's a rubbish coolant, you could use it in the same way as water but the radiator would need to be 5 times the size. Air sucks too. Everything said about emissions control is true.

[Stinkwheel]

9 hours ago, artdjones said:

I'm not entirely sure why you feel able to be so peremptory. A heater has to do more than produce heat. It has to do it controllably . There's no air-cooled car made that has a heater to compare to an air blending one like the one in a Mk1 Cortina. And  the main heat source in an air cooled car is often the exhaust, so there's the danger of combustion gas leakage, and the fact that bits of sheet metal bolted to an exhaust often deteriorate quicker than one might hope.

I think Richard means that there are some air cooled cars with good heaters. Despite comments on this thread about 2CV/Dyane heaters being poor, they arent, in my experience ive found them to be fine for daily use in deep mid winter. And i suspect Richard has as well, hence his comment of 'rubbish' - I dont think it was apersonal attack, just a strong rebuttal.

[castros_bro]

15 hours ago, garethj said:

That’s a slightly unfair comparison, I think.  Plenty of water cooled cars didn’t have air blending heaters right into the 1980s.

As far as I know, aircooled heaters do blend the air - the heat source is always on full and the control is how much cool air you mix with it.  That’s what the VWs and Tatras do.

The drawback is that the amount of heat isn’t very consistent; if you’re trundling along at 1500 revs the engine isn’t putting much heat into the exchanger and on many aircooled cars, because there was no booster fan, the airflow was poor too.

I used to drive these 4x4 and 6x6 things for a French company, air cooled diesel with cab heating from circulating the hot engine oil to cab heat exchanger and working well in -22C eastern Europe except when some git filled fuel tank with summer diesel. Took a bit of time to warm up and defrost the screen on a cold day.

 

 

[barefoot]

...and the heater on the Trabbie was like a furnace, blowing hot by the time I stopped at the traffic lights 500 yards from my home.

The problem with the VW version is that all of the aftermarket ones are shite & don't have enough internal fins to transfer the heat. Look, I've even managed a picture which also illustrates just how cheaply made they are.

That's the original on the right.

[PiperCub]

^^ That's one of the best examples of OEM v Aftermarket that I've seen for ages. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

The heater system on a VW Bug is probably what has caused most of them to be scrapped due to the hot air being forced up the heater channels that are cold, causing condensation in the channels and thus corrosion. I lost a few bug to this. That's apart from the afore mentioned problems of exhaust gasses being pumped directly into the car if you heat exchanges were knackered.

By the way, a 1600cc Beetle engine produced 50bhp. An Austin 1300 had 60bhp. Air cooled engines are just not powerful and the only reason they appear to be unbreakable is because of the lower power.

[Stinkwheel]

1 hour ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

The heater system on a VW Bug is probably what has caused most of them to be scrapped due to the hot air being forced up the heater channels that are cold, causing condensation in the channels and thus corrosion. I lost a few bug to this. That's apart from the afore mentioned problems of exhaust gasses being pumped directly into the car if you heat exchanges were knackered.

By the way, a 1600cc Beetle engine produced 50bhp. An Austin 1300 had 60bhp. Air cooled engines are just not powerful and the only reason they appear to be unbreakable is because of the lower power.

Weeeeelllllllll, the myth of air cooled engines not being as powerful is a bit of a grey area. For instance the humble 2CV or Dyane had around 30/34 bhp from 602cc's - The 1300 beetle had maybe 38-40. The 2CV was a powerhouse in comparison (also the engine was where the airflow was, it may seem trivial, but why introduce hurdles where you dont need any)

But my point, half the cc in a 2CV very nearly the same amount of power, not torque obviously, but power. And the 1300 cc GSA engine had 65bhp, so the beetle engine could have been done better.

[barefoot]

The Beetle engine was designed to withstand 'any amount of Jack booted abuse'.

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

By the way, a 1600cc Beetle engine produced 50bhp. An Austin 1300 had 60bhp. Air cooled engines are just not powerful and the only reason they appear to be unbreakable is because of the lower power.

 the Steyr puch 650TRII produced 41Hp from a 660cc Air cooled flat twin back in the 1960s, which I dont think is bad going at all?   

 

[garethj]

Also the 2.5 V8 Tatra produced similar power to the Daimler 2.5 V8 and the Tatra 3.5 V8 made the same power as the Rover / Buick V8.

It’s all to do with breathing, not how it’s cooled.

[artdjones]

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

 the Steyr puch 650TRII produced 41Hp from a 660cc Air cooled flat twin back in the 1960s, which I dont think is bad going at all?   

 

I read a road test of it recently from the mid 60s. It was very noisy even by the standards back then, when people were used to Minis. That's another disadvantage of air cooling. There's no water jacket to absorb sound. Also, finned cylinder barrels tend to resonate.

[grogee]

8 hours ago, castros_bro said:

I used to drive these 4x4 and 6x6 things for a French company, air cooled diesel with cab heating from circulating the hot engine oil to cab heat exchanger and working well in -22C eastern Europe except when some git filled fuel tank with summer diesel. Took a bit of time to warm up and defrost the screen on a cold day.

 

 

<Searches YouTube for Magirus Deutz cold start>

OMG the CLAG!!! 

[castros_bro]

A lot  of aeroplanes engines  are air cooled, 

[Metal Guru]

6 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

The heater system on a VW Bug is probably what has caused most of them to be scrapped due to the hot air being forced up the heater channels that are cold, causing condensation in the channels and thus corrosion. I lost a few bug to this. That's apart from the afore mentioned problems of exhaust gasses being pumped directly into the car if you heat exchanges were knackered.

By the way, a 1600cc Beetle engine produced 50bhp. An Austin 1300 had 60bhp. Air cooled engines are just not powerful and the only reason they appear to be unbreakable is because of the lower power.

Yeh, there was that really slow 911 thing that Porsche made too!

[Sham]

Saying air cooled engines are underpowered because of the Beetle is like saying liquid cooled engines are underpowered , crude and heavy because of American V8s. 

I mean, really?

[Talbot]

9 hours ago, Stinkwheel said:

I think Richard means that there are some air cooled cars with good heaters. Despite comments on this thread about 2CV/Dyane heaters being poor, they arent, in my experience ive found them to be fine for daily use in deep mid winter. And i suspect Richard has as well, hence his comment of 'rubbish' - I dont think it was apersonal attack, just a strong rebuttal.

One of the adverts for the Beetle "back in the day" was:

0-60 in 7 seconds (or some other remarkably fast figure).  What it meant was 0f to 60f in that time period, IE from starting the engine, if you drove away immediately, that's how fast the heater would warm up.

Thought it was a rather clever play on statistics actually...

[castros_bro]

41 minutes ago, Talbot said:

One of the adverts for the Beetle "back in the day" was:

0-60 in 7 seconds (or some other remarkably fast figure).  What it meant was 0f to 60f in that time period, IE from starting the engine, if you drove away immediately, that's how fast the heater would warm up.

Thought it was a rather clever play on statistics actually...

0f to 60f     that's about  -18C  to 16C  shirly som mistakke ?

[chadders]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

One of the adverts for the Beetle "back in the day" was:

0-60 in 7 seconds (or some other remarkably fast figure).  What it meant was 0f to 60f in that time period, IE from starting the engine, if you drove away immediately, that's how fast the heater would warm up.

Thought it was a rather clever play on statistics actually...

What are they defining as the heater?

The heat exchangers?

[bunglebus]

4 hours ago, garethj said:

Also the 2.5 V8 Tatra produced similar power to the Daimler 2.5 V8 and the Tatra 3.5 V8 made the same power as the Rover / Buick V8.

It’s all to do with breathing, not how it’s cooled.

Yes the Beetle was deliberately strangled so it wouldn't rev very high, and could be driven flat out indefinitely without causing harm.

As I'm sure you know there's plenty of BHP to be found lurking in the flat four

[bezzabsa]

some good reasoning , nice healthy discussion !!

[RayMK]

I remember reading about the Honda 1300 (car) in the late 60s and being impressed by its technical features.  Air cooled (4cyl & single carb) and 98 bhp was the first eye opener, then 7300 rpm,  dry sump lubrication and cross-over swing axles at the rear to give a simple independent set-up with none of the tuck-under characteristics of most swing axle designs as the camber changes were minimal.  A four carb version was also offered, giving a few more bhp. It was not a commercial success for Honda but impressed motoring journalists of the day.  Honda's N360 and N600 mini cars of around the same time were also air-cooled (twin cylinder) and had respectable outputs for their capacity.  I've never seen a 1300 in the flesh but the N600 was available in the UK and although never a common sight was always an interesting one.  There's also the French Panhards which managed to stoke up to indecent  speeds for an air-cooled  850 flat twin, thanks to their slippery shape and 41  or 49bhp in the 17 and 24 respectively.

[dollywobbler]

13 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Yes the Beetle was deliberately strangled so it wouldn't rev very high, and could be driven flat out indefinitely without causing harm.

As I'm sure you know there's plenty of BHP to be found lurking in the flat four

Yet the 2CV was producing 29bhp from 602cc at 5750rpm (slightly more in the Ami and Dyane). They don't have any issue revving.

Regarding heater, air-cooled really isn't as good as a proper heater matrix, especially around town. Adequate, definitely but far from perfect.

Drive by noise regs were certainly an increasing issue. Even very late 2CVs had extra bits of rubber on the engine to try and quieten them down and I believe it was one of the biggest issues of the Honda 1300 compared to its rivals. Water jackets really help rein in the noise.

[fatmanblue]

Citroen GS/A.  65 bhp from 1299cc. Incredibly smooth, almost turbine-like.

Heater did a passable impression of an open fire (well, multi-fuel stove), such was as the warmth given off. Particularly when working the engine hard. 

Seemed light-years ahead of the VW flat four in terms of power and refinement. Used to do 40mpg too.