Learn how to rebuild a Volkswagen air-cooled engine! This guide will teach the reader how to troubleshoot, remove, tear down, inspect, assemble, and install Bug, Bus, Karmann Ghia, Thing, Type-3, Type-4, and Porsche 914 engines. All models from 1961 on up are included.

Fire and ice . . . that’s what you get when you take the cool looks of the Volkswagen Beetle, Bus, Karmann Ghia, Thing, Squareback or Fastback and unleash the hot performance of the air-cooled VW engine. How to hot Rod Volkswagen Engines gives the real skinny for breathing-on, blueprinting and bulletproofing your air-cooled Vee-dub. Street, custom, kit car, off-road, or full-race, this book gives you all the air-cooled engine-building basics to find and put to the pavement hidden horsepower. Includes tips on carburetion, ignition and exhaust tuning, case beefing, cylinder-head flow work, camshaft selection, lubrication and cooling upgrades, 6-to 12-volt conversions and much more. Plus there’s a natty 6-page history of the origins of the first air-cooled VW engines. Go ahead. You deserve it! Double or triple the output of your air-cooled Volkswagen. Or add 10-15 horsepower with easy bolt-on mods. Mild or wild, do it the right way—with this book. More than 300 photos, drawings and charts to guide you through your VW’s innards. And don’t look back.

Covers rebuilding the VW Type 1, 2, and 3 engines beginning in the year 1961, when a significant redesign improved the reliability, durability, and horsepower of the basic initial design. For more than 70 years, automotive enthusiasts and the public in general have embraced the VW air-cooled engine for its simplicity, its capacity to be modified, and its bulletproof reliability. Offering beautiful color photos and insightful step-by-step captions for expertly rebuilding Volkswagen air-cooled engines, this book will provide in-depth hands-on information for disassembly, inspection, machining, parts selection, preassembly, final assembly, installation, and tuning. Not only are the procedures for rebuilding covered in depth but engine model types, identification codes, specifications, and details are also covered in a manner that allows the user to source a good later-model candidate for rebuilding and helps retrofit the modern engine designs into earlier chassis. One of the most widely used and versatile internal combustion engines in the world, this engine has powered VW Beetles, Buses, Porsche 914s, off-road buggies and rails, formula race cars, and many other machines both on and off-road. If you have any interest in reviving your old VW, or perhaps are researching purchasing one, this handy guide will cover all the bases in bringing that old air-cooled powerplant back to life.

The VW Air-Cooled Engine is a no-nonsense engine manual that any practical-minded person can understand, giving a highly illustrated step-by-step guide to dismantling and rebuilding a Type 1 engine. Most of the operations described in the book can be applied to the Type 4 unit used in 1700, 1800 and 2-litre Transporter models as well. Topics covered included workshop essentials; keeping the engine healthy; removing and stripping down the engine; examination of the engine components; reassembling the engine and ancillaries and full specifications of the various Type 1 and Type 4 engines. With over 300 colour images, this book will be an invaluable resource for anyone involved in the repair and maintenance of these iconic engines.

With 35 years experience, Laurie Pettitt knows more than most about the 'mucky green art' of rebuilding VW air-cooled engines. Written with genuine enthusiasm and a little humor, this step-by-step guide is like having a knowledgeable friend or older brother sat right next to you at the workbench. Learn how to remove and strip down your engine before taking a really good look at what's inside. Work out what's good and what's not. You will learn to examine components and find that often they are not only serviceable but better than modern reproduction parts. Reusing the original parts wherever possible, you will then learn how to prepare and reassemble your engine with plenty of tips and tricks to make the job easier. The importance of cooling tinware is emphasised and its refitting covered model by model. With the short engine built, we turn our attention to ancillaries such as fuel, air and exhaust systems as well as sensible modifications to make your new engine perform better and last longer.

"Your complete guide to all aspects of restoration including chassis, body, engine, suspension, steering, brakes, electrical equipment, interior trim and exterior trim"--Page 4 of cover.