Hi there. Here is my first big question:

I have a 1970 VW Beetle 1300. I want to rotary swap it. I have looked at various 13Bs: Renesis, REW, FC (N/A and turbo). Despite all this, I still haven't really narrowed down what the best option would be when accounting for cost effectiveness, reliability, part support etc.

I am not looking to really make anything over around 300whp at most as I don't have a death wish, Beetles weigh around a ton and I don't want it to be super undrivable or super unreliable.

Thoughts anyone? I'm open to any advice or opinions I can get lol.

 

welcome to the board.

is this going to be mainly street-driven? for a goal of 300 at the wheels, you're looking at forced induction or race-type porting - just so you know.

if the car is for the street, and you're willing to give up some horses at the wheels, then it's really your choice as to which engine you use. as long as it's a healthy engine, in your Bug, it will probably be awesome.

if the 300-thing is something you absolute want/need to have, then you'll want to get one of the turbo blocks (T or REW) and a turbo, then go from there.

 

Thanks a lot for the response!

Yep mainly street driven. I did figure forced induction was pretty much the way I had to go as rotaries are kinda gutless without. I was looking at pricing on 13Bs and while I'm not against paying a bit more to do something properly, REWs are kinda expensive compared to the other 13Bs. Would the REW be my best option or would the FC turbo block be better? And what about turboing Rx-8 engines? I heard they don't like it too much because of the higher compression and general design bias towards N/A being N/A from factory.

 

for what you want, you'll be fine building a 13B-T (the Turbo II engine) ... a S5 engine bridges the gap to the REW, but a fresh S4 engine is just fine. it's your choice really.

personally, i would not recommend turbocharging a Renesis, or even the older 6-ports for that matter. my reasoning is starting with a turbo block will probably make your life easier all around.

i think you'd be surprised at what well-sorted N/A 13B can do in a light car ... much less a rear-engined light car.

 

Wow thanks a lot for the advice. I know 13B-Ts are a lot cheaper in general and in the UK than REWs, so I'll try find one and probably get it taken apart and refurbed. Any advice on things like turbo setups, mods to help with performance and reliability, or just in general good tips for these engines?

 

if the engine comes with a turbo on it, then maybe you can look into doing something like this: https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generati...hybrid-959045/

i don't know how far that will get you down the road to your goal of 300, but it's probably worth looking into. outside of that, i would defer recommendations to someone else because my knowledge of what's available out there is a bit out of date. i would have said something like a 60-1, but it doesn't look like they make that turbo anymore.

as far as the engine goes, just keep it cool and keep it supplied with oil. i would imagine it will be a challenge to find space for a decent radiator in a car that was never designed to have one, but your advantage is that it's been done so many times before that someone must have their build documented somewhere. if you can't find any rotary builds documented, then check for Subaru/VW builds. get a good, efficient radiator and an oil cooler or two (the OEM FC, FD or FE units are great).

run an FD oil pressure regulator.

ignition setup is your choice, but the FC coils will do just fine.

 

Wow, thanks so much for your help! 300 isn't so much of a goal, more of a limit I'm comfortable with lol.

I will be looking more into turbo setups. Still not sure if I should put in the effort and fit an upgraded sequential turbo or just swap it for a variable geometry single and pray.
Radiator-wise wise most people front mount but I would like to see if I could fit them into the engine bay somewhere, maybe one on either side with ducting and sandwich small twin intercoolers and oil coolers there somewhere too. Alternatively, I could just keep the top mount intercooler setup and just fit it to work better in the beetle engine bay. The beetle has an exhaust heat-based cabin heating system using a heat exchanger section in the exhaust so maybe I'll try doing it with airflow off of the radiators or something instead or I can just get a heat exchanger made to fit after the turbos or something. We'll see I guess.

I heard water / water-methanol injection has some perks regarding intake air temps and general engine temps, meaning reduced risk of detonation or preignition, though this only has horsepower benefits if you make use of the cooler air and stuff if you tune for it, but do you think it could be something to look into more just as a preventative measure to keep temps down instead of going for power?

P.S: out of date knowledge can still hold true, considering half the forum posts on this kinda stuff are nearly older than me. Sometimes the stuff of the past is better! I will look into 60-1s and see if anything similar is being produced now. Maybe I'll find something better.

 

i get the feeling you may have misunderstood some of what i was saying. with regards to keeping the engine cool, i was merely saying that you need to keep that in mind with the parts (radiator, oil cooler(s), water pump, etc.) that you get to build the car. obviously overheating ANY engine is a bad thing, but rotaries are less amused and more intolerant of overheating, and it's not just coolant temps, it's oil temps as well. they discharge about 1/3 of their heat through the oil. i wasn't implying anything beyond that, like the water/meth that you mentioned. for what you said you want, i really don't see the need for water/meth unless you simply want it.

for the turbo conversation, i'm sure the 60-1 would fall somewhere in the large 30- small 35 range (Garrett G, GT, GTX numbers). my knowledge petered out somewhere between the GTs and GTXs. i'm still slowly learning these new G-series units. i've never been well-versed on the Borg-Warner turbos or Holset or any others, so i believe other people would be better equipped to guide for a nice turbo to meet you power and budget goals. what i can say is you won't have to look too hard to find something better than the old 60-1. i'm tapping out now though ....

well, if that's the case, use the stock turbo if the engine comes with it. it won't get you to 300, but i'm sure it can get your adrenaline up just fine. i've seen some put it maxed out in the 220s (in an Rx-7), and you're running a few hundred pounds less in weight.

however, if your engine doesn't come with one, then seek advice as to what you should get.

 

I will do more research. I have started a thread in one of the main forums and am enquiring more there. Thank you so much for your help

 

Start a build thread! I want to see this thing in progress! 13b bettle would be fun I bet!

 

Good idea actually. Any idea which section would be best for that?

EDIT: I have created a new thread called "13B swapped VW Beetle Project" in the Rotary Car Performance forum which I will use as a build thread. I apologise in advance but there may not be much in the way of updates on there for a while as I am working on the shell, chassis, suspension and braking and moving front to back (slowly lol) currently but when I ball gets rolling a little more I will post some updates of the project.

Thoughts on a social media page when this gets going more?

 

I think you may be a bit optimistic on how much you're going to be able to fit in there. I think you'll need to be very spartan on how you dress the engine. Possibly even needing to be as minimalist as to go with a carbed setup.

I know I've seen them from time to time on the internets in the past, so I'm sure the info for the swap is out there. You may have better luck in a VW Beetle group/forum to see how people have tackled it in the past. Of course you're in the right spot for the resource on the engine itself, but the beatle groups will have much more info on the chassis, what will fit and how, and most importantly how to mount it.
Ironically, I just stumbled on this a few minutes ago.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EmoY73zAR/?mibextid=oFDknk
There's a guy selling a drop in setup in the comments

 

the old school/other rotary section would probably be a good. https://www.rx7club.com/old-school-other-rotary-63/

 

You may very well be right about that. Although the rotary short block is a compact unit, all the accessories, cooling systems etc. will quickly bulk it up. I will not know for certain until I have everything in front of me, but I think this will be an interesting problem to solve. I know people have done it before and it is possible, as rotaries I've seen swapped in can fit nicely if done correctly, so figuring out the right course of action will be key. A little tweaking of the engine bay is fine by me if necessary.

That link is not showing up for some reason but thanks a lot anyway

 

I decided to set up the thread in rotary performance due to it seeming to be for general rotary topics but this may have been another good option in hindsight. Oh well its done now lol.

 

A guy jammed a Turbo II in one that was featured on Jay Leno's Garage a while ago. Might take a look at that. Here's the video

 

yeah think I may have seen that video before. From what I remember he restricts the rpms to like 7k and beefs up the stock gearbox, which is a good idea but not really what I want to go for as I feel it removes some of the engine's potency as they make a lot of their power higher. That's just me though. Thanks for the recommendation though.

EDIT: Like with most rotary swapped beetles he front-mounted the radiator. I wanna try fit maybe 2 or 3 smaller ones in the rear. Is it possible? No clue but I will sure as hell find out the hard way lol