Filters
first, get rid of that original oil bath air filter. when on a rough road or at severe off-camber angles, the oil will be sloshing all around and not in the bottom of the canister where it should be, so it's not good for off road, great for the street, but not good for off road.the best filters are the K&N oil/gauze or something of that nature. mine is an empi oil/gauze filter. these things are more expensive than paper filters but they work better and are washable/reuseable. after i came out of baja last winter the filter was entirely caked with dust but when i took it off to clean it it was perfecty clean on the inside. your engine will last longer if your filter stops dirt from getting into it. you could get some kind of filter housing at a vw specific accessory/off road type place.
Breathers
the crankcase breathers, one that goes down from the oil filler and one that goes to the air cleaner housing, should be plugged with open cell foam to keep the dust out. attach with hose clamps or zip ties or whatever, change peroidically as they do get really dirty. there are little oil/gauze breathers that attach to the opening that goes to the air cleaner housing avalible. i have one, it makes things a bit oily around it. i'v got a breather box ready to install but i really don't want to drill my valve covers. they are the old style bolt on aluminium....rare and expensive. maybe i'll get some regular valve covers and put vents in them. but stock valvecovers have a habit of getting knocked off in the brush. 1835's should have valve cover vents.Sand Seal
get a sand seal pully!!!!! the stock pully has a spiral groove machined into it so that oil doesn't escape. it actually pulls oil back into the case instead of having a real seal! this mechanism also happens to pull whatever else is arould into your engine case as well. water, mud, sand, dirt, dust, ash, etc. do you want this crap in your engine? i didn't think so. the kit i got was $40, it comes with the pully and the seal which you simply tap into the case. no machining required, easy! do it!Oil filter & Cooler
you should have an oil filter and cooler too. the filter because even with all this preperation, dirt will get in in small ammounts. the cooler because the stock cooler will break when you have solid tranny mounts. and the stock cooler cooks #3 valves cause it blocks air flow. oil filter/cooler kits have a bracket that replaces the stock oil cooler. this is the easy way to go, you don't need to machine the case at all, it's simply bolt on. mount the filter so you can fill the filter with oil and spin it on without spilling any. the fan shroud will have to be cut a little to accomidate the bracket that bolts where the stock oil cooler used to be.oil cooler mounting is something that there is alot of controversy about. some say that it should be mounted over the fresh air inlet on the fan housing so that the engine cooling fan is always sucking air through the cooler. some say that this preheats the cooling air to much, and the cooler should be mounted above or below the rear window in the air stream.
fan shroud mounting
pros
- constant flow of air over cooler.
- your engine will never overheat.
- my engine builder (70 years old, 5000 engines built) said to mount it there.
cons
- preheats cooling air. but you have to figure that the stock (non-doghouse) setup preheated #3 souly and this evenly distributes preheated air over all the cylinders.below rear window mounting
pros
- looks cool (my engine is more important than looking cool)
- cooler is in air stream when car is moving at a reasonable speed, and thus, not pre-heating the engine cooling air.
cons
- no air flow when car is not moving or traveling slow.- cooler more prone to damage (tree limbs, etc.)
my cooler is on my fan shroud, my engine runs cool. it's out of the way and i don't worry about the nice hour long wait at the boarder to get back into the USA from Mexico. if you must put the cooler somewhere else get an electric fan to blow air through it.
Exaust
lots of exaust systems out there. the four into one header/collectors are the most efficient, i.e. most horsepower. the "dual cannon" dunebuggy glasspacks are the loudest. louder doesn't mean faster. you can get a 4 into 1 that accepts a quite pack, glass pack or a stinger. the thing with these is that they are prone to breakage. mine broke, i've been running a "street" stinger setup all summer. take a few hose clamps and where the pipes are close together, put a hose clap on and tighten it down, this eliminates flex and breakage.my new exaust system is a tri mill 4 into 1 stinger setup with the retaining springs that hold everything together. i dug up a radiator hose clamp and put it around the two lower pipes towards the rear of the engine, there are two other locations where clamps could go. the system has very little flex, it is very sturdy. i couldn't find any super trapp silencers so i'm just using the simple glass wrapped baffel. it actually works quite well, it's fairly quite, for a stinger setup. it's a little higher pitched than the traditional "street" header/stinger i had before (it stuck out below the engine cage and looked stupid, but it was the only thing i had lying around). it truely sounds like an off road race car now. but that's probably because lots of race cars use the tri mill pipes. anyway, i also noticed that the system flows the gasses better, more freely. there's less lag and more go, it revs faster and has noticably more power. another thing i like is that it routes the forward pipes above the cylinder head instead of right below it, so it keeps the head temperatures down. i had the cut a little more sheetmetal off in the rear of the engine compartment, but i didn't mind.
all in all, tri mill kicks ass!
Clutches
simple, run your stock one till it slips too much. then get a heavier duty one, like 1700# or something.Carbs
my holley/weber 36mm/32mm progressive is actually within about one or two horses of dual kadrons. so why mess with dual carbs? the linkages are flimsy and they must be in perfect synch or they won't work as well as they could. my carb really lets my engine rev. and it gets pretty good gas milage for an 1835. between 15 and 20 mpgs depending on how i'm driving. i'm seen the kits for about $200. my carb came with the car when i got it.gas milage is important when you are in the middle of the desert. i've met folks that were out of gas many miles from a gas station, they had to buy gas off a mexican fisherman for whatever price he wanted.
if more power and torque are what you are seeking then perhaps a bus tranny would be a better bet.
