House of Karmann Engine ramblings

[greg356a]

Absolutely love your Flat 6 engine with the horizontal cooling.

Found a company Orratech in Germany who sell some very impressive looking turn key engines or the parts for diy. Type 4 2.3 at around 150bhp up to the 3.0l 250bhp monster. They do both the 911 shroud or the horizontal cooling.

P1060203 (Klein)

The 2.4 described as a street engine seems to be well proven.

[911hillclimber]

That looks fab!
If I were you, I would get the best roadable engine.
150 bhp sounds nice for the Ghia imho, not wild but strong enough to keep up or ahead of the traffic cars that around me are everywhere. (scared-to-drive cars @ 40mph everywhere etc)
There is also the gearbox to consider, torque kills a box. Add wider modern tyre compounds and the box has to tolerate quite a lot. I guess the Ghia box is just a VW unit or have you that hurdle to jump too?
The engine has to be what you will love and skip a heart beat or 3 every time you see it.

After 12 years with my Lola, that still happens to me.

[greg356a]

Wise words on the box, running a Porsche 901 5 speed box from a 1973 S. Should be good for around 220 ft lbs of torque. Thinking of running something like a 205x16 tyre, 150 - 160 bhp should be about right. Exciting during acceleration, cruise in 5th at 70 mph for hours at a time, drop down to 3rd and pull hard around tight bends.

So is it worth buying a complete engine with a "warranty"? or buy the components and pull it together myself.

The flat cooling shroud really is a looker, flat 6 or flat 4. I also noticed on the Orratech site they sell a twin plug for a flat 4.

[rhd racer]

My 914 hill climb car ran a 2.4 type 4 in the early years which Barrie Martin built for me to a spec Keith recommended. All the bits came from Fat Performance in the US.

It was built for torque and revved to only 6k, but had all the right bits and delivered 160bhp, and could pull up tree stumps. It sounded fantastic with a stainless 911 back box, straight cut cam gears and Webers. My car weighed 860kg I think in that incarnation, and went very well indeed. A 901 box was a good match and was fine at motorway speeds.

I suppose I had a about £10k in the engine which was all the money in the world to me at the time, but I competed in it for 5 years, did a few thousand road miles and then sold it for £6k which made it all seem good value (especially as the 911 sc motor that replaced it was £1500!!!)

I have driven and been driven in a Speedster with a 2.0 type 4 (in fact, Bootsy’s car before he owned it, because I put the engine in it and did the first fire with my best mate who owned it at the time). Anyhow, the balance was fine and we could leave 11s coming out of a local hairpin. We had great fun in the little car. 160bhp would make one ballistic!

Here is a pic of my old engine which you can see has a dry sump pump too. The aluminium fan was made by Bob Hall at Concept Racing and was one of one (he was going to use the engine in his aluminium space framed race car but changed plans). I would highly recommend him, and been a friend for 20years plus. If you wanted something truly different and a bit retro, you could buy the hardware and mounts, then take the block to him and leave him to do what he does best, and design a one piece shroud in aluminium…..





Cheers
Wayne


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[greg356a]

Hi Wayne,
Really interesting comments, looked like a great engine which was loads of fun. High speed and driveability would be ideal. I meet a guy with a KG at White noise on Sunday, he had a type 1 with 160bhp but said it was more than enough. So need to find an engine builder. Like the idea of a one off fan from Concept racing, maybe even something like 550 twin plug 547 engine

I have emailed Orratech in Germany but they are not back from their holiday until September, no rush so will wait. Looks like their type 4 with the cool horizontal cooling is at about 14K euro plus what ever it costs to import from Germany.



I don't know what the rules are for collected imports. So if I take a Type 4 engine out and bring one back do I pay VAT on the difference, or nothing as a private individual?