2.2 rebuild

[notch]

first post on this forum. Bought what i thought was a 1970 2.2E engine (no MFI).

Just pulled the heads and cam boxes and to my surprise, its not a 2.2. Bore is 92mm (arias pistons) and stroke is 70mm, counterweighted crank. The heads are standard E though with the small ports (relative to the S).

This combo makes up around 2.8L by my working, which on the standard heads would make a lazy torquey engine.

Has anyone else come across the use of the Arais pistons? i figure they are from chev or ford? They seem a very good fit, but..

also, how do i tell what barrels i have? to suit a 92mm piston, they must be late model, but i have no idea. any suggestions?

righto - that's my news fo the night. BTW, the engine is to be fitted to a 1971 VW beetle, 1302S - think sleeper, the car VW should have built.

[Scott Clarke]

Notch-
Sounds like you found some interesting stuff. The cylinders were in all likelihood from 2.7 (90mm), re-bored and re-plated with the nikasil process. Pay attention to the area between the tops of the bore and the grove for the ce ring gasket. These tend to break on 92mm cylinders. Arias is, as far as I know, not a manufacturer that has done all required to make pistons that really work well in air cooled Porsche motors. It is likely that these piston required rather large clearances when new.

In you beetle I think that you would be unlikely to find the motor to be "lazy." The ports, and I assume that they are 32mm, are undersized for a 2.8. You should try to figure out which cams you have.

Which case is it? There should be a 2R, 7R, or similar designation cast in place.

By the way, the stroke should be 70.4mm.

[notch]

thanks. its a 2R case, i haven't split it yet, but it hasn't had piston squirters installed or any other mods, so relatively standard.

in the beetle, I agree - it will be a monster of an engine. Basically all i'm going to do is clean it up, put it back to gether and get it running. Need carbs and flywheel to do so however (was thinking zenith), but will probably hog the heads out a bit to help with flow on that capacity.

I have access to some early solex cams (from a 65 engine) which was going to have a crack at installing. the current cams are probably the E cams, they have NE or ME stamped on the end where the large cam nut bolts on.

worst comes to worst, a friend has some early t piustons NOS which can be installed and run. so, either way, the engine will run in some manner.

cheers

[Scott Clarke]

Notch-
To run the T pistons (84mm) you will need to deal with the fact that your heads are now machined for 90mm cylinders. I think that Supertec may make adapters to allow this. Also, valve clearance may be an issue with the E or Solex cams. If the E cams are from a 2.2, they should be very close to Solex cams. The E cam became more moderate for the 2.4 cars (I think, there has been some lack of clarity about this issue).