In 1985, I had the good fortune of going for spin in Mike "MadMac" MacDonald's 1962 23 window powered by a Ray Jay turbo'd 1835cc . needless to say it was amazing and I knew someday I wanted to own a turbo bus........ About a decade later, at a SOTO meet in Garden Grove CA, I saw two guys relaxing in low lawn chairs. cooking carne asada under the shade of a massive bus decklid....I knew someday I'd own one of those funny looking buses too.

Two years later in 1997 I bought a "funny decklid bus" a 52 Standard Micro. My friend Lind (pictured below) and I drove it back from New Mexico to Idaho where i lived at the time, some 1300 miles armed with only the tools and parts we could fit in our carry-on luggage.






After 15 years and a lot of hard work by me, a few dozen friends, and the talented crew at KCW, it now looks like this










2014 is the year I'm finally bringing it all together in what I call a "mid-budget turbo build".

Engine spec
1776cc
DPR full circle crank 69mm
CB H-Beam Race Rods
CB light weight race lifters
Engle 100 cam
CB Panchitos heads 40 x 35.5mm Stainless Steel Valves, CNC Porting, Dual Hi-Rev Springs
Lightened flywheel
Black Magic dual surface clutch
Bus pressure plate
CR 6.8:1
A1 down low turbo header 1 1/2 in

I put about 2K miles on this motor before I pulled it to add the boost. Maybe that was unnecessary, but I thought the rings seating etc was a good idea and honestly I needed more time to learn more about how to make it all work.

First step tap the sump to return oil from the turbo.







Also my first mistake by drilling it toward the rear of the car I didn't give my self any wiggle room when fabricating the hose.






Adding Jay Cee pushrod tubes to accommodate ratio rockers as the 100 cam runs out of steam on the top end pretty quick, but pulls the heavy bus up the hills here in West Austin damn good. Solid shaft rockers are a must with even a mild turbo motor due to the increased loads on the springs.








By using the Magna Spark Digital distributor I get most of the benefits of an external ignition box or ECU without the clutter. It comes with a 10 and 20 lb boost map that can be activated by a simple DIP switch. Mines set to the 10Lb map, but if you want to get fancy you can hookup a laptop and build your own ignition maps. I also like it because in the unlikely event of a roadside failure, I can just drop in a distributor to limp home.
Notice the barbed fitting at the bottom. when you hook this to your manifold it senses the boost pressure and backs out timing as the boost increases.






All mounted up let the template making and tin trimming begin!!!!!








Almost ready to stuff in......








More template making. The apron is either going to get some major rework, or I may just build a new one from scratch.







Wish I would have moved the dump pipe left and up a bit, but my guess is it will be getting a muffler at some point soon anyway, and this will get it back on the road for now.




Still a bunch of things to do, but thought I'd share the fun so far.

Rad Bus. You still friends with Lind? He's a wealth of knowledge and a good guy. A little off his rocker about buses, ok, a lot off it but I appreciate the dudes knowledge. I havent seen him for a while, but I havent been to a west coast vw show for a while either

Thanks Eric I think it is rad too! Yes Lind and I are still good friends for some 20 plus years.

Very nice.

Man that's Awesome!

Thanks Ryan and Ethan! I hope to get it out to a Texas show soon.

Awesome build! Can't wait to see it...

Very cool Can't wait to see that!!

DubSplash is July 6th

Yeh Ethan thanks for heads up. I really want to hit that but, I'm away on family vacation that week. The next one I'm aware of is 9/27-28 V.O.S.A Oktoberfest, but I'd love to hit something before then!