Hi Gary,
I have both a 87' Wolfsberg 1/2 camper and a 88' Wolfsberg. If you check the
year by year specifications listed at www.vanagon.com you find it was only
starting in 88' that VW lowered the height, first with the Wolfsbergs and
then in later years all vans. In measuring my vans I found that the 87'
(with Vanagon alloys and 205/70-14 MXL's) was 10" from ground to lowest part
of the oil sump (pan) and 9.5" from ground to header crossover pipe. So as
can see the sump is not lowest part of the engine underside area. On the 88'
(with stock steel rims and 185-14 tires) it measured 9" from ground to sump
and 8.5" from ground to cross pipe. I have not installed my Subaru engine
yet (I'm waiting for my teacher wife to be out for summer). I do have the
subie engine mounted on an engine stand and the Kennedy header& engine
carrier mounted up for trial fit. Measuring from the oil pan flange to the
bottom of the pan I get 6.5" and from the flange down "even" with the bottom
of the engine carrier is 4." Tom Meyers says he has 5.5" of ground clearence
on his pre 87' Westy. I would guess that on a later lowered van, the ground
clearance would be 4.5." My Triumph TR-6 has about the same clearance and I
can tell you that I do bottom out on certain driveway ridges. The height
changes where probably done via changing the springs (I will check in a
couple of weeks). It would be possible to raise the rear height buy
installing a thicker plastic packing piece under the rear springs. I've seen
this suggestion made for correcting spring sag on Westys (Triumphs had
problems with spring sag too and the factory fix was a machined Al packing
spacer installed under the rear road spring). Try an inexpensive
polypropylene cutting board for material. Changes in the front height would
require rechecking the alignment. As for shortening the oil pan and
retaining capacity, I have seen modified pans for circle track engines
constructed such that they have a wider bottom so as to hold more oil in a
shorter pan. Moroso makes such pans but not for Subaru engines. When I look
at my engine hanging there, I think there is enough room for that kind of
modified pan. The time to play around with this is while the engine is on
the stand. I intend to use 1/8" hard board to try constructing test models
from which to get a pattern. I will post more as I when I have solid
information to report.
Cheers,
Kevin Dawson
