Manx Club

has anyone published a complete installation of a subaru motor in a mamx buggy yet? Wondering what the cost diffrence is between building a air cooled vw motor and transaxel , as opposed to doing a stock Subaru salvage motor and propper transaxel ( radiators, and electronics)

I think you'll find the cost of going Subaru can vary widely based on the build. Depending on the engine route (Salvage older car, built/turnkey motor or newer CANBUS motor). Then there's the frame, (tube chassis vs VW pan). Are we talking about just an engine swap or a full Subaru drive train?

I find that what gets you (ie unexpected build costs) are the cost of the 'little bits' that tend to add up rather quickly. When we built our Kick-Out (VW powered), we kept a very detailed record keeping of every expense and I was shocked at what we spent on the 'bits'. We're now building a Subaru powered Manxter and there seems to be at least 2x the number of 'bits'...

You're question is also difficult to answer as building a VW power buggy can have a wide budget bracket. Some people can build a basic buggy with salvaged parts for 5K while others can go all out and spend 20K. On a Subaru powered build, I don't think you'd find many people that can build a Subaru powered buggy on the cheap side... When you factor in the following:

- Subaru motor
- Motor conversion parts (Intake, alt bracket, etc)
- Subarugear transmission
- Custom radiators
- Custom mounts
- Custom exhaust
- Custom wiring harness
- Tube chassis (optional)
- 'The bits'

On our build, we've decided to use the new generation of Subaru motors (FA20T). There has not been many that have gone this route yet which means that we have to fabricate a lot of our components... Not to mention that our motor is CanBus (with an immobilizer) and required quite a bit of tweaking to get it to run. It will also require to be 'tuned' to compensate for the mechanical modifications we've done to the motor.

All this being said, I'm not trying to discourage anyone from going to the H20 side... We're still building our Manxter so we don't have all the costs added up. I estimate our build costs to be between 1.5x to 1.75x of the cost of the Kick-Out. This cost increase is not all just for the motor, we spent more on the seats and wheels for ex.

Hope this helps.

First hand experience and real examples; thanks Vince

Thanks for the response. Im building a kickout ss 14. Ive got a Berrien nostalgia chassis my donee car is a 77 beetle so the frontis a ball joint and the rear is IRS.

11 years ago, we build a Subaru powered Manxter. We bought a "turn key" motor from Outfront, so I don't know how much the stuff you would need to make a donor motor work in a buggy. Stuff like exhaust, adaptors and as Vincent said so nicely, bits. The aftermarket computer was @ $1000.00, the custom radiators were @ $1500.00 and beefing up the VW transaxle was @ $1000.00. We had side mounted radiators in the Manxter, but you can't do that in a KickOut because the sidepods are so thin, so radiator mounting will be a challenge. We spent a lot on radiator plumbing (aluminum tubing, silicone hose bends and the special clamps for the silicone hose). If you would like any pictures of our conversion, I can send them to you. Good luck with your buggy. Tom

Thanks for you reply tom,
I was hoping to make it to manx on the banks this year but i still have a way to go on ss#14.
Par Downs from CB Performance is building a 2165 motor for the buggy. Winter will slow down my progress but ill be working on it as time and weather allows. I’ve got a garage full of new parts waiting to be installed and my hope is to have it done by early summer 2020
Thanks
Wayne Denis

In the raffle Kick Out SS the radiator was in the front and plumbed to the back, it also incorporated the Subaru 5 speed manual transmission from the donor car, so a lot depends on how cheap you can get a donor Subie with manual transmission, & ECU. The reversed ring & pinon kit is available from Subarugears.com with transmission mounts to the VW chassis. We could probably find out what radiator was used in that build.