Spending around £4000 developing a turbo'd 1584cc type 1 engine from scratch in the mid 1990's was what got me in to Subaru engines. The turbo Type 1 started out internally stock, with a thorough DIY rebuild. After blowing it up twice it ended up full of Berg and Scat components, despite only being 1584cc. It was no trial and error effort either. I'm an engineer, and all parts were carefully chosen after reading everything I could get my hands on about turbocharging. No doubt about it' it's a good way to learn about turbocharging and engine tuning, but was it good value for money? Er, no. It made around 120-130 bhp, for which I could buy a Legacy engine of the same output for around £300. I did in 2002, and developed all the parts to install it from scratch. Since then I've quit my job to do it full time, and I'm flat out without advertising anywhere apart from my web site and contributing to web forums.
To tune a WBX engine to high BHP there are few parts available. The guy with the drag Beetle proves it can be done, and he's done a very impressive job, but I still question why, apart from for the challenge. Very few high performance parts are avaialble off the shelf compared to for air cooled engines, plus you are stuck with the horrible features of the WBX's afterthought water cooling system. I would guess a pretty high proportion of the parts are custom made in his engine. I wouldn't be surprised if he's spent way over £10k developing it to that level. DIY turbocharging is not for the faint hearted (those with shallow pockets!).
I have customers drag racing doing regular mid 11's and occasional very low 11's for the past three years using pretty much standard bus boxes, with almost no failures. Bus boxes can handle around 300 bhp if driven sensibly. I have been putting around 165 bhp through my stock Syncro box for over 4 years with no problems at all, and I can think of very few customers who have had them fail with Subaru conversions. Why would they be any more likely to fail with a Subaru engine compared to any other engine doing the same rpm with the same BHP? The 'box doesn't know what engine it's attached to!
Guppy - I'm only in Cheadle. Give me a call if you want to reconsider Subaru options or want a ride in my Syncro. Also don't be put off Subaru engines if your mate had any problems such as starter motors or difficulty starting from cold. There are a surprising number of conversions out there which suffer from these problems, and they don't use my products or wiring harnesses converted by me. The former is caused by use of an adaptor plate (see
http://www.rjes.com/html/bellhousing_vs ... plate.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for why), and the latter by the insistance of some people out there on not wiring things up properly. Don't forget the economy and reliability of running a standard engine too. A 2wd T25 will do 27 - 30 mpg on the motorway at 70mph ish with a standard 2 litre or 2.2 Subaru engine.
Believe me, a Subaru conversion is many many times easier than fitting and devlloping your own turbo conversion.
hehe!