I'm writing to this to give a short account of my experience dealing with Jake Raby.
I hooked up with Jake after reading several of his posts to a 181 mailing list. I've owned a couple 181's but my current one has been mine since 1982. A couple years ago, I installed CIS fuel injection which I picked up from Gary Miller. The car ran fine, but with the top down maintaining 65mph up hills was a challenge for me and for my stock 1600. That's 'til I met Jake.
After a few discussions we decided on a 88 x 74 type 1. (I know you guys are mostly type 4 types but I wanted to keep the fresh air heat on my '74 181.)
Jake certainly knows his stuff with these engines and the depth of his experience became obvious after just a few minutes on the phone. I love to buy things from people who know way more about it than I do... and I've been around VW's for 30 years.
The engine was delivered on time, on budget and performs as promised. The only problem I experienced was with some "SCAT" pushrods with improperly hardened tips. (Maybe "SCAT" refers to what they were made of.) I've since replaced them with Manton pushrods which are so far ok. I do not blame Jake for the funky pushrods, just bad luck.
To sum up, I highly recommend Jake for his honesty, experience and for the quality of his work. While I don't really want to buy another engine from him next week, I'm sure I will again.
I'm looking forward to participating in his forum; best regards and happy motoring.
Gary Monshine
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