Homer is on his 3rd engine. The first two were 1600 single ports and the one in it now is a dual port. The first one was thrown together out of junk parts . . . got 15,000 miles out of it without missing a lick before it spit a rod cap out the top of the block. The second one was a used engine that I bought from Lamar . . . he had pulled it out of his Super Beetle 'cause it was getting a little "tired." That one lasted about 10,000 miles before it dropped an exhaust valve head through the top of a piston . . . that "might" have had something to do with the 150 mile trip stuck in 4th gear. Anyway, I replaced it with the only thing avalible (affordable) at the time. This 1600 dual port is still in it and if I'm not mistaken, is approaching the 30,000 mile mark.
From that you might think a dual port is the way to go . . . but this engine has never had near the low end torque that either of those single ports had. Driving a bus I would trade a little top end power for a lot more low end torque any day of the week. Perhaps there was a reason VW only installed dual ports in buses for one year. :-k
