Santa must have mistook our smoking generator for a chimney and squeezed through carrying an alternator upgrade kit and everything else including the kitchen sink (out of a VW Camper Van of course!). Tracy kept saying, "This stuff is great. Now, what's this part for again?"     This stuff was purchased at Marrietta Foreign Auto Parts in the Atlanta, GA area. We got in on their

initial order to become EMPI dealers. A move we would later regret because of horrendous service problems we had with MFAP and the EMPI parts, well... you'll see.

While the sparkplug wires still sparked OK the flat doughnut-shaped rubber seal is badly bent and cracked. This rubber piece seals up against the fan shroud around the engine, keeping the critical cooling air inside where it's needed. This replacement wire from EMPI offers a design upgrade with a groove in the doughnut to lock into the shroud with no leakage. It's lots of these small upgrades added up

that can turn a 30+ year-old VW into a fun and reliable car for the 21st century (we hope).

Next on the updating list was to replace the old points-type ignition with this Perlux electronic ignition on the right. Like a modern car, once the timing is set, the electronic ignition never needs adjusting or other maintenance. We also upgraded the distributor to a Bosch "009" (not shown).

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