March 2025 Update

Hi All,

Ok to start off, the latest on the Honda K24 conversion progress (including a new group purchase and technical milestones), then a quick check in on other stuff in development.

Honda K24 Conversion Progress

The first customer installed K24 conversions are officially underway! After several rounds of beta groups, it’s awesome to see actual users getting the Honda powerplant fitted in their vans. These initial installs are providing great real-world feedback, and so far things are looking sweet.

Given the high interest from vanagonland, we’re opening up this year’s group purchase for the K24 mounting and exhaust kit! This will limited size group (small batches help ensure quality and support), so if you’ve been waiting to jump in, now's the time! The updated mounting/exhaust package has gone through a number of revisions from the beta groups, shaving weight and adding convenience features. Parts should begin shipping out in May. (As always, you can reach out via email for details or snag a spot here.)

We are also offering K24z installs this spring and summer, so if you're sick of boxer engine problems but want the power of a Subie 2.5 in a simpler setup and with much better aftermarket support, now's the time! email k24z@bostig.com 

On the engine management front, we’ve made major progress with the Honda factory ECU in our conversion. The K-Pro and Haltech standalones are still great options, but for many reasons getting the factory ECUs working standalone is still the goal (like with the Zetec). It’s now nearly fully functional in standalone mode – meaning we can run the stock Honda engine computer without needing any of the original car’s dashboard or multiplex modules. The drive-by-wire throttle *and* remapping (to control how it ramps vs sensor positions, add valet modes etc) is working flawlessly under the Honda ECU’s control in the Vanagon. Theses were all big hurdles to clear; many worried we might need to incorporate the donor’s instrument cluster or other modules to keep the ECU happy, but that’s not the case. 

We’re also making good headway toward a California BAR setup for the K24z conversion. Many of you in California have (understandably) been anxious about whether this swap could get a coveted BAR engine swap sticker. While we can’t promise anything (nature of the BAR ref 1 by 1 inspection process), all signs so far are positive. We’re able to keep the factory emissions equipment and vitally the factory ECU. There’s more work ahead on the documentation and testing side, but at this point it’s no longer just a pipe dream – we’re actively aiming for a BAR-compliant K24z conversion that can pass the referee inspection and get stickered, which is immensely cool. 

If enough folks in CA end up going the K24z route, then the next steps could even be re-visiting the CARB EO process, which we are unfortunately very well acquainted with. We failed hard with the Zetec over a decade ago. The catalytic converter manufacturer we needed to use had their CARB EOs rescinded during our application process. The only lucky part was that we got the news before the lab and shed testing, which would have added $5-10k on top of everything we had already lost. That would have been enough additional loss at the time to kill the business completely, which nearly happened. 

Zetec Conversion

Even as we focus on the Honda platform, the trusty Zetec program isn’t dead yet. In fact, we have one Zetec turnkey in the pipeline right now: a fresh conversion built around a great 68k-mile engine we sourced recently. That turnkey system should be ready in about 3–4 weeks. If you’ve been wanting a turn-key Zetec, this is a rare opportunity – after this one, there may not be another for a while. (As we mentioned before, we’re winding down batch Zetec kit production, but we’ll continue to support the over a thousand Zetec vans out there and make kits and parts on-demand) Anyone interested in this upcoming turnkey should get in touch soon to discuss details, or place the deposit before someone else does here.

Supercharger for Zetec

Our Zetec supercharger development is ongoing, with steady progress and, importantly, no showstoppers so far. The prototype Supercharged Zetec setups have been running and undergoing testing, and we haven’t hit any major hiccups. It’s still a slow, methodical slog – which is exactly how we prefer to do it, to ensure the end result is rock-solid. No news has been good news here: all the data and feedback coming in from the SC beta units look positive. We’re continuing to refine the setup, and nothing has caught fire or broken apart – always a plus! As long as development stays this uneventful, we’ll be looking at a truly viable bolt-on boost option for Zetec owners.

Project Z

Project Z's development is parallel to the K24z right now since it depends on it. Things like the working DBW and standalone capability with factory ECU are really important! We want any parallel hybrid setup we produce to work in CA, in fact it would *need* to work in CA to be viable at all to produce. Which means it needs to work with the K24z, which was always the goal anyhow (most viable path to an AWD vanagon with 400hp that's MORE reliable than anything with less power). 

That’s all for now. As always, thanks for the support and for following along with our whacky van adventures. We’ll keep plugging away and share more updates as we hit the next milestones.

September 2024 update

 

K24z Honda conversion 

The third beta group is now open! This will be the last beta group before the final retail revision and the subsequent full retail pricing arrives. This group will be very small, and limited to 5 customers, of which there are actually only 4 left, as one of the first 5 zetec customers from 2005 placed a deposit before this blog update! How's that for customer loyalty? Thanks Dave!

The third beta group of the mounting and exhaust kit for K24z is the 5th revision of the parts.  It includes weight savings and convenience features for the mounting and plating system, and further flexibility in the exhaust system to allow for more muffler options. Grab one of the 4 remaining spots here:

https://www.bostig.com/bostig-honda-k24z-mounting-and-exhaust-system-beta-3-for-vw-vanagons/

The parts are scheduled to start shipping October/November.

There is also a single K24z Turnkey available in the same timeframe, for manual transmission or syncro vanagons. For more info or to place a deposit, email Jim. 

The Zetec conversion

As we ramp up the honda conversion, we are winding down the zetec conversion. As a result, this current group will be the last group made that isn't part of the wind down. As intended from day one almost 20 years ago, we don't want to create orphan products, and our customer support is the best in the space. As a result we will continue to offer replacement parts, and even new kits etc as long as we are still in business. However the pricing on the Zetec kits and turnkeys is going to jump dramatically over what it is currently.  This will allow us to continue to offer them, but also pivot to the Honda based conversion, and  additional upcoming products.

The short version is, if you've been contemplating the Zetec for your van, this is it. You'll want to snag a spot in this last group before it closes end of this month, and before the prices jump way up. This goes for the kits, and for the turnkeys. 

https://www.bostig.com/bostig-vanagon-conversion-2024-group-kit-20-deposit-total-price-7595/

Supercharger for Zetec

The SC project is still tooling right along. No news is good news because typically news is bad... but not in this case!  The latest news for the SC project is the addition of a newer Gen 5 Eaton supercharger to the mix. This Gen 5 now gives the SC project intercooling, and another 10 horsepower right out of the gate. The Gen 5 lobe design is so much more efficient than the Gen 3 superchargers that they take 10 less horsepower to spin for the same output!  

Because of the modular design of the Bostig SC kit , this is a bolt on swap for customers already using the Gen 3 blowers. 

Intercooled Gen 5 Eaton SC after scanning for bracket design

Project Z

Project Z now has a battery pack chosen!  This has been a huge sticking point (see last blog update).  The current task before mounting the tesla drive unit is a good cable shift unit. There are a few out there, and there's been some really great DIY work on cable shifters for vanagons too.  We'll be rolling our own in this case, as none really keep all of the stock behavior of the stock vanagon shifter, which is something we want. If you have a line on a cable shift setup that does, please drop a line!

JIM PERSONAL NOTE

Erin and I married each other in Colorado in June!  It was a very cool trip, although flying out isn't the same as driving when you're time limited :(   In Colorado you can perform the ceremony yourselves, you don't even need a witness.  The clerk in Fairplay where we filed the license was really friendly, and even took us into the vault there and showed us the very first marriage certificate there from the 1860s.  

As a massive South Park fan, it was very cool to see Fairplay and some stuff that's been in episodes. Casa Bonita still wasn't taking general reservations though, next time!

Anywho, if you're interest here's the video of the unconventional wedding (honestly, this was the most fun and low stress wedding I can think of). I actually changed out of a Bostig shirt!  I did forget the clip on bowtie at the house though and didn't realize until we had already hiked up Mt. Bailey. 

You can also see more of my better half in the Netflix doc she recently appeared in!

April 2024 Update

Hi All,  

First, updates on the latest product announcements, then some ongoing and future items.

 K24z Honda conversion parts for Vanagons!

The second K24z beta group parts are being powdercoated now!  We're up to 10 members of the two beta groups, and the second beta parts saw a revision of the main engine plate from a single piece into 3 parts so the bottom plate can be removed for easier access if needed. It's also much less expensive in terms of shipping costs. 

Used to be you had to pick either the reliability of the Zetec, or the power of a Subaru, now you can have both reliability and power in your van!  

There will be a couple turnkeys available this summer, but they are *not* cheap. Going the K24z DIY route has an even proportionally bigger savings than the DIY zetec/turnkey. Expect the K24z turnkey to run in the 17k-20k range. If you are interested, contact us now, as with them being so limited they will almost certainly sell before any online announcement. 

The Gunny rack (Rugged aluminum roof rack for tin-top vanagons)

The Gunny rack is another one of those "this is what I want for my van, but it doesn't exist" projects. It came out great, and is crazy strong, light, and crazy good looking!  

There is only 1 rack left from the first run (that can be coated/painted to a custom color if you like) currently available here:

https://www.bostig.com/bostig-gunny-rack-system/

The Zetec conversion

People ask if the zetec kits are still available, yes they are!  

https://www.bostig.com/bostig-vanagon-conversion-2024-group-kit-20-deposit-total-price-7595/

As intended (almost 20 years ago now), Zetecs are still readily available for short money. We just sourced a 65k mile engine for $300 for a summer turnkey build, making it the 4th in the last 6 months under 70k and under $500.  

They are still the kings of reliability, being a lot like tractor engines in their simplicity and robustness, but also rev out to take advantage of the extremely short gearing of the vanagon driveline. With almost 1000 zetec conversions sold, they are the most numerous on the road, that like to stay on the road. Just like the vanagon itself, they are more tortoise and less hare, for exactly the same reasons. 

They are being done in batches again, with the spring batch just having been completed and sold out!  The fastest way to get one is place a deposit, as you might be the one to place the deposit that kicks off the group build. 

Having been the first company to introduce turnkey engine swaps to vanagonland, we've added them back in as an option again.   

https://www.bostig.com/bostig-turnkey-20-deposit-total-price-for-base-turnkey-is-13-200/

Supercharger for Zetec

The SC beta is still underway!  It's a loooooooong slog, but we're getting the results.  Looking forward to this season and the beta guys working on them now getting going! Much better to go slow and get good results than move fast and leave the wreckage of customer value in your wake.  At least that's our philosophy. 

We may not be making money hand over fist, but we do have loyal and supportive customers.  It's never been a money grab for us like it is for most, it's always been a barter, we make your dreams of using your van like you want to a reality, and you allow us to play with and develop cool stuff for work. Pretty good trade. 

Technically, the first stage of the SC beta, which is new MAF, injectors, and ECU/tune will likely become the naturally aspirated future of the Zetec conversion, and offer improved performance for naturally aspirated engines too. 

Project Z

Was named project Zion, as in Zion national park, as the end goal is to visit Zion in a project Zion van!  But it's now just project Z.  The developments here are pretty great! Why? Because the biggest road block to it is current battery technology.  People that want to sell you electric vans or conversions right now won't tell you that current EV/hybrid battery technology sucks, but we will. It's heavy, dangerous, and will burn you, either literally or figuratively down the road with cell, module, or pack failures. 

We dodged a bullet on project Z, as we had chosen the Chevy Bolt battery modules to use, and had a pack in an ebay cart. Then all the fires started hitting the news.  Everyone can see what could have happened if we had already been moving, or pulled the trigger faster. Oof. 

Fast forward to today, the new Ultium from GM will be the first large scale LFP battery platform in the states and the chevy Bolt EUV will have it next year. It means yeah they will still be heavy... but more importantly they aren't prone to thermal runaway and self-sustaining exothermic reaction = your van burning to the ground while you and the fire department (hopefully) watch. They will  be both safer (#1!!) and cheaper (bonus!!).  And both traits carry to the aftermarket. Since project Z is a hybrid, the pack weight won't be massively impacted vs Li+.  

For engine swaps we chose engines very carefully to maximize customer value over making marketability/sales easier for us.  We do the same for the true foundation of the hybrid project, which is the batteries. 

Opus One

The last new product announcement is still not ready to be announced. But we can say this: it won't be branded Bostig, and isn't related to vanagons at all (other than it is kinda angular/boxy, and is technically internal combustion). We do think (and hope) though, that a lot of you folks will still be very interested in the Opus One as well!

Jim personal notes

The last 6 months have been pretty tough for me personally. My fiance and I both lost our dogs about a month apart, Lefty made it to 13, unfortunately cancer took Gunny at 9. It's always tough to lose dogs, they really are family, and in my case coworkers.  As most of my time is spent alone in the shop, Gunny was really helpful despite being terrible at turning wrenches, answering emails, and in particular, scheduling. 

Working now truly alone for the last 6+ months, I think I'm just beginning to understand how much of an impact his loss has had on me. Both how it has affected my life in general, and my work. I am hopeful that the depressive effects will continue to wane, as they haven't been overt or even recognizable, but looking back have certainly been there and have been weighing me down pretty heavily.

Looking forward, I've got an upcoming trip to Colorado, end of May, first week of June to take advantage of Colorado's self solemnization laws with my fiance. Neither of us were ever too impressed with the idea that someone with a title or funny hat needed to be the one to officially commit ourselves to each other, so being able to hike up a mountain and call it ourselves seems like a really cool option. Plus, then I *need* to buy a newer, faster, more capable drone to capture it obviously. 

Ok, that's the blog update!  Maybe another one in a few more years? 

Lastest updates Mar 2021

 Well here's my sexennial blog post. I really am terrible about keeping up with the blog and making videos, but I'm convinced to make a better effort at it. My guess is that it will end up helping customers and helping Bostig. It might even be entertaining!

So here we go on the latest updates on things people would like to know about by subject.

The SC (Supercharger)

The supercharger dev hit a number of showstoppers along the past 5 years, luckily none of them were insurmountable. They did however brutalize the speed of the project, which when you're at this scale of operations is pretty easy to do. 

Sure I could have shoved something out the door faster, but trust me that's not good for anybody. We are still in the private beta phase of dev. The phases of Bostig dev tend to be Proof of Concept (POC) -> Private beta -> Public beta -> Retail.  The private beta in this round was speeding up last fall, when we again hit some real slowdowns. Slowdowns in the form of 2/3s of private beta guys getting injured to the point they couldn't participate!  All unrelated, none having to do with vans. 

Despite that setback, we did overcome a MAJOR showstopper in the fall in the form of finding an ECU guru who is not only fantastic at calibrating, but who can actually hack the ECUs and gain customized control over the factory ECUs to a level I haven't seen in my entire working life with cars, which is ~30 years.  This advance may actually carry back over to the conversion itself since it allows us to once and for all delete PATs (Passive Anti-Theft) from the focus ECUs meaning we can use them again. And could give us some great new capabilities like controlling the radiator fans speeds from the ECU etc. 

Currently I'm onboarding a couple additional folks into the beta, which will be the first change in group size in over a year. I was hoping to be at this stage in the early winter last year but man, if it isn't one thing, it's a pandemic. 

The best news on the SC front that I can share via text is that the hardware is pretty dialed in now, very few changes. This combined with consistency in tuning/calibrating across the group is what gets us into the public beta phase.

I'll add some new pictures of the current setup for the next post. 

The PZ (Project Zion)

Me with the 67 hp ZF75 motor from a Zero SR

This is the codename of one of the other "power adders" that I've been working on. All cool projects should have codenames, and this one is great because Zion is one of my favorite national parks, but also because it really is the ultimate type of power adder to achieve. 

PZ is a parallel hybrid drive system from Vanagons. There, I said it. I've been , researching, waiting, and working on it since early 2019. The POC is quite a thrill! So are the benefits to such a system:

• Hugely Improved acceleration
• 2wd -> 4wd
• Improved braking via regen
• Only way to add power and *lower* loads on other driveline parts (300-400 hp vanagon now possible without instantly destroying transmission)
• Errand or Emergency pure electric range
• Huge GINORMOUS house battery for camping
• Improved MPGs during city driving
• Great for rock crawling, (max torque at 0 rpm up front)
• CA legal right out of the box
• Rear powerplant agnostic

See why I would call it Zion? Plus "Zion" sounds vaguely electrical. Anywho the POC is a blast to drive as the test mule is both the SC test mule and the PZ test mule. For the POC I wanted to test a smaller, lighter, lower voltage aircooled setup. I did so with the drivetrain from a 2017 Zero SR electric motorcycle. That setup is great because the whole thing would add under 500 pounds, and for the DIYer would be much safer than the typical 300+ volts you deal with in electrics. 104 volts can nail you, but isn't nearly as likely to insta-kill you if you really screw up. The 106 ft/lbs right off the line is really great too. The POC was a test to see how a single one of these motors does, with the intent to use two of them eventually. But while the Zero drivetrain is great, it just isn't up to the sustained kW output levels I want to see to climb mountains etc. So the very first day I had it up and running and tested I hit the drawing board again to upsize. (here's a video of that very first little jaunt around the parking lot) 

For my next blog post I'll go through some of how I did the POC and share some more pictures and get some more video. In addition, I'll also start getting into how PZ has the potential to help syncro owners and 2wd owners looking to go syncro with suspension and brake upgrades for the front end as well. Syncro parts are of course made of unobtanium. Things like new forged uprights are not possible at this scale, and machined chromoly parts are just ludicrously expensive without truly offering the value they cost. But I'm working on a solution for all that too and just today actually, it passed the very first hurdle. Please email me with any specific questions you'd like answered in the blog, or encouragement! blogstig@bostig.com

Power adder

Since I started working on them in 2006, the goal was to add power without sacrificing the reliability of the NA zetec/conversion.

Right now people have to choose, although many don't realize what they are leaving on the table. Most people have the viewpoint that with a Bostig they are leaving power on the table, and they can get Bostig reliability with a subaru based conversion. In reality with a 2.5 Subie they are leaving reliability on the table, and with a 2.2 they are leaving both reliability along with no power advantage on the table.

The current turbo rev has been in testing since 2009. It is not dead. There have been 4 major revisions, non-intercooled, 2 air/water intercooled, and the air/air intercooled ones that have been running since 09. I don't like the turbo as a power adder for anyone. It has the upside of having upside. If you want to do a crazy build and make 400HP, you can, and break everything in your driveline as often as you want. But it has downsides in that its number of points of failure, modes of failure, and severity of outcome of failure are still such that not anyone can just run it and have it be reliabile, its compeltely subjective and varies by owner. That is not the solution that Vanagon owners need.

The alternative is the opposite, very few points of failure, very friendly modes of failure, and very low severity of outcome for even the most catastrophic modes of failure. Driving a syncro with 180HP and 200ft/lbs of torque that just keeps going and going is so great, more people need to experience it. I'd also like to help avoid more cases of the few unfortunate folks that inadvertently commit Subicide with a gremlin riddled setup after dumping ton's of money into the project to then perhaps scrap the whole idea of a van. People pull Subarus for Bostigs for reliability increases, they learned the hard way the extra 30HP wasn't worth the risks they didn't fully understand. People only pull Bostigs for more power. Like my original plan back in late 2004 called for, we need a good power adder. And I'm almost done.

Groups and Customer Pull

Bostig manufactures in small batches or groups. Because the marketplace and Bostig itself are so small in scale, we try to make it a point to not carry inventory of kits either. This makes changes to the kit itself faster/easier and has contributed to the success and quality of the system.  In addition, because cashflow is extremely important in small businesses, we try not to tie up cash in inventory. It is better used for ongoing R&D etc.

Instead of the traditional customer push model that you are used to in larger or mainstream markets, we use customer pull. Customer push is what most people are familiar with, build a bunch of product, and keep it in inventory, then use price incentives and marketing to move product out of inventory or "push" to the customer. The customer pull model allows us to build a group essential "on demand".  The cycle time is longer, for the customer but the results are much better. Value is higher to the customer and the product itself gets updated much more often.  We *sometimes* carry kits in inventory, however those kits are usually reserved for documentation work and internal use, however we will sometimes allow people to buy reserve kits for an additional surcharge vs the group purchase price. If you're really in a pinch, you can always ask us if we have any reserve kits available. The surcharge runs $500.

Someone also asked what the differences were between RG2 and RG3, and the answer is yes, but all RG1 and RG2 can be made to RG3 spec with minimal extra time/purchases. The main change is the airbox moving to the driver's side, a change which speeds up airbox modification for fitment and retains the intake resonator which quiets the intake noise even further.  Other changes are tune based, and can be updated via email and reflashing of the ECU.

Cheers,

Jim

It's not just the actual work

I just saw a hilarious image on imgur that I'm sure many people can relate to. It's got profanity, so sorry if you're offended but man is it funny:

It reminds me that it's not just the time spent actually bolting things together in most automotive projects that really takes up most of your time. It's also easy to forget just how much of a time suck and headache inducing situation it is when you aren't all planned out and organized, especially when you are doing a project for the first time.

 Without knowing what is in store when setting off on a project, it's easy to miss things and honestly, you can't know what you don't know. Because every other conversion available in the market is essentially a one-off each time it is performed, no two are ever identical and therefore the project itself is never identical either. Add to that the fact that no other vendor offers a truly complete, repeatable, formula for success with their parts, and you might not anticipate what it really takes to pull off a DIY engine conversion in your vanagon.

This is an area where a system like ours really helps, we can guarantee the outcome, and you can avoid huge amounts of wasted time and effort. Not even to mention having the most proven, simplest, and reliable engine possible in your vanagon!