Tuner Series - Okrasa - Oettinger KRAftfahrtechnische SpezialAnsalt

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This is not a detailed history of Okrasa, although there are some links to the official Okrasa story. You may have seen reference to Okrasa and their air cooled VW parts, this such as in the Belgian built Mach 1 Beetle, this post just provides an insight. 

Okrasa, or Oettinger KRAftfahrtechnische SpezialAnsalt, was founded in 1951 by Gerard Oettinger after graduating as a mechanical engineer. He immediatly began offering performance parts for the VW Beetle and period manufacturers producing sports cars utilising the Beetles flat floor chassis such as Rometsch and Dannenhauer & Stauss.

The Okrasa kit was essentially available in two versions, the TS-1200 and the TS-1300/30, but several variants existed such as the TS-34, up to 1500 versions, in the 60s.

The TS-1200 consisted of a pair of twin-intake cylinder heads, a pair of Solex 32 PBIC carburettors, a linkage for controlling the carburetors, hoses, intake pipes and special air filters. Optional extras included a Fram oil filter which could be mounted on the fanhousing and Okrasa's own oil cooler which consisted of some coiled copper tubing which sat behind the fanhousing thereby being cooled by the air being sucked in. The new heads offered a compression ratio boost from 6.6 to 7.5:1

Beyond the switch to 32 twin carburetors, the main power supply on the TS-1200 was provided by its twin intake cylinder heads, offering a much more generous passage of the mixture than on the "small" original cylinder head...

TSV-1300/30 Kit came with the same parts as the TS-1200 but also included a 69.5mm chrome-moly crank which gave a capacity of 1295cc - the stock stroke at that time being 64mm. The crank was also '8 doweled' to the flywheel, an upgrade still used in todays performance flat 4's. There was some clearencing necessary in order for the con-rods to miss the camshaft.

The inlet manifolds were fabricated from steel and then chrome-plated with a small outlet on each for a balance pipe running between the two. The carbs were Solex 32mm and were fitted with Knecht air-filters.

The Samba forum have published the detailed history of Gerard Oettinger and Okrasa translated from the official history.

In 1956, Martin Herzog started importing the Okrasa kits into the US for the American VW Parts company EMPI and they advertised that it would cut the 0-60 time by 12 seconds. They also stated that it increased the HP from 36 to around 48 with "No sign of overheating reported, even in desert"


You can view the Empi Okrasa 1958 catalogue at Oldspeed.net where they have the complete range of Empi catalogues from 1958 to 1973.












#okrasa #oettinger #okrasaoettinger #vw #vwbeetle #aircooled #okrasa36hp #empi #empire 



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