Testimonials

Thousands of happy campers have purchased our products. We love hearing from you!

Whenever we are in the camper we are amazed at how beautiful the new top and canvas are. Roger loves to point out to anyone who pops their head in about the window screen over the sunroof and how the screen unzips, allowing access to that roof area!!

I tell anyone who will listen how you found us a top from San Diego, made all new canvas and screens, attached it and then made a box the size of a pool table and mailed it to us in Iowa! I then tell them how I worked my charms and talked you into flying here, and in a hot -as- an oven storage unit, took the old top off and replaced it with a better
one with shiny new canvas and screens.

You really did do some beautiful work and we are forever grateful for your time, expertise and friendship!! Finding you was a dream come true after the insurance guy took 2 months to get back to me and said that he did a ton of research and that I would never be able to replace what I had! HA!! We ended up with a top and canvas in better condition than
when we started all because of you! Did I tell you that we also came in under his estimated insurance value by about $2000?!!! Winner winner chicken dinner!

So again, thank you for your help and expertise then and now!! Stay safe and happy travels

Connie and Roger

I just wanted to make a shout out to Salim and his excellent customer service over the years. I’ve had my 87′ VW Vanagon Country Homes Camper for about five years and have had a few minor issues come up with the camping equipment. Salim was always quick to respond and always had the solution. He’s clearly very knowledgeable and passionate about Country Homes Campers.

Thank you so much for the amazing service and for the care and love that you put into what you do!

Ben Kulikowsky
Putney VT
1987 VW Vanagon Country Homes Camper

Pleased with Shady Boy:

Just a note to tell you how pleased we are with our shady boy awning. Unlike with most people, our awning gets what I would call commercial use, and we have had this product over a year. With about 10 camping trips and farmers markets every friday for about 5 months.

My wife can put it up by her self. These markets are up on a mesa in AZ near an airport and wind is pretty strong most of the time. All in all this thing is great. It has had major rain on it in the Colorado mountains.  Still cooked dinner under the awning that night.

OK… so we like it!

Thank you

Vernon
Runs With Scissors Sharpening LLC
Sedona AZ

“We have been driving the 1.8T Automatic 3.27 R&P’ed Vanagon around for several weeks now. I wanted to wait to post anything until we drove the Vanagon in the foothills around here.

In a word. Perfect! The 3.27 R&P works very will with our 1.8T engine conversion. The engine is very happy hovering around lower RPM’s with this R&P. My concern was the RPM would be too low but not the case. Cruised up the hill in third gear easy at 65 -70 MPH. Still can kick down into second gear (!) if needed.

We are going to recommend the 3.27 R&P with all our 1.8T / Automatic engine conversions that get rebuilt now.

Thanks for producing this product! Looking forward to more installs! “

Stephan Auto Haus
Sacramento, CA

“I have this R&P set up in my 85 camper with a 2.5 Subaru. It has been out on a loaner to a friend on the east coast for a couple years. I just went back there last month and drove the van from VT to NJ. It is the most enjoyable van I have ever driven. I have driven a lot of combinations. This past weekend I drove a 2.5L conversion with a stock Auto. It was pretty rough. I wanted to do 80mph(traffic speed) but the rpms were like 4800 to 5000.

If you have the power to pull this gear set, BUY IT!! the expense will make up in the long run. Gas mileage will be better and wear and tear on the engine is way less.

Thanks Salim for bringing this to the Vanagon world!”
Rocky Mountain Westy Inc.

www.rockymountainwesty.com
970-310-3441
info@rockymountainwesty.com

“I was intrigued by this from day one. I like the Vanagon Auto’s, thankfully I have multiple vans because I think it has it’s time and place. But I really like it.

So I wanted to build a road machine. Something I would take on trips more that 2 nights and more than 300 miles. I use my Syncro sunroof van with a H6 for shorter trips. So I had a decent 85 Westy around with 90k miles on it. I put a 2.5L Subaru in it from a 03 outback. I then mated it to the Auto with one of these custom R&P’s. I had my locally Aamco put the tranny together and set up the R&P. We are lucky, our local franchise is AWESOME! The tranny works awesome. The R&P is quiet as can be. The performance with a 2.5 is perfect. I hope to get better fuel mileage than reported above but if I dont, it will be like filling up a waterboxer but with double the power. Seems like a win win.

I just wanted to put a really big Thank You out there to CHC for getting this product developed and manufactured. I know first hand how expensive and risky of a proposition this is.

For those of you that like your Auto, This is awesome if you have the additional power to pull it.

I have one more sitting on the shelf for my TDI Carat project.

Mike

Hi Salim,

I just wanted you know that my Ford conversion van- “Pixie” is doing great. Everywhere I go people want a tour. Last month I was camping at Maple Canyon in Utah and 20+ people wanted to check it out.
It was quite the hit. Thank you so much for helping Rick get it ready to sell. People are quite impressed by your work and wish you were still in business. I hope your summer is going well.

Happy Camping,
Lisa

Hi Salim,

The ring and pinion gear set have made a huge improvement in highway driving of my Westy. I have EJ2.5 engine and with the stock gearing it was fatiguing driving at highway speed with the engine at 4,000 RPM. I have seen a small improvement in gas mileage too but the biggest benefit is definitely the drive-ability. The quality of the gears looked good and they are very quiet.

I would also like to put in a plug for Erwin. He did a great job with the installation and followed it up with an inspection and oil change after a month of driving. He also rebuilt the converter, transmission and installed a TBD all of which work perfectly. While he had the van he also cleaned up some loose ends from the original engine swap, fixed some cracks in my headers and found a vacuum leak that was degrading power brake performance. He is the best and I would highly recommend him for the gearing swap as well as engine conversions.

Alan

I ordered your 3.27 R&P, and had my transmission rebuilt at the same time. Couldn’t be happier with this ratio. My transmission was starting to leak and spew fluid when I ordered the R&P. I held on to it until after our family’s camping vacation.

A month later, I went camping for a week. (130 miles with a small kayak trailer, and 6 kayaks.) Luckily, we got it home. The transmission was leaking so bad, I had to wipe my back window 3 times, as well as check the fluids, and add ATF. Let’s agree that I got everything out of the transmission I could.

Before the install, revving 4000 at 60 mph would cause the oil to get thinner than it should. This caused the valves to chatter very loud. That would eventually calm down. (3-5 minutes) Speed was a slow 60-65 mph at best, and at 4200 rpm. The temperature gauge would creep up to between the light, and the hot mark. Power was at best sustainable, but with high winds, forget it. My ignition coil would cut out and even went out completely twice because it was getting too hot. My Vanagon was just not going to survive.

We took the transmission out and turned it in to the shop I was talking to about the rebuild. They charged me for the rebuild and a very small amount of $85 to swap the R&P. This took 3 weeks, because of the rarity of the transmission, and the need to replace a couple parts they broke because the transmission is 28 years old.

When I got it back, we installed it. Seven quarts of ATF, for the transmission and the torque converter, and 1 ½ quarts of 80w gear oil in the differential, and we were on our way. Driving it is great. I broke it in slow. (1000 miles) My fuel economy went up 3 mpg, which wasn’t much, but at least in the right direction. The best part is my 2.1 water boxer stock engine actually performs better since this install.

Now, I can go 85-90 mph, and the valves won’t chatter from start to finish. It will barely make that Volkswagen chatter in the least. My engine seems to like this new R&P very well. Country Home Campers suggested a Subaru/Tiico/VR6 conversion, and I agreed, but I still needed the money for that. I was thinking I could simply drive 60 mph in 2nd gear if I needed to. Turns out I don’t have to at all. Inclines might have a downshift, but I only saw it downshift in a mountain pass. It still kept up with itself on the inclines I was wondering about. It might drop from 75 to 70 or 65 mph, but it didn’t need to downshift at all. Temperature went down to below the light on the gauge, and only goes up if I am going through town with several stoplights, but still only goes to just above the light.

I asked Salim Miro, from Country Home Campers, some pretty tough questions, and I would like to better answer them here.
• First, I wanted to know the RPM’s at 70-80-and 90 mph. 70mph will do 3600 RPM roughly; 80 MPH will do 3850 RPM roughly; 90 mph will do 4100 RPM roughly.
• Second, I wanted to know what 60 mph will do in 2nd gear. This is just in case I needed to drop it in 2nd gear for high winds or hills because I am still carrying my 90 hp water boxer. Second gear will carry 60 mph at 4000 RPM. And in case anyone wants to know, 1st gear will do 35 mph at 3600 RPM.
• Shift points are the same 4400 RPM’s, which is good. 1st gear will shift at 38 mph. 2nd gear will shift at 64 mph. It feels amazing how much stride I can get out of each gear.

I am not a transmission technician, but I do understand the difference between a 4.09:1 ratio and a 3.27:1 ratio. I found a 3.73:1 ratio in a few places, but I was not impressed with the feedback from other mechanics about the company, and the product. Also, the 3.73:1 ratio simply was not enough of a drop, considering I am replacing my 90 hp water boxer with a VR6 inside 3 months.

I do recommend this R&P for any water cooled automatic Vanagon. I suggest including this if anyone is planning to rebuild their automatic transmission. If rebuilding is the next step, do it right.

Sincerely,
Troy Bullard
West Jordan, UT