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There was a thread recently on air cooled VW adapter plates recently. You can find it here.
Generally the plates are made from aluminum as it is much easier to machine and almost everything back there in an old Bug is aluminum. There is no reason steel couldn't be used.
There is the "magic number" to consider. This is the spacing so that the machined motor hub is in the same relationship with the plate as the stock gas engine. I can't help you with that as I cut off the input shaft bushing area and went clutchless. This dimension is usually set by making the adapter about 1/2 inch thick, then adding a spacer ring between the motor and adapter plate to bring the thickness up to what is needed. You can scroll down to the aircooled VW adapter on this page and see about how thick the final result will be for some common motors in this application.
Generally the plates are made from aluminum as it is much easier to machine and almost everything back there in an old Bug is aluminum. There is no reason steel couldn't be used.
There is the "magic number" to consider. This is the spacing so that the machined motor hub is in the same relationship with the plate as the stock gas engine. I can't help you with that as I cut off the input shaft bushing area and went clutchless. This dimension is usually set by making the adapter about 1/2 inch thick, then adding a spacer ring between the motor and adapter plate to bring the thickness up to what is needed. You can scroll down to the aircooled VW adapter on this page and see about how thick the final result will be for some common motors in this application.
