All of our stainless steel throttle / accelerator cable kits use thicker cable than the plated steel cable that VW used. They’re all supplied over length, to be cut to suit the customers application. This means they can reach a throttle body in just about any location in the engine compartment, and fit all the pedal variants in models with many such as the Bay window bus (T2a, T2b, T2c). They also use higher quality Bowden tube than VW used, meaning they can be bent around tighter radii or for bigger angles in applications which require it. This makes them very adaptable for applications other than what they were originally intended for, and we’ve had customers use them for many different VW engine conversions. Also, because the cables for rear engined VW buses are longer than just about any other application, we’ve sold quite a few to customers who need need a high spec cable for far more obscure applications, including GT40 replicas, bespoke 4wd off roaders and Honda engine converted Lotus Elise’s.

There used to be, and no doubt still are many Subaru powered VW conversions out there with terrible throttle cable arrangements, at least in the UK. These can be any of the following:

  • the rear end of a Subaru cable joined to the front of a VW cable which never works properly long term (many of which were fitted by a UK ‘specialist’)
  • products manufactured by a US ‘specialist’ for the application, who clearly has no understanding of the systems that they are working on, as they market a cable kit as being for kickdown on automatic VW buses. However, it cannot make the kickdown work – in fact fitting their ‘kickdown cable kit’ removes the kickdown feature completely
  • products made from unsuitable cable specs such as bicycle brake cable, either as DIY efforts or by ‘specialists’ such as the awful cable used in the Danbury RHD converted Brazilian spec Bay Window / T2c buses in the UK

We frequently get feedback from customers who can’t believe how amazing our cables are, or words to that effect. They’re not amazing or anything special, just properly engineered products for the job. The excessively positive feedback is because they’re often bought by customers who are having problems with a cable arrangement which can’t work properly, and often they don’t realise how bad what they’ve been trying to put up with is.

These cables are in a different league when it comes to their quality compared to those sold by some competitors for more money.

Subaru Powered Manual VW T25 / T3 / Vanagon Stainless Throttle Cable Kits

Price: £49.29 GBP +VAT (£52.00)

part no. 800-00009 – 8mm diameter barrel / trunnion inner cable end for throttle body pulley. Suits all Subaru cable throttle bodies from MY92 onwards
part no. 800-00082 – 6mm diameter barrel / trunnion inner cable end for throttle body pulley. Suits some Subaru cable throttle bodies from MY90-92

All parts needed to join the VW pedal assembly in any T25 / T3 / Vanagon to any Subaru engine which is not connected to a VW automatic gearbox (see below for cable products for the VW auto gearbox applications).

  • One piece Bowden tube from the pedal to the engine – replaces the original short Bowden tube and the semi rigid nylon tube which VW used
  • Fits 2wd or Syncro, LHD or RHD, with the throttle body in just about any location in the engine compartment
  • M8 fine adjustment at the engine end of the Bowden tube
  • Bowden tube can be bent around a surprisingly tight radius without increasing cable friction (although doing so isn’t recommended unless its absolutely necessary – large bend radii are always preferable)
  • 8mm or 6mm barrel / trunnion inner cable end versions available to suit all Subaru throttle body pulleys. All Subaru models from around MY92 onwards use the 8mm fitting for the throttle body. Some MY90-92 models use 6mm for both the throttle cable pulley and the cruise control cable pulley. If your Subaru engine is from MY90-93, you should check whether it has a throttle body for a 6mm or an 8mm cable end before ordering.
    Note on Subaru throttle bodies with two cable pulleys, the one closest to the throttle body is always the throttle cable, and the pulley furthest away from the throttle body is always for cruise control.

Unsure whether you need the 6mm or 8mm version of this kit? Click here

Subaru Powered Manual VW Beetle / Bay Window / Split Screen Bus Stainless Throttle Cable Kits

part no. 800-00016 – 8mm diameter barrel / trunnion inner cable end for throttle body pulley. Suits all Subaru cable throttle bodies from MY92 onwards
part no. 800-00083 – 6mm diameter barrel / trunnion inner cable end for throttle body pulley. Suits some Subaru cable throttle bodies from MY90-92

Price: £31.67 GBP +VAT (£38.00)

All parts needed to join the VW pedal assembly in any Beetle / Bay window (T2c, T2b, T2c) / Split Screen bus (T1) to any Subaru engine:

  • Uses the original steel chassis tube from the pedal to the rear torsion tube
  • New over length Bowden tube from the rear torsion tube to the engine
  • Fits LHD or RHD, with the throttle body in just about any location in the engine compartment
  • M8 fine adjustment at the engine end of the Bowden tube
  • Bowden tube can be bent around a surprisingly tight radius without increasing cable friction (although doing so isn’t recommended unless its absolutely necessary – large bend radii are always preferable)
  • 8mm barrel / trunnion engine end cable fitting, to suit MY93 onwards Subaru throttle bodies. If you have an MY90-92 Legacy engine which had a 6mm trunnion at the engine end of the cable not 8mm, please point this out at the time of order, and we’ll swap the trunnion for a 6mm one

Unsure whether you need the 6mm or 8mm version of this kit? Click here

Automatic VW T25 / T3 / Vanagon Front Stainless Throttle Cable Kit (part no. 800-00026)

Price: £43.33 GBP +VAT (£52.00)

All parts needed to join the VW pedal assembly in any automatic T25 / T3 / Vanagon the kickdown lever on the VW automatic gearbox. Originally developed for customers doing Subaru engine conversions who also found then needed a replacement for the VW front throttle cable, but couldn’t get one at the time, this kit is not actually engine conversion specific. It’s just a replacement for sometimes unavailable VW front cable in stainless steel.

  • One piece Bowden tube from the pedal to the gearbox – replaces the original short Bowden tube and the semi rigid nylon tube which VW used
  • Fits LHD or RHD
  • M8 fine adjustment at the both ends of the Bowden tube
  • Requires removal of the kickdown lever from the side of your gearbox to install. If someone has stripped the thread, and welded the arm on to the shaft (customers have found this), or if you have a very early variant which we have seen in workshop manuals, but never for real in which the shaft was originally welded to the lever, with the nut holding everything together inside the gearbox, not outside, you can’t fit this kit (at least not without replacing your early or damaged kickdown shaft with the later type with the external nut).

Automatic VW T25 / T3 / Vanagon Subaru Conversion Rear Kickdown Stainless Throttle Cable Kit (part no. 800-00025)

Price: £60.83 GBP +VAT (£73.00)

On a standard automatic VW T25 / T3 / Vanagon, the throttle connection from the kickdown lever on the gearbox to the engine wasn’t a cable. It was a mechanical linkage which does not lend itself to being modified to suit other engines. Replacing it with a cable is the way to go for engine conversions, however, the original mechanical linkage is also a critical part of how the kickdown works. Exactly how the VW automatic kickdown works seems to be quite widely misunderstood, and this has resulted in some pretty awful products being sold which are marketed as cable kits for Subaru engine conversions with VW auto kickdown which cannot possibly enable the kickdown to work. In fact they totally disable the kickdown. This kits is the real thing – it enables your kickdown to work as VW intended with Subaru engines. It is designed for the EJ series engines with their throttle bodies in the standard location.

  • Retains correct VW kickdown function with your Subaru engine
  • Requires setting up the rear cable correct first, with the front cable disconnected, as detailed in the instructions. If you do not follow this, you are unlikely to every get the kickdown and throttle working together properly

This rear kickdown throttle cable kit is too long to fit the EG33 engines perfectly. Because their throttle cable exits the throttle body towards the gearbox, not towards the alternator like on all the other Subaru engines, no 180 degree bend in the engine compartment is required. However, because the Bowden tube is such high spec, and the excess cable length is quite long, you can loop the cable 360 degrees to ‘lose’ the extra length (cable tying the cable loop to itself) without adding any friction to the cable. The only downside to this is that it doesn’t look as neat as a shorter cable made for the job would. But who is going to be looking between your VW floor and top of the gearbox? As the demand for kickdown cable kits for automatic VW’s with EG33’s is very very low, we’re unlikely to ever make a shorter version just for this one application.

Note – this kit comes with an 8mm inner cable end fitting for the throttle body. Please enquire if you need one for an MY90-92 model with a 6mm end fitting. We may be able to make one to order.

Stainless Throttle Cable FAQ:

The earliest Subaru EJ series engines used a 6mm fitting (known as a ‘barrel’ or ‘trunnion’) at the engine end of the throttle body. Typically MY90 – 92 Legacies. All later models used an 8mm version. When buying a throttle cable kit for your VW conversion, you need to make sure you order the right kit, especially if the engine is a 1992 model. Also, you need to make sure you are measuring the correct throttle pulley. The inner one is always for the throttle cable, and the outer one is always for cruise control:

Subaru throttle cable pulley and cable end diameter

If your cable kit is one where the new Bowden tube supplied covers it for the entire length (i.e. our T25 / T3 / Vanagon or Danbury RHD converted T2c kits), no, they’re designed to run dry. If your cable kit is for a model with a steel conduit welded into the chassis (i.e. a Beetle, Split screen bus, or a T2a, T2b or T2c which still has it’s original throttle cable arrangement), the chassis tube will still have some grease in it. This doesn’t matter, as the inner cable is fitted from the rear, so the grease will only be on the part of the cable in the steel chassis tube.

These cable kits are very well proven. The end fittings are load tested in every batch. This is not always understood, but the only load a correctly set throttle cable should ever see is that from the carburetor or throttle body return spring, or the kickdown spring in the case of the auto T25 / T3 / Vanagon. The only way they can ever see a higher load than that is when incorrectly set (too short), so the carb or throttle body runs out of travel before the pedal reaches the floor or its down stop. When that happens, the cable sees as much force as the driver puts on the pedal at full throttle, and this is when things get overloaded. Therefore setting the cable as per the instructions is important.