1990-1993 (FORMERLY 4 YEARS- NOW CONDENSED TO 3)
Brian Rogers:
Just keeping this on the 1st page and hopefully not let it die.
Jim Ratto:
VZ35 and the long drive from Bay Area to Ventura
Just south of the city of Gilroy, on US-101 is a slight uphill grade that crests near CA-129 west, and the small mission town of San Juan Bautista, and then funnels into the upper mouth of the Salinas Valley. It was near 10:30pm and my friend Jason and I were miserable already. As we passed the last few exits of Salinas, he had to ask me, "Is you car ok dude?" I knew why he was asking. Interstate 101 in this part of CA was and still is, only 2 lanes going each way, and it's often slowed to 50-55 by the crawling procession of agricultural trucks and trailers. At this slow speed, the new version of the 2054 in my car was absolutely useless. There was now a very wide window of crucial RPM where this new engine did nothing more than buck, hesitate, cough and go through fuel at an alarming rate. I had become silent in my ever increasing rage and embarrassment as the car hiccupped along for what was going on 2 hours now. I didn't even answer Jason, I just stared ahead, wondering why in the hell we were doing this trip anyway. By King City (about 40 minutes later) I had had it. Enough. We pulled off 101 into a Chevron station to get more fuel (again) and I told Jason "I need to change something, we're going to be here for a half hour. Just hang out." In my driver's door panel pocket I had a greasy bag of Weber main jets. In my stupidity, I decided $20 worth of main jets would eventually mask the mistake of changing out the cam. During the week leading up to this Saturday night, I was kidding myself, spending all my time chasing this bucking and hesitation by screwing different main jets in and out of my 44 IDF's. And none of them did a damn thing. But being hardheaded and still not willing to publicly admit I had a ton to learn, I kept trying and re-trying the same jets. "Maybe at this sea level, these 145's will do the trick...", "It's going through fuel like a mother, maybe it needs to be leaned out..."
All of this was wrong and completely desperate.
I stood there in the cold farm air, under the glare of the gas station lighting, fumbling around with extracting emulsion tubes up and out, from in between the air stacks and the A-frame bracket that held filter lids on. Twenty minutes of getting madder and madder. A horsefly kept circling and divebombing my neck. The sound of the diesel trucks entering the highway, the cold, the late hour.... it all just added to the frustration. And I knew deep down inside this was a complete waste of time.
And it was.
Jason had hoofed it over to the Denny's down the street and had returned with a strawberry milkshake for himself and some cheap shitty coffee for me. I hadn't even swapped the jets into the emulsion tubes yet. "How's it going? Is this going to fix it"
None of this was his fault, but I was seething mad. I swear, in that cold night air, I must have had steam coming off of me. All I could say was "I don't f-cking know right now"
A half hour later, my bad coffee was now cold. Jason's shake was gone. And I was thumbing the wingnuts back on the K&N's. I almost just knew it was going to be worse. I just didn't know how much worse.
The long onramp back to 101-S gave me hope. But I had put my foot into it, and there was nothing else this engine was accepting of, other than a nice big slice of wide open throttles. That frigid midnight valley air was shattered by the deep and lusty howl as the 914 tach bounced and jumped around to "6" and beyond. But of course we were back to dealing with the lettuce trucks and the other slow moving vehicles. So it was either down into third and then back off, or stay in fourth. We passed the exit for 198 east, and it hit me how much farther our trip was. We had barely made a dent in the big picture of this night drive. And the jetting change had only made this night much, much worse.
In an hour, we had the Cuesta Grade to contend with.
"All Jason's fault. He talked me into going tonight. He doesn't have one f-cking idea of what the hell is wrong, and there he just sits, staring out the f-cking window. Him and that f-cking milkshake." It was a tapeloop in my head. Oh look we need gas again!!
And we were only in San Luis Obispo.
andrewlandon67:
Sounds unpleasant to say the least... Glad you're still up for writing a bit every now and again!
Neil Davies:
A mate of mine once said that the more you get into old Volkswagens, the more you hate them. He was several years and tens of thousands of pounds into a build that I still don't think is finished, so I think I know where he was coming from!
Its reading things like this that makes me glad I'm far too lazy to change cams just for the hell of it!
Brian Rogers:
Thanks for the update. I’ve not been checking in as of late due to health issues. Help keep my enthusiasm up. Got a few more months of recovery from liver transplant before doc will kick me loose. I need these words of wisdm.
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