The Cal-look Lounge

Hi everybody,

I always loved Kris Lauffers blue Notchback, but never saw a feature of that very fast Type 3 in any magazine. I heard it wasn't up to feature car standard.
Do you have any pics of the car, engine bay or interieur? Any information on the engines he ran in that car?
Cheers,

Georg




Picture stolen from latinbug.skynetblogs.be

For those who are not familiar with that car, here is a video for your viewing pleasure  :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Y-43ZdzX4

I remembe this day...oh the days of carlsbad. I miss them much. When I used to race there, the Lauffers would always be testing something insane out. That notch ran hard and would do a burnout for days. The rear decklid was pimpled a bit from blowing up fans.

PS He is racing the shitbox in this vid and if I remember correct, Mike Gagen is announcing

i miss that track to...the good old days ;D

A Lauffer and a Herbert on track at the same time!  :o

 8)

Guys, would you mind getting back to topic?  ;D

I guess Kris Lauffers car had it's high before digital photography...  8)

i remember the car in hot vws i know there's some pictures of this one , during dkp drag day at carlsbad , i will check georg  and post here what i found

 ;)

fabs

Thats the problem Georg...I have VHS tapes of it racing and some stills of it from DKP drag days and when I raced, but digital cameras from 98-04 still werent as popular or inexpensive as they are now a days.

I was there that day, the wheelie looked soooo much bigger in person!!! :o He slammed the front down so hard it bent up some suspension, still ran something like an 11.67!!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the motor was/is a 2442 turbo on alcohol, it came out of a sandrail. It later ended up in the red convertible.

That's an awesome wheelie.  :o   :o

That car has always been one of my favorites.  Does Kris still own it or did it go away since the convertible?

This would make John Force jealous  ;D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LDcp4iOsH0&feature=related

I've always admired that car as well. I remember a few years ago at the Vegas Bugorama Kris was doing giant wheelies with it all day. I've heard that Kris still owns the car but it has been sitting behind thier shop for a few years now and is in pretty sad shape.

Come on guys! No photos? No tech details? I can't belive it. How about the Americans? No one there who took pictures of it or knows what engine(s) was(were) in the back?

I am counting on you!  ;D

 ;)

From what I remember talking to Kris at Sac probably 10 years ago, it was a 2442 with Angle Flows or Super Flows (can't remember) IDAs and a shit load of Nitrous.

John, do you remeber if he was running the type 3 fan and cooling tin or did he swap to type 1 set up?

I think it was still T3, but I can't remember.

it had a type 1 upright all the times I seen it over the years

Anthony / ISP WEST

don't know the engine, but it must be type1 as the header and exhaust tuck under the valance a bit too far if this was type3.

it was a type 1, i had called him when I was building my motor. You cant keep those fans together. He kept spinning them off and blowing them up. His rear decklid showed signs of fans that had blown up. The type 3 fans just dont work with a lot of HP, I shot mine 18 ways from Sunday when i raced in Vegas.

THANK YOU!!!!!

Kris still has the car. He bought it when he was 13. It originally started off with a 2054 type 3 engine. Mom would not let us have anything bigger at the time. Then after breaking parts and as the years pass the engine kept getting bigger. In the end the engine was a 2442. It always had cheap or used up parts that were from the old man's race stuff. The best it ran was a 12.24 @ 109 N/A with all of the type 3 tin. Only the 48 IDA's stuck through the engine lid.
We had a customer come in the shop to get some race fuel for a high dollar local street race that night. He said his car ran high ten's. Kris & I grinned, and said lets go take their money. So we dug through the old man's race room and pieced together a nos fogger kit. A few hours later and some test runs down the street we were off. The cops were all ready their so the race never happened but Kris never gave dad his NOS kit back. The best it ran was 10.89 @ 123 with unit.
This was the time with type 3 fans would fly apart all the time. So he converted the engine to type 1 tin. Kris went through so many ring & pinions, axles and broken cranks (bernie bergmanns). We even tig welded a flywheel to a crankshaft to use it again. It vibrated like hell. The Notch was all ways full weight with all the glass, interior and trim. It even had the original type 3 rear suspension rubber bushings in place. So he decided to build another car and roll all of the engine and transmission componets into whats "the Devils Hot Rod" vert now. It was lighter and something he really did not care about messing up.
The Notch was retired and sat in the garage for along time. Then our buddy Russ Hare wanted to convert his rag top "The Sloval" into a gasser for the VW Classic weekend. Kris decided to pull the engine out of his mid engine sand rail and stick it in the Notch for that weekend. The Ercos came off the vert and he modified the rear bumper with a tow ball so we could flat tow "The Sloval" in from a few blocks away. We showed up to Kymco and everybody sh it.
The next day was the races at Carlsbad. We were fitting ignition issues because we afro engineerred everything in the car. When it pulled the monster wheelie against Mike Herbert, Kris took it as far as 2nd gear would go. When it came down it shoved both fenders back so the doors would not open, the beam was bent along with one tie rod and the horn was stuck on.  ;D
He has put different engines in it when the fire is lit under his a ss to drive it around. But now it sits in our old mans garage covered up. The paint is little faded, their are some chips & scratches but other wise looks the same.
I will dig around and try to post some pictures this weekend.
Jason Lauffer
 

thanks for all the info there.

so the type3 fan can be used to reasonalbly fast times??? (12 seconds is reasonably fast  ;D) so what makes the fan blow up the rpms or the quick revving?

sorry, no engine bay pics

(http://www.luftkraft.ch/carlsbad03/14.jpg)

(http://www.luftkraft.ch/carlsbad03/23.jpg)

Hi Jason,

thank you so much for the information. I really love your brothers old car.
Would be great, if you could post some pictures!
Cheers,

Georg

Both.

The fan is directly fit to the crank(T3)

i know.

i'll elaborate a bit.

the flywheel will come off as well, BUT when is wedgemating, 8 dowling and so on necessary?

so,
the fan will come off, but it might be a good thing to know, what can work and until what RPM, what use, what time... so if someone tested this, maybe it was in this notch. ;)

great car .looks hard as nails.i also love the towball :o if thats what it is

Such a good one.Can`t count how often I watched those vids...Yeah the towball is a very neat detail  ;D


Hmmmh, BUT the fan turns slower than a bug fan! Ok the it is directly connected to crank and so will rev directly, that is a problem...

So what`s the problem does it explode or does it come loose? O both?
Anyone tryed to weld the typ-3 fan? I think a good balancing job would even help a lot...

Nothing will keep a type 3 fan together in any motor with any horsepower. Doesn't matter if it's welded or anything. First few fast revs and it gone!!!  Listen to Eric Justis.  He lost a few and tryed EVERYTHING.  When his car was at EBI 1 I told the owner then to be careful and it came off. Lucky he was able to save it and get it back on for an easy and VERY careful drive home to England.      Dave Rhoads

@Dave: I had long discussions with Eric Justus and Mark Herbert about that toppic. I can see the problem with the fan mounted directly on the crank, getting all the vibrations instead of getting them softened by a fan belt. I had my fan welded and balanced with the crank and flywheel. Engine is still not in the car but I will give it a try. I don't want to have the type 1 fanhouse in my Razoredge Ghia!

Do you think a 82x94, CB 044 CNC oval port, 42x37,5, FK10, 1,4 rockers, IDA engine would produce to much power/revs to high for the type 3 fan?

@Jason: You said Kris was running a 2442 cc with type 3 cooling. Was that working? How about the smaller 2054 cc motor? Did that one work? With what kind of cam, heads, and so on?
Cheers,

Georg

It doesn't matter if it's welded or anything. The type 3 fan is big and heavy. Any type of good horsepower will rip it apart.  It's the quick reeving that rips them apart. Everything wants to move faster than the fan can keep up with.  Good luck with everything.    Dave Rhoads

Mark and I went over this allot before I built the engine in my squareback too... the issue I see with your setup is more the cam/rocker/carburetors... heavy car ( compared to a bug ) you want your power down low to get it all moving... your choosing things that are going to want to make power at higher RPMS which will push the limits of the fan... my engine is 82x94 all under the deck lid and makes power to 6500 with a small cam - 120 and 44x37.5 heads and 48 dells,  it still makes 150+ and is a blast to drive...

my fan is fully welded center & rosies... and knock on wood... it has not blown up yet... 

on the other hand your carbs aint fitting under the decklid... take the easy way out... just build an upright ;D

Anthony / ISP WEST

I believe the problem is when trying to race.  The RPM's are up high and you drop the clutch. The weight of the fan wants to keep going and the crank has been brought down suddenly by launching the car.    Dave Rhoads

Dave is right. I never blew the fan off my engine while driving it. I spun it off coming off the starting line at carlsbad once, in front of my house and then it finally grenaded right off my launch in vegas. I was fortunate enough the it blew out of the bottom of my fanshroud instead of the top only damaging the shroud and not the body at all. I tried to keep that motor together with that set up as I like having the t-3 set up as well, but racing wise I had to put on a t-1 pulley...and when it got down to it, I enjoy racing more than driving  :D

maybe another option is to fit a pulley insted off the fan for races and drive the type3 fan on the street.
for me it wouldn't be an option, as i need something that will always hold, but maybe Georg can hold his foot up and not pushing the limits.

i always thought the square of Anthony pulled great, never looked up the enginecombo, but what you say makes a lot off sense as well.

and just to be sure. you don't want the fan to blow up, i had one that gave way (not at high revs, but because it scraped the tabs away against the housing) and that caused allready big problems. i found fanpieces everywhere, even stuck between the cylinderheads.

Soooooo how could that happen than?  ::)

Maybe I had only luck but I never had any problem with my 1776cc with orig. fan, and I was launched not the softest way. Best ET 15.0. Max rpm 7000 1/min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfL9XGPOc8Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfL9XGPOc8Q)

The 2.2 I am building at the moment will also get the complete typ-3 tin (welded and balanced fan). I will see what happens and do some feedback if I bet on the wrong pony or not.
In my taste a typ-1 fan just looks wrong in an typ-3 back. Then you could even transform it to an porsche style fan to get it even more worse in style. jurks...

7K ?......That's a butt load of rpms. You'd better check your tach. That video showed a nice, but modest run. That ain't hammerin'. There's a world of difference between 15's and 12's. Eric had extra long bolt, numerous balances and welds from people who know what they're doing. You've gotten a lot of good advice and guidance here.

Just to get it clear of course not 7k launch rpm  ;) Mostly I came of the line around 4k.

YES 12`s are not really comparable with 15`s. My new aim is in between. Extra long bolt sounds as a good idea!
Maybe someone has got a pic of a good welded typ-3 fan?

another thought that could factor into saving my fan is I only lightened the flywheel to 14lbs... not the usual 12½ and start with a very very nice late model fan.. or NOS one if you can find it...

Anthony / ISP WEST

In that vid the notch spun the tires a lot so the rpm's never droped that much. If it would have hooked up at all it would be having fan problems.  Dave Rhoads

Anthony, I just love the look of a type 3 engine with just IDAs sticking out of the engine bay. To make it look more stock, I had the cutout widened by the Bug Box so that the IDAs fit.  :)
As the car was and will be a street car with just occasional racing at the lights... ahh... christmas tree on a race track of course... I hope it's holding together.

that does look dam good... plus you will benefit allot more from the tall intake manifold vs. being stuck using short type 3 ones... being squareback forces me below the deck... :D

Anthony / ISP WEST 

Looks good Georg.When will it be ready?
 ;)

Seems like if you`re running IDA`s and you`ve opened up the engine compartment why not just use type 1 tin and fan?

The engine compartment on a Type 3 always looks scenic with IDA carbs.

(http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=10644.0;attach=36079;image)

All you type 3 fans please check this thread as well:

http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,10803.0.html