The Cal-look Lounge

OK, before anyone gets any ideas, I'm writing this very much tongue in cheek  :P (but still dead seriously)  ;D

I'm trying to build my cal-looker to fulfill the cal-look regulations but I'm on a shoestring budget and have very little extra time too. Family, kids, starting a business etc. you know the drill... As there has been a lot of "that's not cal-look" and "this is not cal-look" comment flying across this board, I'd just want to make sure I'm safe  ::)

So what in your view would be the minimum requirements for an acceptable cal-look motor?

1776 plus twin 40's, this is a minimum.

I think a 1679cc with IDAs would do as well...

Minimum 1776cc, thats it.

So you're saying that all the original Cal Lookers, with their 88mm x 69mm engines, were wrong! In reality, a 1679cc (1700) with counterweighted stock crank, stock rods, Engle 110 cam, ported factory dual-ports, Bosch 010 distributor, dual 48IDAs and set of dual quiet-packs would be the archetypal "Cal Look engine" and would cost relatively little to do. And it would look oh so cool...  8)

Yep ;) ???

No, not the original lookers, but if you want to built a looker these day's, I think that a 1776cc replacement is a minimum. Thats my thoughts about it ;)

What I try to say is that a 1679cc with 48IDA's is more Old School.

A cal-look motor is not judged by size,it´s the attitude that counts. I know of several 1600+ engines with 120+ horses with both ida´s or dellortos. A streetdiven 1600 that is capable of 14sek on the quartermile is cal-look to me. In fact the whole issue of Cal-look is attitude but lately it´s been missconscrewed to some written rules that takes away all the joys of new and exiting ideas. Ther are more than one way of skinning a cat. My personal opinion only.

The 1600 I built for my '67 gave many bigger motors a run for their money. I dont think displacement has anything to do with it. If you strap 50hp of NOS to a stock engine and that gets the job done for you then that is cool by me. To each his own.

That's what i meant KS!
That particular setup still appeals to me very much  ;D

Too bad it doesn't count for the 1600 class otherwise i could give those guys some whoopass  :o ;)

That's one thing I wonder about those "small" engine with 48 IDA on.How was/is the street driveabilty(i'm not sure of this word ::))of those engines?

if i may guess... i suppose they ran small venturis and a w110 will give you quite some bottom end. so i suppose the setup KS mentioned would be fine.

am i mistaken?

I ran 36 vents in the 44s on my 1600, of course it also had big valve heads, etc. If the stock valve size is retained, then small 32mm vents would be better.

I don't know about 1679 cc but 1776 cc with IDA's runs very wel en I never had any problems

You just needs a smaller venturi to create enough vacuum for the carb to work... I wouldn't worry.

When I think of a traditional cal-look engine, with a budget, I immediately think of what's on an engine rather than what's in it.  For example, if you're on a budget, a stocker with some modifications would be considered "cal-look" in my book if it had the following:

header extractor with a single or dual QP
Original Bosch 009 or 010 and blue coil
Santana degree crank pulley
A set of Solex Kadrons
Set of 1.25 rockers and HD valve springs.
 
This will be a budget engine for sure but shows that you're cal-look and working....

Plus, it will be rock-solid reliable and sound nice.

Good luck and have fun!  ;D

A few years ago, at the Pomona swapmeet, I bought an unknown engine because it had ida's and Skat Traks on it.  Turns out it was a 1679 with ported stock valve heads and an engle 120.  When we cc'd it out, the little motor had 10.8 to 1 compression ratio.  Cleaned it up, but never ran it.  Wouldn't have run on California pump gas nowadays.  Took it apart, and now pieces of it are in my 2110 and heads are going on my 1776.

Ward, i'm working on that setup  ;) ;D

Luke, too bad you didn't run that 1679 setup. Were the pistons and barrels machine-in or slip-in? Contact me if you still have some parts lying around...  ;)

I liked Mank's specs a lot as well:

1679cc Engine Specification

AS41 New crankcase
88mm Thick Wall Mahle Pistons and Cylinders
69mm counterweighted crankshaft
200mm, 12lb, 8 doweled flywheel
Engle FK8 camshaft
JMR 044 cylinder heads (40mmx35.5mm), polished and ported
Autocraft 1.4:1 rockers
Berg chromoloy pushrods
Dual 48 IDA carbs on tall manifolds
Berg 26 mm oil pump
Scat deep sump
Berg 440e Equaliser crank pulley
Kennedy 1700lb pressure plate
15/8” Phoenix merged header
2 ¼” muffler (A1)
HP1 Fram external oil filter
009 Distributor

130 bhp@6,000 rpm recorded on the JMR dyno May 1997

Sounds pretty strong!

This is confusing... some say cc is what makes a cal look engine, some mention parts... but no one mentions performance? Isn't the big deal here that the engine has a certain degree of enhanced power pr cc?

So if you have a 1200 with 70 hp that's cal look...
Or a 1600 with 130 hp is a cal look engine....

With this kind of tuning, its impossible to avoid a cal-looking engine.... except if you go with turbo.     

 I don't mind if it is a type 1 or a type 4, if it has IDAs or DCNFs or Kadrons...if it's fast enough to make you smile at every stop light and make the drivers around you go WTF ???, THEN, it is cal-look,

I like the 74mm crank with 85.5mm pistons idea alot, so much that I'll be trying it on a engine soon...
Can be done on a very limited budget...( no machining etc...) and you'll end up with a 1700cc engine.

I'd guess since it's called "cal-LOOK", there has to be some kind of appearance issue in the equation. Otherwise it could have been cal-performance, or cal-speed. That said, the whole idea has to do with whooping some V8 ass at the streetlights, so focusing on the engine is not at all wrong. I like the idea of a small displacement IDA screamer....which means IDA's are minimum requirements for a cal-looker. Amen!

I don't think we're going to agree upon this here  ::)

Silverpig, sure a cal-look has to have the look. But that doesn't imply that it cannot have the looks AND a nice quick small displacement engine. Sure IDAs are nice, but not everyone can afford them so other carbs can make for a nice alternative.  :-\
I do however reckon you should at least run dual carbs unless it's a buggy.

Jelle, do you then know where to get a 74mm crank for a limited budget?

I orderer a DPR rewelded one, really strong and very reasonable priced at 350€ or something like that...
If you're interested in one send me an PM, I like them very much and also use one in my 'big' engine...

I say that it needs to be Type 1 based, and needs to match the understated appearance of the car.  No cosmetic "bling" accessories such as billet or neon dress up parts, and a subtle use of chrome if any.  It needs to look clean!  I know many old school Cal-Look guys that used all sorts of crazy carbs on their engine.  I think the bonding thread is that they (my buddies) were all dual carbed. 

If accessorized, I think you've got to look at Santana Pulleys, Race Trim, empi, deano dynosaurs & berg parts from that era.

Type 4 motors, turbos, Nitrous, EFI, are all awesome go fast performance items but not what I consider Cal-Look.

Just 1 man's opinion...  ;D

Scott Faivre

Guess I am out of the leuge then....I have a type 4 motor....It runs well....It has been alive since 1991 in upgraded forms........It has been  fetured in the mags as a cal-look car a few times..........It runs low 12's and no fockin trailer around it.........It has been street raced regularly...............It look like a type one and has all the concidered richt stuff like Berg linkage, MSD coil and dist..............Hey it can even run on idle for an hour and not overheat...............So if all else is "by the book" I fall out on the fact that I have a type 4 motor, and most of the parts are bought from FAT/Greg Aronson and I even helped them develop a few things....................guess I was wrong!!!!! :o

On a positive note. I love to drive my VW with no problems and think that Happiness is a Hot VW!! So the minimum requirement of a Cal-look motor in my book is that it run flawlessly without hesitation, whitout popping, without oil leaking!!! And it does not make a lot of noise...till the butterflies goes WOT!!! 8)

Hell that lets out about 99.9% of us!  ;D

 I can get just as excited about an Oval on "balloon tyres" with a double carbed 1200 as about a yellowish convertible with a type 1 turbo engine...
 It depends very much of the car that carries the engine... It's all in the combo..

 For a modern looker of there days a 1641+ is a minimum I think...


 About type 4's:
 I personally don't have any problems with a type 4, as long as it's made to look like a type one.
 A DTM shroud on a type 1 looks more wrong to me than a proper T4/Type-1 conversion...

SOB/DBR:

excatly,

Why are so many people against a typ 4 engine, it s a strong reliable engine which easely makes 100hp.
And with a typ 1 shroud(cali conversion) it looks the same as a typ 1, I bet a lot of people here wouldn t even spot the difference with a typ 1 engine.

But he thats my opion.

Kind Regards Edgar

I think most of us started out in your situation...little money, little time.  As for minimum motor requirements, the idea of Cal-Look is SIMPLIFY...meaning clean, simple, and functional.  Avoid the louvered aluminum firewall trim, the clear distributor caps, the slip-in 88's...concentrate on building something that's reliable, leak-free, and simple to work on.  Size wise, 48IDA's have been run on 1500cc motors successfuly (it takes some doing, but it has been done).  A lot of the old DKP cars were 1700cc (69X88 machine-ins) with IDAs, an Engle 110 cam and some 40mm intake valves...ran damn good, too.  Most importantly, build it the way YOU want it...your the one who's going to be driving it, right?

Well you've got me beat!  My car leaks oil, and just recently started hesitating.  (I've got some crap in my carbs.  My wife accidentally ran the tank dry and it sucked up all the crap at the bottom of the tank.  To her defense, the guage read 1/2 a tank!)  I got to iron out my issues this weekend!  ;D  ;)  Both of my cars are NOT dechromed and my other car has fully polished fuchs.  According to some, they need to be detail painted - NOT fully polished.  That might look good too.  I don't know, I haven't seen it.  I also like a full stock interior for my comfort.  My cars don't fit the Cal-Look bill 100%.  I'm not to worried about it.

I love a HOT VW!  Your car sounds AWESOME!  I'm less concerned with having a text book Cal-Looker than I am with having a car with great all around performance.  I didn't mean to ruffle feathers, I just stated my opinion.  I view the Cal-Look as a "period" look dating back to the late 60's and early 70's.  With that look carries "period only" parts and accessories.  That's my opinion.  But opinions are like buttholes... Everyone's got one...  ;D

I also view the California Look as a "spirit" or state of mind.  Many say that turbos are not Cal-look.  By my definition of Cal-Look above, I'd have to agree.  However, if the original Cal-Look was created from street cars mimicking the drag cars of the time, if we fast forward the "spirit" of the cal-look by 30-40 years, we WOULD see turbos on our street cars.  If the parts we have today were made available back to the original cal-look guys (FAT, etc) don't you think they would have used them?  They wanted the most power they could create to go the fastest they could have gone!  They'd sell their grandmother off for an extra second in the 1/4 mile! ;D

What do you think?

Scott Faivre

Jim, with all due respect, aren't you a new member of one of the best VW clubs around?  DKP's success is a result of their non-wavering rules.  Every one of the cars in that club are awesome due to "Quality over quantity."  I'm pretty sure from knowing you informally over the years from the cal-look.com forum that your car already met the rules and regs of DKP before you even thought of joining.  So I know you didn't build it just to "fit in."  You built it the way that you liked it!  That style just happens to be the same as DKP's.  (By the way... Congradulations!!! ;D )  I'm friends with a few of the guys myself and I'm sure you'll be a welcomed addition to the club!

I don't think that there are any hard and fast rules of a Cal-look motor either such as you must have "this size engine" or "this brand and model of camshaft" or "this type of carburetors."  But you can't take a fully detailed and EXTREMELY, gaudy, flashy, neon, chrome, engine from the 80's and call that cal-look.

So I guess I'm saying that there are some general "guidelines", maybe not rules, but they're not hard & fast or set in stone.  Otherwise any one with some cheap Tiawanese accessories in their engine compartment would have a Cal-Look engine.

See what I'm getting at?  Am I wrong?

Scott Faivre