The Cal-look Lounge

I have a 2109cc motor to go in my bus, 120cam 40drlas,1 1/2" exhaust for long distance driving at a reasonable speed & the only missing piece is the heads, had a look on low bugget & they seem good value, just wanted to know if anyone has used them? ;D

There was is a topic on the Samba.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=559625&highlight=revmaster+heads+049

In the link Glenn posted someone talked about Darren at DRD. I really suggest you order your heads from him or some other reputable builder like Steve Tims or Art Thraen.

When I shopped for my heads I talked to everybody including AJ. He had the best prices but was hard to pin down on definitive answers, among other things when he could have them done (I already basically knew what I wanted to have done to them). It went from "I'd send them within a day" to "It might take a few weeks to do the machine work." Art Thraen and Darren Gurrola took the most time to work with me and I ended up going with Gurrola. I'm happy I did--my heads got to me within a week and they were spot on. Not too long after I ordered mine some guy posted that he'd been waiting on a set of heads from AJ for like two months.

Call Jeff Denham for your heads. He is the most meticulous head porter I have ever seen. He's not sloppy, and his attention to detail is second to no one!

Great workmanship for sure--the guy is obsessive. But that obsession has a price beyond dollars: you'll wait for your stuff. If you can pin him down on time and you can live with that duration it then all's good. He does great work.

Thanks for the feedback, drd look good and a recommendation is always welcome, I'm just looking for mid range power, 3-4k rpm for a few 100 miles at a time in a bus ;D

In 1991 I built the engine that I think you want. It was a 2110 with 40x35.5 heads, an Engle W-110 cam, and about 9:1. In 1992 or '93 it made 122hp on the FAT Performance dyno (Ron pulled it). A year or so later Shaun McCarthy massaged the chambers and I bumped the compression to probably 9.2. The engine was fast to begin but the difference was incredible--it made noticeably more power.

I highly recommend working with a cam grinder to determine what profile would give you exactly what you need. The service that a true cam grinder (as opposed to a company that merely sells production cams) offers is worth a lot more than the extra money than you'll spend. You might spend $30 to $50 more than if you bought from a mail-order shop but a mail-order shop won't know how a particular cam will make an engine behave nor will it be able to tell you exactly how much static compression ratio you should run. The cam grinder will calculate based on every variable including the ports' flow capacity. Your engine might even benefit from a non-production grind.

I can't say enough good about Web Cam. You'll talk to someone who actually knows what you're doing. The service is awesome and I'm confident that you'll get the engine that you really want. Steve Story and Laurie Dunlap run a hell of a business.

Thanks for the advice, I'm intending to get the best wherever possible, yours & Jim's advice on 40drlas has been great too ;D

I agree on cam. The 120 is not a nice cam in a Bus, as you will really notice the gap between third and fourth gear. It makes long distance journeys tiresome as you will find yourself changing down gears frequently. Don't get me wrong, the 120 is an ok cam, but a heavy brick-shaped object is not its ideal home. You will find it's a peaky cam in a Bus, as it doesn't make a nice, useable spread of torque on medium sized motors. Speak to Lambourne as his old 2007 (pre turbo) ran one and he hated it!
If money is no object, speak to Johannes (JPM) and have him supply you the absolute best cam for your application.
Regards, Matt

Hmmmm interesting thread.... I am thinking of a motor for my bus too  :)

Scott Sebastion at Metalcraft just finished a new motor for my 68 bus. It`s a 2276, 110 cam round port 044`s, 8.5 to 1, 40 Dells and a 1.5`' sidewinder. that and the 4.57 trans he did and it should pull hills without even trying.

Run an ENGLE K65 in your bus motor.  It is a great bottom end cam and very smooth, drivable.  You will love it.  A friend of mine ran it in his 2 liter motor with dual 42 DCNFs and could cruise at 80mph on the freeway cross country. Very impressive performance.  Don't let the specs fool you.  The small overlap on the cam shuts the valve sooner giving it better bottom end performance.

Rick M

That it should be really gentle on valvetrain too. It has quite slow ramps.
FK-65      280º      236º      .342"       8.69      108º   

Compared to the W-110 it has four degrees fewer advertised duration and nine degrees fewer advertised duration.

W-110      284º      247º      .392"      9.96      108º   

In fact at .050" it's basically a W-100 but it has a tiny bit more seat time.
W-100      276º      236º      0.383"       9.73      108º

I don't have intake-valve closing specs on that particular cam but the .050" specs are so close to the W-100 that we can use that cam's specs to determine the correct CR. The W-100 closes the intake valve at 42 degrees ATDC (stock cams close it at about 35 degrees ATDC).

I know for a fact that 87-octane fuel will support 8.1:1 with a stock cam if you get the deck tight (I'm at .055" which isn't exactly tight but it works). That cam/compression combo yields a 7.55:1 effective CR. So we can use that as a reference point.

Your engine isn't exactly identical to a 1600 and we have to account for that. The reduced rod ratio that results from an 82 crank with stock rods will increase the effective CR. So to get a 7.6:1 effective CR you'd have to reduce the static CR to a scanty 8.26:1. Of course that's to run 87-octane fuel so I'd crank in at least another .5 or .75 point static CR and run 89- or 92-octane fuel (I'm going by R+M/2 US specs so you'll have to convert those numbers to the RON figures the rest of the world uses).

Bumping the static CR to say 8.8:1 would give you 8.05:1 effective CR in a 2110 with a cam that closes the intake at 42 degrees ATDC. 89-octane fuel should handle that.

The rub is building a 2110 with only 8.8:1. You have to take some drastic measures to get the CR that low. For example, to get that with ~52cc chambers would take .100 deck height. Deck heights that loose tend to diminish detonation resistance and increase head temps.

There's another alternative. You can use a cam that closes the intake valves later to diminish the compression. The W-110 for example closes the intakes at 51.5 degrees ATDC. So in a 2110 you could raise the effective CR to 9.23:1 to achieve 8.05:1 effective CR. You could reduce the deck to around .08". That's not great but it's better. But since you'd have to build the engine to operate at a faster speed range you could increase the chamber volume by unshrouding the valves.

So say you opened the chambers to 52cc (possible by opening for 90.5s and big valves). You could decrease the deck to .055" and take advantage of a little bit of quench to increase detonation resistance. That would give you 9.24:1 static CR and 8.07:1 effective CR. I'm pretty confident that 89-octane fuel would support that if you got the jetting right. At a last resort you could run 92-octane fuel.

But these are all things that you should discuss with cam grinders and head builders. It's a bit of work but it's totally worth it.

Hot Rod....I run "0" deck and a .045 copper gasket. Also, although I have an open chamber in the head...I have relatively low cc...I am at 8.8 static...so figure out how I did it....I have NO DETONATION....NO HEATING ISSUES....NO DIESELING.... just smooth, fun performance.  I focus on the head design, cc's and a tight deck. My engine is a 94 bore and 82 stroke....42mm intakes and 37.5 exhausts....

Rick M

Hi Rick. My name's actually Chris. Forum replies lack context but I get the impression that you're defensive. I'm not challenging you. In fact I thought your cam suggestion was good. It raises issues with this particular build but it certainly could work here too.

As for why your engine doesn't incur detonation, it really doesn't require any guesswork. You don't run a whole lot of compression in light of the cam timing you run. You run an FK-65 in that, right? That drops your 8.8:1 static CR to 8.07:1 effective CR. That's only half a point more than the 1600 I referenced earlier in this thread and I run 87-octane fuel in that.

I think if we want to discuss your engine we should do so on the thread you started for it. I don't think the OP would appreciate it if we hijack this one.

Hot Rod...not defensive at all. Just provoking thought.   ;D

Rick M