The Cal-look Lounge

All a bit back to front this, more of a built thread than in the works. The reality is that I suspect the car will always be changing so will deserve its place here. With any luck I'll catch up to the current day at some point, then it can be officially be here as an 'In da works' thread.

Part 1

Buying the car all happened thanks to a long time pal of mine Lee Maynard. He got me back into VW's following an enforced absence buying a house which destroyed all my disposable income. Lee introduced me to Ian Clark and collectively we hatched a plan over a cup of tea in Chertsey, to take all the performance parts I'd collected for my long term oval project which was way off completion and put them in a standard car. This being a quick fix to have some fun and finally have a hot VW on the road as the oval was a long way off.

Ian put me in touch with Owen Warlow who had a collection of nice early Swedish cars for sale. The car I bought was not the best of the them, but a happy medium based on price and condition. It was a good solid original car but needed a bit of welding (rear bumper mounts and rear body mounts), all of which was sorted out in quick fashion thanks to another friend Trevor Hickey.
 
The plan was to swap out all the running gear I had in my oval. So I fitted the adjustable aluminium front beam close ratio gearbox, Wildwood disc's brakes and a 2199cc type IV (103x 66) based on a old 1600cc super v engine with a 103 piston kit.
 
The engine was originally built by Stateside Tuning but was rebuilt by Ian Clark as it had been sitting for years. The car went off to Ian's workshop in Woking to fit and run up the motor and the pictures below are taken there.
 
Having been into hot VW's for just about all my driving years finally had one on the road! I had numerous other VW’s but this was the first “hot” one.

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As it turns out this configuration was short lived and the car was never raced like this, but I had some fun driving it on the street all be it briefly.
 
To be continued......
 

cool nice to finally read something about your car Peter

cheers Michael

We need a "popcorn" smiley.
 8)

Part 2

So the deal with the Type IV and my original box was that I run it in to check it was all OK as Ian had a customer keen to buy it complete and that's exactly what happened.

This was all part of a plan that would see me buy the old 1776 and gearbox complete from his 52, which meant Ian could then finish his new 1850 and gearbox for the 52.
This suited both of us and for me was a great and cheap short cut to a type 1 12 second wheel standing combination which was what I was after.

I think a lot of ACVW racers start with the aim of, 12's and wheel standing street car. Those with any sense stop there when they achieve it and just enjoy their cars.

So everything swapped over I drove the car home and got used to driving it before racing for the first time at BugJam in 2002. This netted a 13.0 at 100mph best et and speed. This was 0.15 of a second off Ian's previous best of 12.85 which was an obvious target beyond the first 12.

That was my only race in 2002, but I was hooked and plans to race in 2003 were made but 1st I needed a cage and to generally get the car MSA legal.
So early in 2003 the car went off to Jim Smith of Cotsweld for a 6 point cage, seat mounts, window net and harness mounts.

Big Bang was the first race of 2003 not a lot went to plan with a best time of 13.4 so going slower was a bit of a disappointment. So back to the drawing board.

Bugjam 2003 was the next planned outing so a bit more street driving and car prep had me feeling hopeful of going a bit quicker. I now had some slicks on a set of Erco's to replace the BFG street tires I had been running to date which was the big change.

So 1 1st pass my first wheelie, 13.3 99mph. 2nd pass big wheelie 13.1, 99mph. 3rd pass smaller wheelie and my first 12, 12.945 at 100.8mph.

So that's it the storey should end here 12's and wheelies done. Of course that's not the way it works.

2004 was basically more of the same my final race of the year was at the Hot Rod drags. Pete Englezos and I were the only VW’s there, Simon Emery of Paintbox fame managed to sweet talk the NSRA to let us run. As it turns out I was glad he did. After a frustrating day of missed gears which I blamed on a new seat position and shifter the final run of the year netted me a 12.85 at 103mph which was a great way to finish the year with a PB. Also certainly one of my favourite pictures of my car and words in the November 2004 issue of Custom Car in the Hot Rod Drags write up.

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2005 got off to a frustrating start struggling to get the car turning consistent 12's with there being more low 13's than high 12's.

I went to Thorney Island in July with Dave Dinning which is a great old school type race which certainly get me going again. I only ran one 12 as Saturday running didn't happen due to me pulling an inlet manifold stud but a helicoil later got things back on track so I could run on Sunday. Comedy youtube clip here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUhU06H2JwA and a fun weekend had! Horrible over rev in 1st so not sure why I'm linking it here!

Last race of the year back to the Hot Rod Drags only 3 runs due to the weather on the Saturday being poor, but all were 12's and two new PB's to finish the year on a high with a 12.71 at 102.8mph.

This combination was as I said Ian’s old set up the only difference being an FK87 and 9:1 cr. The motor was nothing fancy, a welded counterweigh Bugpack crank in a mag case Mahle B&P’s. The bit that made the difference was the Jeff Denham mini D’s 40x35.5 with a set of IDA’s on top (my first IDA’s a big tick on the ACVW bucket list). The gearbox had a 4.125 R&P stock 1st & 2nd with a 1.58 3rd and a 1.12 4th. That was all it took to run 12’s in a street legal ACVW. The car was stripped out at this point but I’d not lost the plot with weight saving yet. So not a wild combination which proves you don't need to break the bank to run 12's.

Next came one very simple basic error which cost a lot of money and what turned out to be a whole ear of racing. At the end of the 2005 season I did a few jobs on the car over the winter, but basically parked it. What I didn't do though was slacken off the rockers to give the valve springs a rest. So fast forward to 2006 and the April Spring Speed Nationals at SCR. Pull round to the burn out box spin the tires and drop number 3 exhaust valve. That was that head ruined hole in piston. So back to the drawing board again.

Plans for a new 1776 were made and once again Simon Emery came to the rescue.

Part 3 to follow.  

Loving it!

I remember that Bugjam.

I was sitting in the boot of someones car (maybe Matty's 5 series) while he towed a car back to the pits (for once it wasn't mine lol) & you rode past us on a bmx at about 250mph with the biggest grin on your face.   ;D  We found out later why the massive smile.

Great reading this Peter, look forward to hearing the next instalment!

Yep, keep the story coming pete! ;D

Congrats , realy impressed by the work you and Johannes put in to the new development .. Its "new" ground and super-interesting ..

Rgs
Erich

Nice recap Pete 8)  does seem along time ago we were stood in the lanes @bugjam laughing about me giving you a tow to get you that 12 :o ;D  Let me know when you want a tow into the 10s and I will see what i can do :D ;) :)

cheers Richie

this is awesome! one of my favourite cars ever, but im too young to have seen it over the years, so this re-cap is great :)

Hi Stretch, yep that was the WPS hack at the track and back at the workshop to nip to the supermarket to get the lunch. It certainly was a timing ticket I was keen to get my hands on!

Here is what the first 12 looked like off the start line.

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It was a long time ago here is the proof! Looks like I was catching you at the 1/8 must have been the spring in the elastic!

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If I'd left on time looks like it would have been a close race, certainly wouldn't be that close these days!

That's cool to see, don't think I have all my tickets still which is a shame.

Anyway have you been driving it around yet? don't think you need any cooling at the moment, nature is taking care of that :o :D

cheers Richie

Well obviously not, regardless of weather or cooling. I've got hours of fannying around in the garage to do before contemplating driving it! Making progress though......

Fantastic to read about this car can't wait for the next update. thanks for sharing Pete  ;D

Part 3

So the dropped valve was the end of the road for the 1st 1776 long block. As I said previously the heads were the big difference in this engine and one was now in a very bad way. Some of the other parts were salvageable, but with no heads I was a bit stuck.

This is where Simon Emery came to the rescue. Several years earlier he had bought Blue Obsession from the States. The 1776cc motor that came with the car was complete but as it turned out the heads were junk along with a number of other parts in the engine. So at this point Ian and Simon made a plan to collect some replacement parts with a view to rebuilding the engine based around a new case and the reusable parts of the old engine. This was principally the crank, flywheel and rods and a few other smaller ancillary parts. Fortunately for me as it turns out Simon bought well with a set Jeff Denham large D port heads, a new mag case an FK87, magnum cam gears, Berg rockers etc. This engine was in kit form under Ian's bench in the engine room in Woking. I was aware of it previously, but it was clear now that I needed to buy it if Simon was prepared to sell it.

Fortunately for me, Simon agreed and a deal was struck. This was a win win for me as not only did I have an engine which had more potential than the last one due to the larger heads, but I also had what was left from the motor from Blue Obsession.

Those of you of a certain age might remember a street scene video from 1987 featuring a couple of events including Bugorama. There was a clip of Blue Obsession just rumbling through the pits on slicks with wheelie bars and a stinger poking out the back looking and sounding fantastic. This car played a large part in me ending up with a blue car myself and now I was about to have the useable parts of its engine in my own blue car,

I did seriously contemplate buying the whole car briefly, but I had already done a fair bit to my car and I was about to empty my wallet to buy the engine so for once a bit of sense prevailed. Also as my car is a street car the more subtle standard scruffy looking car I had was already perfect for what I had in mind.

Up until this point the old engine combination had remained broadly unaltered I had swapped the MSD out for a magneto, but in principal that was about it, but for a bit of tinkering.

I was weight conscious from the beginning but in the last year I had started to actively try and loose some weight in the car. This turned out to be the start of an obsession which has bordered on madness at times. This has seen the car on the start line with me in it at under 1500lbs at times although the weight is a little higher at the moment the aim is to keep it at around 1500lbs.

Whilst the new motor was being built I also took the opportunity to rebuild the gearbox. Peter at Cogbox and I also lightened a new super diff and set about lightening the gears and other gearbox internals. We also drilled out the centers of all the studs and replacing the nuts with Ti items. This was all done over a number of Sundays in his workshop. Lightening stuff in the morning then going for lunch at the local cafe to decide what else we could lighten in the afternoon! A lot of this was guess work, but we did stretch test the studs with varying size holes to see what the limit was. These were fun times and we ended up saving a good lump of weight, with the gearbox noticeably lighter when you picked it up relative to a stock one. The majority of the weight saving was with reciprocating parts too.

One other modification we did which at the time which was just for fun, but actually proved to be very useful, was drilling large holes in the bell housing. There was next to no weight saving but being able to see the clutch release bearing and pressure plate was perfect for setting up and adjusting the clutch which proved to be very useful in the “clutch years”.

Some weight saving

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As the terminal speeds were likely to be up a bit I spent a bit more time looking at things to help high speed stability too. I had learned from previous experience that control of unwanted tow out when you shut off at the top of the track was a big one. So with the gearbox back in the car the next job was to sort out the spring plate bushes which to this point were the original rubber ones which were well worn and struggling to cope. I actually tried a few combinations but ended up with new stock rubber inners with some suspension dynamics eurothane outers. The outers were an unusually good fit and proved to be a great compromise between general ride quality and controlling unwanted spring plate movement.

I also added some restraining straps which restricted the downward travel of the spring plate. Although they were heavier than the old flop stop kit I was using they had a nicer feel when I shut off at the top of the track and the car unloaded. There was a degree of give in the straps before they took up all the load which not only felt better in the car, but mechanically it also seamed much nicer too.

At the front end having broken the JT Ali beam I had originally and fixed it I decided to go for a new Jamar one which was available pre narrowed by 50mm which gave me almost exactly the standard off set with the Wilwood disc brakes I'm running. The thing that lets these beams down or at least it did back then, was the eurothane bushes as they were a loose fit on the trailing arms. So I got some material and made some new ones to get rid of the play. One thing of note though is that you shouldn’t over tighten the steering box on the beam as it will distort the tube and lock up the arm in the beam. I ended up torqueing the box as recommended 22ft/lbs rings a bell then I reamed the bush to be sure and it’s been fine ever since.

The only other modification I made was to shave of the inner projection of the shock tower on the standard Jamar beam so I did not need to modify the front inner wings. I fitted a threaded insert in the shock tower so I could use a standard style bolt rather than a nut and bolt as the inner wing clearance is tight.
This was about where the car was for 2007 season with the obvious aim of going a bit quicker.

I wanted to run regular solid 12’s all the time not just when all the stars aligned The Outlaws are a 12.99 or faster club and I was on the margins and didn’t want to let the side down. So when I said 12's and wheelies what I meant was regular 12's and wheelies, then I would be happy…....

The new motor  in the car
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That was my justification for wanting to go a bit quicker. The car was a solid mid 12 second car, immediately with the new setup, but after a bit of this and that sorting out the car and getting used to driving it again it went and ran sub 12.50 with a 12.44 at 105mph. Now that 0.06 of a second is not much, but it inevitably pointed towards low 12's to me.

Needless to say my usual consultants Ian and Peter told me all I needed to know and that was it. All of a sudden I needed to run low 12's! So you see it’s not my fault it was all down to Ian and Peter.

At the end of the 2007 season my low ET was 12.44 with a whole winter ahead of me it was time for some more weigh saving and some more compression in the motor.
Weight saving at the back of the car became a big target for me as I decided although the overall weight was getting there I needed to loose more at the back to get a better ratio for my longer term plans.

2008 started with a bit less weigh (I was just about on my 1500lbs target now) and some more compression (around 10.5:1) an LM1 to help with the tuning at the track. I also did the so called JCL steering modification to try and help keep the car on the straight and narrow and guess what it went quicker. At the August bank holiday meeting it went 12.20 at 107! The car was running sub 12.50 all the time now unless I made a mess of it and was low maintenance, reliable and generally no fuss at all on the street or at the track.

In the background I had been collecting parts for an 11 second 1776 which was due to be a more aggressive combination, but all of a sudden the so called “shopper” was dangerously close to achieving what the new motor was supposed to do.

So I finished the season at 12.20, which was not only the low 12's it was far too close to an 11 for it to be left alone over a whole winter. Inevitably at the end of the season Ian, Peter and I decided to have a bit of a push to see if we could sneak a bit more. This resulted in a plan to save a bit more weight, add a bit more compression (we ended up at 11.75:1), Ti valves and a shorter 4th gear some work to the IDA’s some re valved rear shocks. This all happened over the 2008 / 09 winter and was how I raced the car in 2009.

I raced twice in 2009 the first at the August Bank Holiday meeting at SCR and then at the National Finals at Santa Pod.
I made 5 passes at the august BH meeting 12.3 to start with, then the first ever 11, at 11.935, then what would be the best of the year 11.915 at 111.61mph a 12.1 and another 11.9 to finish the weekend. At the National Finals there were another 4 passes the first was straight back to the 11’s two 12.0’s and an 11’9 to finish on
Peter and Ian the two major contributors to the car were both at the track in August when it turned that first 11 so it was great that we were all there together to enjoy it. Happy days.

SCR and the 1st 11's
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At the end of both weekends I had great drives home. The summer drive was a nice hot evening ride through the Cotswolds feeling really good. The drive from the National finals had a more wintery feel and was at night but felt just as good as it was the end of a short but great year with the car running into the 11’s for the first time!
This was a really great time for me and the car with it being as reliable as ever, low maintenance and fast at the track. It was a great summer driving the car on the street and a really good end for me and the motor.

Having come so far with the motor to be honest I was sad to see it go, but it had to be sold to fund the new one, but that is for part 4

Love reading updates here :)

Any idea how much weight you removed from the gearbox?

Great write up Pete,
What's scary is it was 8 years ago, where does the time go :o

Really cool to see it all written down like that, I am not sure I would be able to remember everything in such detail, wish I had kept some notes on the old cab now


cheers Richie 

Hi Zach,

Glad you liked the update. I thought I better get a bit of it down on paper before I forgot it all. Its a good point Lee makes it was a long time ago now and my hazy memory was often wrong when I looked at the time slips and receipts!

In terms of the weight saving I'm afraid I cant say as I'm not one for measuring the weight of everything just as long as the new bit is lighter than the bit it replaces. But as I said it was quite a lump of weight in the case of the gearbox as I did do just about all I could.

The clutch inspection holes!
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A few holes and bit shaved of here and there.
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Peter

Hi Peter

Now I've seen the drilled out bolts I'm pretty sure your crazy!

Cheers,

Nick

Write it down or forget it its an age thing!

Nick your a bit slow, most people realised that years ago! That said the symptoms of my condition appear to have accelerated over recent years!

Nick your a bit slow, most people realised that years ago! That said the symptoms of my condition appear to have accelerated over recent years!

Just like my engine build  ;D

One of my favourite bugs! Love this thread.

A mission, a plan and then sticking to it. Improving your ET slowly and gradually and always improving the next thing on your to-do list. Quite rare these days since "everyone" is rushing to reach their goal and doing big, non trackable changes on their cars, engine and set up.

Want to drive proper fast with a smallish, high reving NA engine you have to do certain things to your car. The easy way is to cut the car to pieces, tupperware this and tupperware that and no interior. Anyone can do that. It is a far bigger achievement to do it with style and at the same time keeping it streetable.

Thank you for taking the time to share your project in details with the rest of us. Truly inspirational!

Best rgs
BB

Peter,

Really cool to read, love your weight saving.. like the allu gearmounts and the holes in that box...  :o

Ooh maybe a stupid questions but the 1500lbs is including you..(the driver)?

 :) Hard to believe we started all this back in the 90's/early 2000's but great to catch up on all that has happened over the last 15 or so years!!
There's been many a late night talking and working on parts and ideas.....mostly talking and drinking tea but that's all part of the fun right!!
Pete is indeeed abit mad when it comes to all this but so are most of my friends and customers who work hard to earn enough money to blow it all on stupid shit like making an old VW go stupid fast.....I've been doing abit of roundy roundy over the last few years in a friends 1958 356 and it's safe to say they're mostly no different......had some great conversations with 70 somethings that have brilliant stories to tell and still have the energy and enthusiasm to go racing for the weekend and give it everything they've got!!
I'm sure Pete will be bangin' on about some spaceage metal or something in 20-30 years time that he's gonna use to make things lighter or stronger etc......hold on.....he's doing that already!! There's no helping some people........thank goodness!! ::)
Happiness is a HotVW and a bunch of 'idiot' mates!!
Ian

Hi BB, glad you like the plan. The car certainly needs a bit of track time now to see if we can get it all to work together.

Eddie, yes its around 1500 with me in it on the start line.

Ian, I was thinking that when I started writing this, it was a while back now, and a lot of tea!

Part 3b

So the 11 second spec went like this.
 
The long block is based around a new Magnesium case with a wedgemated crank and flywheel. The crank is an 8 doweled welded counterweight, with a modified 8.5lb flywheel. The pulley is a Gene Berg Equaliser (power pulley size). I ran two clutch options either a stage one Kennedy with a Black Magic disc or a stage 2 Kennedy with a Dakin disc. I ran two sets of rods some Carillos and the big bolt Scat 5.4 H beams, the cam is an Engle FK87 with modified straight cut Magnum cam gears. 30mm Shadek oil plugged oil pump with Gene Berg cover, Mahle 90.5 barrels and pistons with a total seal 2nd ring and CB lightweight wrist pins and spiralocks. The push rods are Scat chrome molly in JayCee pushrod tubes. The heads / inlet manifolds are 043’s / tall Scat manifolds, by Jeff Denham with 42mm x 37.5mm Titanium valves, Scat dual valve springs, titanium retainers and Gene Berg 1.54 rockers with std vented rocker covers. Ignition is via an original rebuilt Scintilla magneto with 8mm Moroso leads, a JayCee mount with breather outlet. Modified Webber 48 IDA’s with a Tayco cross bar linkage. The exhaust header was a Phoenix stainless steel 1 5/8ths with boss for a lambda probe with exhaust rap and Berg dual quiet packs sorry or a stainless steel stinger. Welded Gene Berg fan , Gene Berg 4 quart deep sump, external oil filter and cooler with fans.

The gearbox was fitted with various lightened parts but was based around a stock case with as 4.125 r&p with an open diff, stock 1st and 2nd gears with a 1.58 3rd and a 1.26 4th and the usual HD side plate and axles.

Car weight was just under 1500lbs.

So that’s your 11's cocktail!

The 11's would not have been possible without a lot of help from a lot of people (far to many to mention), but without doubt if it wasn't for Peter and Ian it would not have happened, and this was certainly as much their achievement as it was mine. If there is one thing I have learnt in all this, its that the best way to go fast is to surround yourself with people who know what they are doing and have done it before. In the long run it will save you a lot of time and money!   

I sold the old 1776cc which was again quickly re sold before it even ran or was fitted in a car. As you may know its found a new home in the back of a certain brown oval where it will hopefully be run this year and be developed further over the coming years.

One way or another it would certainly be good to see and hear it back at the track again. Particularly as it’s in a light car with the right gearbox it should be a great combination.

Peter

Love it. Nothing too fancy there, just good old fashioned hot rodding.

How much compression? What was your shift RPM? Must have been screaming through the traps. I'm amazed the Cima/Mahle's could cope!

What was your reasoning behind the light flywheel with heavy pulley?

Thanks for sharing!

This is a cool story Pete, I sometimes wish I'd kept a couple of my favourites and kept at it rather than get bored and move onto the next hotrod.  ;)

Just as a curiosity for myself, high-11s and 1500lbs through the "Moroso slide" gives up 158HP, which then transferred into a stock weight heavy 1303 at 2250lbs the Moroso then spits out a possible low-13s.
That's a stout little motor!

Thanks for sharing the road.

Hi Zach,

Like you say nothing fancy just nicely put together well matched parts. Static CR was 11.75 and I ran the car on super unleaded Shell V Power which is about 98/99 Ron, no problem with the big duration cam (FK87). Peak power was at 7,300rpm. I think the Mahle's are under estimated for n/a use particularly 90.5 as I never had any bother with them and they are not heavy so the crank and case don't mind them either. They are not perfect, but a good value decent product for a n/a car.

The heavy pulley was a cheap fix to get the car off the line a little better without having to change the flywheel or clutch as I didn't have any spares balanced for this engine. It was a bit of a unsophisticated fix and a bit marginal as I still needed to rely on judging tire grip to tune the launch, which has proved to be a bit of a challenge in terms of consistency. Its not something I've got to the bottom of yet and its a big part of the plan for this year to see if I can find a more constant set up and way of adjusting the launch.   

I've never managed to get the simulator / calculators to work out for my car to be honest, so I've given up bothering as at the end of the day it either does or doesn't do it at the track. I've certainly enjoyed sort of staying within some self set rules, but ultimately its obviously not the best way to just go fast but its been good fun none the less.

It's great to read about the evolution of your car and power plants Pete and, from a personal point of view, to fill in a few details on the 1776.

It just goes to show how much power and speed can be wrung out of these little mouse motors when you have a talented bunch of guys put their heads together. Needless to say, as a major benefactor, I'm very grateful for all your development work over the years. And who knows, there may still be a few more ponies to be liberated from the little 1776 yet.

Hopefully we can get both cars together soon for a little side by side mouse bashing ;D

Can't wait for the next instalment.

Part 4

The 1795cc engine.

So the first thing to say is its obviously a bit big! The original intention was that this motor would be another 1776, but as with Johannes's 1603 the problem was finding a round cylinder hence the need to over bore the 90.5 cylinder to 91.

This was actually a compromise for me but necessary in the circumstances. I convinced myself it would be OK as at least it was still under 1800cc but it still niggles me to this day that its not a 1776, but given it performs so well I didn't have anything to complain about.

The plan for this engine actually dates back to 2007 when I started to collect parts for an 11 second 1776 motor too replace the 2nd 1776, "the shopper".
Needless to say the old Shopper over delivered and ran the 11's that this new motor was intended to do, which was a nice problem to have.

It was around this time that Mat Sanchez mentioned a thing called the cal-look lounge and suggested I took a look as I might find it interesting. I signed up in August 2007 and generally snooped about reading and looking at what others were up to. Mat was right though it was interesting. Then BeetleBug started the small motor thread which of course was right up my street.
 
When Johannes went and posted his plans to build the 1603 for his red car and all the information it really caught my eye, so I followed this thread and the build up with great interest.

I can still remember hearing that video clip of the 1603 motor for the first time revving on the engine stand. I knew I was ruined in that moment and had to have an engine that sounded like that. I still have to listen to that clip every now and then as I just love the sound!

So of course I sent Johannes a PM and organised to speak on the phone one day soon after. Its fair to say that having spoken to Johannes for the first time, if the sound of the motor on the stand had not sealed my fate that phone call certainly did!

For those of you that know him this will come as no surprise, but if you have never spoken to him I'll warn you that the combination of his friendly enthusiasm and engine knowledge makes him very difficult not to like.

So there I was with my head full of numbers to contemplate and the first steps towards the inevitable.

The first thing I did was to talk to Ian and Peter and of course neither of them did anything to dampen my enthusiasm in fact quite the opposite!

So in what seamed like a short space of time Johannes had finished all the simulations and there was a plan in place. This was March 2008.

I still had plenty to do to sort out my current plans with “the shopper” for 2008 so I knuckled down to that and continued to collect parts for the new engine.

It wasn’t until January 2009 that I was wrapping up all the engine parts I'd collected and was posting them to Sweden. There were some nice parts in these parcels including a new mag case with sleeved lifter bores by John Maher, a new forged Scat crank with Chevy rod journals which Richie sorted out, some Jet Ti rods from Mat Keene, and some ceramic lifters from Peter and a few other niceties like a mag sump, 26mm berg oil pump, and a Ti case stud kit amongst numerous other bits.

In Feb 2009 Peter, Ian and I made a plan to go and see Johannes for a shop tour and to firm up the details of the plan for the motor check through all the parts I sent and to bring a few more. Needless to say we had a great time with lots of high octane talk and some good fun too. It’s really impressive to me when someone understands humor in their second language, so we had a great laugh and some great technical chat too. Not to mention seeing and more importantly hearing the single cylinder development engine run, which is a mad thing and you certainly take a few steps back when it gets up in the rev range!

I needed to get back to sorting the car out for the upcoming season after the trip. I only did the two races in 2009, but it was a great year with the 1st 11's some street driving and the new motor excitement in the background.

At the end of 2009 Volksworld did a feature on the car which was published in Spring 2010 which was another nice milestone for the car.

So at the end of the race season the new motor was coming along nicely and plans were made to take the car to Sweden to dyno the old engine and fit and dyno the new one back to back.

So in October 2009 Peter, John Maher and I set off for Sweden. Its a long drive but with a very early start we made it from Dunkirk to Helsingborg in about 15 hours non stop, but for nature breaks and some fuel.
 
Needless to say it was an adrenaline fueled journey, but the time passed quite quickly with plenty of high octane talk with John accompanied by the tune of Peter snoring in the back (that boy can sleep!).

Having dropped the car and trailer off with Johannes and having had a bit of a chat and poured over the new motor we headed for the hotel for some sleep.

We arrived early the next day and got the car on the dyno and "the shopper" made 186hp at 7,300 rpm breaking the 100bhp/litre target by some margin. So we had a good base line. Peter, John and I took the motor out of the car whilst Johannes finished the exhaust for the new one.

The initial fire up of the new motor on the engine stand that evening was a great moment as it was much like the 1603 video clip that got me hooked in the first place.

http://vid384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/petershattock/RaptorMouseedit2.mp4
 
I remember being knackered that night, but not being able to sleep with all the thoughts and excitement of the day and the day to come.

So the next day we fitted the new motor and having sorted a few gremlins we started with the calibration and some power runs.

Again I was knackered at the end of the day, but not able to sleep. I forget the exact numbers made that day, but it was more than the simulated figure which was 215hp so it was a great day and we were not done as we were still running the small vents at this point.
 
After the final set up the next day it made 228,3hp/7990rpm and 231Nm (166.9lbs) 6200rpm corrected (Din), 127hp/l. This was on pump gas through the muffler.

We all like numbers, but an interesting point of note is that it actually made a peak of 231hp with one jetting and ignition set up, but there was more area under the curve with the lower peak figure above. So less is more!
 
So that was it. All the exciting bit was over, we just had to pack up and deal with the long drive home which was dull and seamed twice as long as the journey in the opposite direction.

Once I got the car home there were two main jobs to do, make the tinware fit and fit the silencer, which was previously just on the end of straight pipe for the dyno.

I had the car all sorted and road legal in May 2010 and started to put some miles on the new engine. It was great to drive the car again and all was looking promising for the 1st race of the year.

It was a great start to the 1st race weekend as I turned up at the gate moments before Andy Marriott did in his hot 1914cc n/a street car so we drove into the Outlaw pits for the weekend in formation.

Given the gearbox in the car was designed to suit my old engine I was a little paranoid about breaking it, so I ran for the first day on MH street tires which netted me a best of 11.87 at just over 113mph which I was very pleased with as it beat my previous PB on slicks and all I did when I arrived was change the oil check the valve clearances.

Day 2 of racing I ran with the slicks and ran a number of 11.6* second passes with a best of 11.60 again just over 113mph. That was over 3 10ths of my best previous ET. I had a number of problems with the car, and my driving over the weekend, so I had a list of things to do now before I raced again in July.

Bugjam was the next race and this was the first with the right gearbox ratios which was the big change from the last race. Unfortunately it was clear after the 1st run that the clutch was not up to the job, so it was only a matter of time before it gave out. Worse still it was also clear that I had not resolved my suspension problems either. Fortunately I had enough options at the track with the parts I'd taken to resolve the suspension issues, which gave me the chance to see what difference the new gearbox ratios had made, whilst I still had a clutch!

With sorted suspension and the new gearbox ratios the car ran 3 consecutive 11.3…. with a best of 11.315 @116mph.

http://s384.photobucket.com/user/petershattock/media/bugjam2010008.mp4.html

Pulling up on the drive at home and clicking the motor off was a great feeling after a weekend of racing I won’t forget for a while!

The next race did not go to plan, as I was still struggling with clutch issues, but did run a couple of 11.50's, the best being a 50 flat, so there was no et improvement. The clutch center plate let go on the 3rd pass on Saturday, but thanks to Ian WPS for an express road trip to Cogbox and Peter's help to make up a new center plate we made it back to the track with the bits to fix the car on Sunday.

Adele and I ran on the Sunday as the first pair after the rain in the morning, and I'm sure most of you know what happened next, but as the others have said the main thing was that Adele was OK.

The last race of the year for me was DDD8 and it was a great weekend. As had become the norm the clutch gave up on Sat afternoon, but thanks to Ian (WPS) we got the motor out, clutch sorted, and back in, just in time to catch the last of the DAS barbeque hospitality that evening. After chasing a good set up for a few runs, the car ran from 11.8 something to an 11.52 last run.

So the car ended the year with a best et of 11.315 at 116mph (no fan belt on slicks, with a muffler on super unleaded pump fuel) from around 25 passes and just over 1000 street miles. Needless to say 1000 miles is not much for a street car, but unfortunately my time for regular street miles is limited.

The only problems I had, were clutch related (one center disc per meeting), but the last set up we tried for Sunday at DDD held up well.

So the 11.3* spec

The long block is based around a new Magnesium case with a wedge mated Scat Chevy journal crank and flywheel. The flywheel is the JPM “window” style. The pulley is an aluminum Gene Berg power pulley size. I ran a 180mm clutch with an aluminum stage one Kennedy with an organic disc. The rods were 5.4 Jet Ti, the cam is a JPM 01005(10mm cam lift 271deg at 0.05" 105 lobe center), ceramic lifters, GB 160000psi pr, JPM 1.55:1 rockers two stud, ti valves, JPM alumec retainers, OTEVA75 valve springs and single grove 7deg keepers. Heads are JPM modified 043’s with 42mm x 37.5mm Titanium valves and cut down Scat big beef manifolds for tuned inlet length. 26mm Shadek plugged oil pump with JPM prime cover, Mahle 90.5 barrels bored to 91mm with JPM / JE pistons and DLC coated wrist pins. Ignition a Bosch 050 with Pertronics module and coil and 8mm Moroso leads. Modified Webber 48 IDA’s with a Unique Industries Ti cross bar linkage. The exhaust header is a one off JPM tuned length steeped header with muffler. Welded Gene Berg fan, Gene Berg magnesium deep sump, external oil filter and cooler with fans. CR 12.7:1

The gearbox was fitted with various lightened parts but was based around a stock case with a 4.375 r&p with an aluminum spool, 3.75 1st, 2.54 2nd, 1.78 3rd and a 1.35 4th and the usual HD side plate and axles.

The great thing about the car to this point was that it was really simple. The benefits of a simple reliable fast car are not to be under estimated as it was a lot of fun, easy to maintain and drive.

So no need to change it right? Sadly what happened next was for me to take apart (again) a perfectly good car with a view to making it a little bit quicker…..

This is the motor in the car and I loved the subtlety of it. No fuss just fast!

[attachment=1][attachment=2]

Great story Pete, that motor looks fantastic, so clean and simple. I love the small diameter dynamo, completes the look.  8)

+1, it looks great!

But yeah, that dynamo does look tiny! Is it a Pete-special lightweight generator off something else, or is it the heavy stock genie that just looks smaller in the pic?

Great story too, thanks, I'm still listening.

Hi Modnrod,

Its just a 6v size 12v style generator which is obviously a little lighter than the normal 100mm diameter 12v size one. I have lightened a few other parts for it as I made some aluminium end caps, Ti through bolts and made some Ali nuts for it too. Every little helps!

This 12v generator is only rated at 25A/hr but was fine as the cars power requirement was small. I actually ran the car constant loss at the track of a 15 A/hr gel battery and it was fine as long as you charged it up once a day.

I've got what I hope is a better and lighter solution for the new engine which I will be running once I have all the tin ware modified to fit. I hope this is a solution which will cope with the additional load on the electrical system as there is a load more spaghetti in the car now its fuelling and ignition amongst other things is now ECU based.

I've finally found some photos of the 1795 motor during the build which I had thought I had lost on an old dead laptop, so I hope to post these up soon, but I need to shrink them first.

Peter

yes really cool engine bay.

it seems that wrinkle paint was a bit 'in vogue' during that time (my own and fabs did his 1600 as well, among others). i recently made some pics of my own 2276 with all the cooling back on it has also a wrinkle paint fan housing. yours when i saw it was truly better done, with all the tinware painted and nothing too shouty, just plain and simple. the details are are well done, but the technique underneath is what impressed me most. i liked that combo a lot and if i am correct you ran this engine at DDD and had some issues with the clutch that was still being sorted (because of the smaller 180mm flywheel and a disc that wasn't maybe not 100% up to par, if i remember that correctly).

my kind of engine bay  8)

Hi Nicholas,

I still really like the wrinkle finish and that simple looking engine bay. More of that to come with new engine, just not quite so subtle!

Your right it was the 1795 motor in the car at DDD when the clutch was at best marginal! I've actually stuck with the 180mm clutch with the new engine too, but hopefully I've learnt enough from the 1795 in 2013 to make it work in the car now. I'll soon find out!

As you say though what goes on underneath was the key to that engine the fact it just looked simple was just the icing on the cake.

The plan is to be back at DDD this year if all goes to plan, as I really enjoyed that weekend which was far to long ago now, so hopefully I'll see you and Speedwell there!

Peter

So some more interesting photos of the 1795.

Inlet port before and after

[attachment=1]

Welded chamber before work started

[attachment=2]

The parts department before assembly.

[attachment=2]

A case shot with the Scat crank, JPM cam, Magnum cam gears and Jet Ti rods

[attachment=1]

Pistons notched

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Pistons DLC wrist pins and aluminium buttons, with the JPM 1.55 2 stud rockers hiding in the background.

[attachment=2]

Pistons on the rods

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Short block assembled mag sump aluminium sump studs ready for the mag sump plate

[attachment=1]

The infamous monster front pulley to help keep the motor cool!

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The long block completed and tuned length header in progress keeping number 3 short enough was the challenge. Short tuned length manifolds, difficult to see, but they do lean out a little, but not quite as obviously as the new engine!

[attachment=1]

Ready for the clutch disc and pressure plate before fitting to the car thought we should weigh it trouble is I cant remember what it weighed now!

[attachment=2]

Car ready for a shot in the arse!

[attachment=3]

69 kg

no doubt  ;D


speaking of weight, do you know how much the crank, flywheel, clutch, disc, cam gear and so on weighed? i would like to know as i have a very light flywheel as well on my engine and even so with the counterweighted crank it was still heavier then stock. so maybe yours was lighter, but did it affect anything. on my engine so far it doesn't seem to change anything for the worse, but like i said it is still heavier compared to stock parts.

Hi Nicholas,

Sorry I don't know the weights although as you say the normal CW cranks certainly weigh a bit!

Although I'm always weight conscious I don't weigh stuff that often just so long as I know what I'm putting on the car is either lighter than what it replaces or that what ever it is heavier for a good reason.

I certainly never had any drivability issues with that set up but it is a light and short geared car. As I've said somewhere on here before there must come a point where the weight loss is relevant and the car would become less drivable but I suspect it would take something fairly extreme. The set up in the new engine is lighter (the counterweighted 64mm crank was lighter than a stock 69mm crank) and other parts are lighter too so perhaps it will be more noticeable. Hopefully I'll know soon.....

Peter 

Part 5

On the drive home after DDD Ian and I had plenty of time to chat about plans going forward. One of the things we discussed was Ian buying my share of the Fiat 850 spider we bought and were rebuilding together. I had thought originally that a half share in a race car would be great for me so I could ease up on the Beetle. Sadly the reality was that I had un finished business with the Beetle and insufficient time or money to do either car justice. Also Ian was planning to move house so instead of being half an hour apart we would be 3 hours apart so the logistics would be difficult.
 
We agreed to try and sort something out which ultimately resulted in Ian buying my half of the car to complete it and race it himself. This was not all sorted until 2011 and we continued to work on the car together for the next year and a bit.

What this deal did ultimately do though was to pay for the new gearbox but I'll get to that later.

What happened next was all because the 1795cc motor ran those low 11's. As I've said before in this tale that the temptation of being close to the next second is like a drag racers curse! My mind was inevitably wondering if it would be possible to run a 10 with a n/a 1776cc street car.

This is where it all went wrong! Having surrounded myself with people who know what they are doing over all these years I had had my eyes opened to all sorts of possibilities and of course the obvious answer is that it should be possible (to run the 10), but it would mean making some changes.

So that was it I had now decided that I "just" need to run 10's to be happy. Simple!

As with all these things its never simple and certainly not as easy as my mind would have you believe.

Step 1 in this simple plan was to make some more power. I had been well aware that the 1795 was compromised with the bore to stroke ratio, but that was done intentionally as I wanted to keep stock style heads and originally a 90.5 bore (to be 91 as it turned out) and just keep it simple to the untrained eye when you look at the engine in the car.

By a happy coincidence the popular and obvious 94mm bore just happens to work out with a stock size 64mm crank at 1776cc. This to me made it the obvious thing to do. It meant all the 94mm bore parts are readily available and I could get a suitable crank made. Other than the obvious bore benefits it would mean a narrow more stable engine with smaller reciprocating parts which was all good.

The challenge was always going to be the valve train as with the bigger bore and shorter stroke the peak power rpm would rise and need to rise to make the power needed for that 10.

As ever there was plenty of discussion with Ian and Peter regarding my options, but it was not until Peter and I went back to see Johannes that the new motor plan really got underway.

I had previously posted the 1795 back to Johannes and the plan was for us all to take it apart to see how it was looking first hand. Once we had the motor apart we found that the rod bearings looked like they has been suffering from oil starvation. Fortunately we caught them in time so there was no actual damage other than needing to change the bearings. We made a plan to improve the oil supply for the rebuild, but basically that was it as everything else was OK.

This is when we sat down to discuss the new 64 x 94 motor with Johannes. Johannes was unaware of this plan until this point. I've said before that I love his enthusiasm in general, but this motor was clearly something he wanted to do! The pen and paper and calculator were out in a flash and after some frantic button pressing and scribbling we had some potential rough power numbers. But the amazing thing was that peak power was looking like it would be at around 10,000 rpm! To me that sounded mad peak power at 10,000 meant it would have to be rev at at least 10,500!

It was on the drive home to the airport when Peter and I agreed it had to be done as we both knew we needed to know what it would sound like as much as anything. The trouble was that when I had convinced myself this was a good idea, in that moment I had no idea what it would take to bring this project in to reality.
 
In fairness Peter did casually say we need to check what gear ratios are available, but I just thought that we would be able to sort something suitable.

So as with all plans I got home made a list and started to try and sort out what my options were with a view to getting on with it.

As it turned out the gear ratios were proving to be a bit problematic. This lead to us looking at Hewland mark 5-9 and VW type 1 and 2 5 speeds. Peter had already built a type 1 5 Speed which was due to be fitted in the beetle with the 1795 but that engine made much better torque figures than expected so we didn't use it (it actually lives in Ian's 850 now).

With all these options we were still struggling with ratios and it was then Peter suggested talking to a friend of his that specialises in Hewland boxes. Peter introduced us and put a good word in for me. I agreed to call in and see them one afternoon to explain what I was trying to achieve. As it turned out they could not have been more helpful thanks to Peter's introduction.

It was immediately obvious that they were a serious outfit with masses of high end motorsport experience and in all honesty I felt well out of my depth. That said they were great, they listened to my plan and made some great suggestions. There was a clear message to forget the old Hewland stuff unless I had to use them and just go for a modern Hewland box.

As it happens they had a JFR case and nose cone on the shelf which immediately looked like it would fit in terms of its size. We then checked the input shaft and axle centerline locations relative to a standard box and as luck would have it they were broadly the same. I say broadly the same this was with the box upside down and back to front. This I thought had a certain amount of humor given Hewland originally pinched VW gearboxes to modify and now I was doing the reverse.

The axel shaft locations were actually only 13mm and 18mm different relative to a VW case which I thought I could deal with whilst keeping the engine in the same place. The plan was that outwardly the car would not look any different. I could have raised the gearbox at this point and this could have given me a performance advantage, but ultimately I decided not to as I wanted to retain the look of a standard car as much as I could.

The next issue was that I had a swing axle car and was now looking at an IRS gearbox. I did seriously look at a swing axle conversion for the IRS box both in terms of simplicity of installation and the lack of modification of the car. The problem would have been the engine moving up and back which is obviously not a good thing and I would miss out on an opportunity to improve the car's street / corner handling. That said I would still have a swing axle drag car over an IRS car given its simplicity and efficiency, but my longer term plans went beyond drag racing.

So IRS it was to be then. The obvious conversion was to go with a type 1 IRS conversion and if it was a later long axle car I think this is what I would have done. When I looked at the modifications of the trailing arms required to get the wheel location in the standard position I was not that keen and then when I picked one up I decided it was not for me. I briefly looked into other trailing arms but ended up drawing a line under this idea and looking at other options. This is what brought me to a double wishbone layout. Initially I thought it would be too much work, but then when I looked at the frame horn locations it did look feasible in terms of a bottom wishbone mount which got me started. It also looked possible to create top wishbone mount locations with a tube off the roll cage (top hoop to frame horns) supported on something round the bell housing which in its self was potentially beneficial.

This was all very well, but there was the small matter of the actual suspension design, which I knew next to nothing about. So I got some books and started reading. The trouble was there was not enough detail in the books and it was clear I needed some help. Fortunately the gearbox guys did not just know about gearboxes and it turned out they had plenty of suspension design knowledge too. It was this which gave me the confidence to at least have a go at a design.

So I set about drawing the car and the key fixed points at the back to see what could and would fit where without having to rip the car apart. I was given some old suspension design software and made a start too try and work out some possible suspension points. I can remember vividly having got the car drawn and having a rough idea of what I wanted the suspension to do and being sat in front of the computer to input the suspension points I thought would work. I excitedly entered all the pickup points and upright design and track arm location etc and pressed enter!

I was naively sat there expecting to revel in my new found wisdom, but that was a big bubble that was about to be burst in spectacular fashion. What actually happened next was that the screen and many others after it simply filled up with numbers, lots and lots of numbers. To be more accurate lots and lots of numbers that I had no idea what to do with, or what they meant.

Over the comming months I learnt that like most things suspension design is not as simple as it might first appear. Having got some advice about what I should be shooting for in terms of the numbers I sat down in front of the computer again and then the car and then the computer...... Eventually I came up with a design that worked and fitted in the car, but its fair to say this would not have happened if it were not for a lot of help from people who know a lot more about this than I ever will.

The final spanner in the works in terms of the design was understanding the front suspension in relation to the rear given their inter relationship. The problem here was that the front suspension was not what I wanted in the long term so I had to do a rough front suspension design to to see that in theory they would work together and the roll center at the back of the car would work with what I could do at the front.

So that was it the simple bit was done. As we all know having a plan on paper is one thing but getting it to actually happen is another altogether. I had already been speaking to Andy Robinson at Robinson Racecars about my plans. I've know Andy for many years and he lives close by so was an obvious choice to do the work. Convenience is not everything though, but Andy and Luke (his son) were really keen from the off and actually ended up providing all sorts of advice all through the design process. Also the quality of their work is fantastic. So basically it was a no brainer, they were the guys for the job.

One key thing I had learnt in my time in front of the computer was that small changes made a big difference so this all needed to be done accurately. Andy and Luke understood this entirely and had the skills and equipment to make it happen.

When the design was complete I sat down with Andy and Luke one last time to discuss everything before getting the car in and making a start. It would be fair to say that there was an awful lot of work that would not be obvious when you look at the end result as the beauty is that it does all look quite simple now its done. The reality of course is completely different as there were all sorts of jigs made for the uprights, wishbones, connection points to the car not to mention mounting the car on the surface plate, as well as translating my drawings and the software output to something buildable all before you can make a realistic start on the actual parts so this was not a quick process!

The photo's tell the story of the months of work on the suspension better than words, but it was a big job and once started there was no going back. I did seriously question if it was a good idea as up until this point the car was so simple, but the thought of 10,000rpm clutch less flat gearshifts was enough to make it happen! I did come to question this decision many times over the next 18 months though!

[attachment=1]
The upright jig

[attachment=2]
The upright under construction

[attachment=3]
[attachment=4]
The completed upright

[attachment=1]
The car on the surface plate.

[attachment=2]
The gearbox mounted with the bell housing made

[attachment=3]
The jig for the uprights to place the wheel locations under the car

[attachment=1]

The first lower wishbone and jig

[attachment=2]

Wishbones completed

[attachment=3]

1st lower wishbone on the car

WOW!

Excellent thread ! I also have the '1776 Disease' and this isn't helping my therapy!
I have this mental map of where I think my car will go, and a few steps into the future was the idea of a Hewland.....however, having just read the above, I think that may be a pipedream, it looks like the work is a)too much and b)beyond me. Astonishing stuff though.
A gearbox is next on the list though so I think I'll stick to researching 4 or 5 speeds for now....
Cheers
Steve

Hello Peter,

i see in the 11,3 spec of the car that you installed a spool, did you do some street miles with it, if yes, how does it feel?

btw, love what you do with the car!

Love how you incoperate the original framehorns into your new suspension :o
Top notch

Steve, there is nothing wrong with a 4 or 5 speed if you have a power band wide enough to pull the next gear after the shift as I did with the old 4 speed. Don't forget it went quicker with the 4 speed although admittedly the 6 speed ratios were just a compromise so I could run it with the old engine with peak power just shy of 8k. Always nice to know there are others suffering from the same disease we can start therapy group 1776 anonymous! The dog gears sets Kuplapjla sell have to be the hot tick it for a type one box these days if you want to go fast!

Kever65 the spool was fine on the street to be honest in terms of general driving it was just parking and any slow speed sharp turns that you notice anything.

Thanks for the props glad you like it. More pictures of the gearbox install and suspension on their way.

Peter

Top wishbone and jig

[attachment=1]

Top wishbone mount jig

[attachment=2]

Top wishbone bracket tube

[attachment=3]

Link tube off the two wishbone mount tubes

[attachment=4]

Upper wishbone mount tubes

[attachment=3]

Upper wishbone jig in place with the mount tubes now all tacked

[attachment=1]

Upper wishbone and brackets in place

[attachment=2]

Tubes and wishbone mounts fitted

[attachment=4]

Top shock mount

[attachment=1]

Track control arm mount. Nice detail I thought Luke's idea for a threaded insert welded in to the cage tube.

[attachment=2]

Getting ready for paint was the worst bit

[attachment=3]

This is the extent of the modification inside the car the small ali cover panel gives access to the nose cone mounts.

[attachment=4]

The shifter I made whilst Luke worked on the rear suspension

[attachment=1]
[attachment=2]

Wheels on was a really good moment!

[attachment=3]
[attachment=4]

The final fabrication job at Robinson racecars was to make the oil cooler mount which lives in the space where the torsion housing once lived in the passenger side of the car. This in principal was a good location as it was further forward and lower down than it was before and I moved it to the opposite side of the car to help with weight distribution.

[attachment=1]
[attachment=2]

I had hoped to fit the filter on the passenger side of the car too but there was no room so that now sits in the same location on the drivers side which is at least better than it was before.

[attachment=3]
[attachment=4]

These were unusual locations but suit my longer term plans for the dry sump tank location I had in mind as well as putting the weight in a better place as I needed to make up some ground with the additional weight of the new gearbox.

The gearbox in the pictures when the suspension was being built was his an empty case with the bell housing bolted to it. The bell housing itself was based on a type 1 case with the bell housing cut off with a plate welded to it to enable it to be bolted to the main gear box case. This proved to be more tricky than I sounds due to the mag bell housing and plate distorting but we got there in the end with a bit of machine work afterwards.

[attachment=5]

The main modification work to the gearbox was the clutch housing as there is no room for the traditional release bearing and lever arm. The hydraulic set up is based around a Saab 9000 bearing and a two part hosing which is a machined fit to the gearbox case. I sized the internals of this to suit one of the SACO in tunnel master cylinders which worked out to be a good solution although bleeding the system is a pain as the backside as the bleed nipple is on top of the box.

[attachment=6]
[attachment=7]
[attachment=8]

The gearbox is otherwise the standard Hewland part although I did need to have a ring and pinion set made for it to get the ratios to work. The only other modification was to super finish the internal parts.

[attachment=1]

The plated and painted suspension going back together.

[attachment=2]

Once the gearbox was built Martin Taylor of Taylor Machine made me some 300m axles to fit the tripod joints I was using instead of the usual CV's to save a bit of weight and reduce the friction a bit (every little helps).

[attachment=1]

With the car all back together thanks to several very long days/nights/mornings with Ian it was time to get the car back to Robinson Race cars to set up the suspension and weigh it.

[attachment=1]
[attachment=2]
[attachment=3]

Before we could do that though there was the motor to fire up and to see if we had some gears and a clutch! Fortunately this all went to plan with a 6 forward gears present and correct. I had no reverse gear at this point as we had not hooked up the reverse gear lockout cable at this point given it was not critical. Major excitement all round at this point as this was the Thursday night before UKDD.

We dropped the car back to Robinson Race Cars that night and went home to try and get a good nights kip as Friday was the day we were due to leave to go to the track and there were still plenty of jobs to do before the car could run.

[attachment=4]

That's some serious development and evolution of the bug. Everything looks really expensive and it's all very impressive. I doth my cap.

Amazing work! I hope that you don't mind, I saved a few of the pics to inspire me on working on suspension of my own.

BTW, what is the car in the background on the right in the pic above? Looks like an aluminum tilt hood.

Shelby Cobra Daytona?

Loving the thread Pete!

Kinda looks like it to me!

What is it Pete?

"Amazing work! I hope that you don't mind, I saved a few of the pics to inspire me on working on suspension of my own."

No problem go for it.

In terms of the car to be honest I can't remember, but I can say in the time the car was there it shared workshop space with an eclectic mix of cars from Andy's own 5 second promod car a Skyline, Morgan, Lotus Elan, Mk1 Lotus Cortina, Luke's 11 second Audi S4(as it is now), an electric beetle, jet car and the one below which was very easy on the eye!

[attachment=1]

That brown thing doesn't look to bad either......

Peter

hallo Peter,

was great meeting you at DDD,always nice to place a name on the forum here.
you car is great to watch,does not only sound like a motorbike,but goes like one as well.
here some pictures of your car at DDD.

henk!!!

(http://i59.tinypic.com/kai62b.jpg)

(http://i60.tinypic.com/4sgzsl.jpg)

(http://i59.tinypic.com/654iz7.jpg)

(http://i62.tinypic.com/10ofgbo.jpg)

A pic from 2002 of some friends waiting to run at Santa pod :), thanks to Dan Orangemeca for the picture

A great picture in days when life was far more simple than it is now!

Nice to know Nico's old car is in good hands and still in use, its shame Nico is not about though as he was a good fun guy to have around. It would be good to see Eric out again too.....

You posting this has reminded me I need to do a bit of an update to this thread as there is a bit to say and some pictures to sort out which I'll try and do at some point in the not to distant future.

Happy New Year all!

One day I'll get this thread up to date but time has been limited since the end of the 2015 racing season for anything car related.

The last update was when the car had just been finished and was ready for the 2013 season. This was with the new rear suspension, gearbox, shifter and a modified engine oil system. So there was a lot of new stuff to try out.

It turned out to be a good year of racing with the car generally being reliable, but the clutch was still marginal. It did much better than in previous years with the clutch less shifting though.
The only other issue of note was the pushrod tubes as I was struggling to get them to seal for any length of time. There was a clearance issue with the pushrods which ultimately resulted in me going back to the steel pushrods I was running previously. This was the short term fix as there was not time to sort it to enable me to run the aluminum ones as the planned solution was a bit involved.

I ran the car at 3 events in 2013 CLDD, EBI and Bugjam. The car never ran as quick as it did with the 4 speed, but as I just stuck tall 5th and 6th gears in it, it was not that much of a surprise. I would be lying if I said I was not a little disappointed as needless to say you always want to go a bit quicker. That said the major positive was that it had been reliable and the suspension felt good and the gearbox shifting was becoming far more natural.

After the last race of the year I did do a few small jobs on the car whilst it was still on the road like mounting the dry sump tank and the new battery, thanks to Luke at Robinson Race cars again.

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Having had a few outings in the car on the street in what was left of the decent weather I decided to get it in the garage for good and get it apart ready to start on my plans for the winter of 2013 / 14.

In the gearbox the pinion head had a few marks, but nothing problematic and the 5th and 6th gear dog rings had a few small bits missing. As it was apart I decided to change these to be sure all was well although I don't think it was really necessary.
 
Interestingly the 1st to 4th gear rings did not have a mark on them, which is due to the ratios being close together when the 4th to 5th and 5th to 6th ratios were further apart. The differing gear speeds were the cause of the marks on the dog rings. I also added a sensor to the gearbox so I could data log the clutch whilst the box was apart.
Problem 2 was the clutch housing. When this was fitted originally I was out of time and did not get it hard anodized. This resulted in some ware on the bores that the release bearing runs on in the housing. I've since made another and repaired and hard anodized the original as a spare.

The main jobs I had to do were the new fuel system and the wiring for the ecu. As it turned out both jobs took for ever getting various parts and fittings and connectors.
The ecu a Motec M4pro I had bought some time ago and was fine in itself. I bought a generic loom from Motec which was terminated at the ecu plug end which was a good starting point. I'm not a fan of wiring and doing this has not made me any more so now! That said its done and other than looking like someone has spilt a plate of spaghetti in the engine bay and on the rear parcel shelf its OK. Being realistic it is a necessary evil now. Its a whole new language to me and I still have lots to learn about the ecu, but I've made a start and I'm making progress.

I terminated what wires I could without the engine in the car and labelled up the rest of the loom and marked up a wiring diagram.

Other than getting all the relevant sensors and connectors that was about it for the wiring. The remainder would be done when the car was in Sweden and the engine was in place.

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The fuel system was much nicer work and the only unusual thing in this case was modifying the standard tank to create a sump pickup point and some internal baffles to keep the fuel from surging.

 A couple of filters and a regulator, from fuel lab, a high pressure pump from Bosch Motorsport and a pile of P clips and a very expensive trip to Think Automotive for the hose and fittings and I was about good to go with the fuel system.

With the car ready it was time to make a plan to get to Sweden to fit and dyno the new motor which was coming along. This was summer 2014 by now and we set a date to get to JPM the week before DDD with a view to doing some test runs on the way home in a round about sort of way.

Ian Dave and I set of to Sweden with the car in tow as planned and the journey although long was trouble free.

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Needless to say seeing the engine complete for the first time was a serious bit of motivation after all the years we had been discussing it.

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There were a few jobs to do but we got the motor in the car as soon as we could so I could finish the wiring and fuel lines in the engine bay. We also set about cutting out the inner wings so the throttle bodies would fit which was fairly comical. Ian and I initially made a couple of small holes which soon grew to large holes when Dave got involved!

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Peak a boo!

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Motor in and ready to run. After a distributor related problem was solved, which by amazing coincidence Johannes had the part needed on his desk we had a few runs, but soon hit a misfire at 8-8.5k.

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We thought this was an electrical related misfire at first, but nothing we tried made any difference so no quick fix!

This prompted Ian, Dave and I to fly home and leave the car my daily driver golf and Phil West's trailer in Sweden for an extended holiday.

With the pressure off Johannes worked through any potential electrical issues we had not already tried but no joy. It became obvious that there was more of a fundamental problem with the valve train and it turned out that we were loosing control of the valves.

This was a big disappointment as we had not got anywhere near the intended and calculated peak power rpm or the calculated theoretical valve spring rpm limit, but we were where were.
 
At this point Johannes designed an alternative less aggressive cam and found some PAC valve springs with a bit more pressure.

One evening in December I got a call from Johannes to say he had got the motor back together and back in the car and had just been on the dyno and pulled 10,700rpm!

Needless to say there was a lot of excitement all round and I was dancing around like an idiot back here in England. Obviously I was busting to see it and more importantly hear. So we made a plan for me to fly to Sweden to see a few pulls with the stinger and some with a muffler and bring the car home.

This all happened just before Christmas 2014.

Hearing the engine at 10,000 rpm is not the easiest thing to describe or to enjoy the dyno. It's such an un natural way to see and hear the engine and I'm not sure I enjoy it but it was great to realise the dream and hear 10,000rpm from an ACVW engine. Better still it was still all in one bit!

With the car back home there were a load of jobs still to do before I could race it the following year, most were simple enough but as ever everything takes longer than you think so I was keen to get on with it.

So in January once I'd scored a few house points with my wife and family I set about getting the car ready to race. The biggest job by far was making and fitting the throttle body enclosures and seal off the inner wings. With all the angles involved and the wing and tire clearance to consider whilst keeping sufficient space round the stacks so as not to restrict the air flow it turned out to be far more involved than it looks now its done. I got the two oval cylinders made and then Trevor a long time VW pal and I got to work to make them fit the car. This turned out to be many noisy evening hours of work for my neighbours at home to endure, but we got them finished in the end.

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A quick splash of paint inside and out and the car was ready to refit the motor and do a few last minute jobs like fitting a load cell gear knob to the shifter (at vast expense), fitting a gear position sensor to the gearbox and a gear position display screen, a shift light and clutch switch.

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I had no time to set any of this lot up before going to the track for the first time with the new engine, but the weekend event I was to be running at had unrestricted track time all weekend so I knew I would have time to sort things out and make adjustments.

This would have been fine if it was not for the fact that the laptop I had been using all winter on the car decided it would not talk to the ecu. Needless to say this fueled my hatred of all things electrical and did not get me off to the best start with it all.

There was also a fuel pressure regulator issue which prevented me from making the 1st pass. But with Dave's brains and a regulator from Michael (Tiki Madness) it got down the track at the second attempt which was great.

I did 3 runs that day starting with a 12.1, then and 11.8 and to finish a PB of 11.1 with and early shut off 111mph terminal speed. All these runs were with a quick spin of the tires rather than a burn out which had proved to be quite successful with the old motor.

All looked good with the car and was promising start to the season and I was looking forward to the following day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiEk_sE4Yzs&list=PL08x_IQUdVU8WIIJqHtc4vr4wdScDfQAR

Sunday resulted in another 3 runs, two 11.2's but I was still spinning the tires, so did a proper burnout and then ran the 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2L2UFqbL8c

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I was still struggling to get the car off the line without the ability to adjust the clutch, so actually managed the 10 with a far from ideal 60ft which was also promising in the long run.
Unfortunately by this time I was struggling to stop the pushrod tubes from leaking so that was it for the weekend.

So the 10 was in the bag but this was not the 10 I was looking for (said in a obi wan Konobi voice) given I had not driven the car to the track and it was not street legal. So there was plenty still to do.

The next event for me was Volkslife at SCR and with the laptop sorted, plan B with the pushrod tubes in place and some clutch adjustment sorted. I was feeling optimistic.
As it turned out I had hydraulic clutch related problems all weekend which wasted a lot of time and effort on the Saturday, but I did still run on the Sunday 3 times all of which were 11.1* at around 120mph so not slow, but not where I wanted to be either.

The hydraulic side of the clutch all came apart when I got home and I fixed a few issues I'd found and ordered some spares so if I had problems again I'd be better prepared.

Dragstalgia was next and as it was a nostalgia event I decided to run on the BRM's which also meant street tires (M&H DOT's), which would be a good step towards the street car 10 I'm looking for.

The first run of the weekend was a very solid 11.2 which was by far and away the fastest I'd been before on DOT's and a great start.

Unfortunately that was the best news of the weekend as clutchgate struck again! Only this time it was a bit more fundamental as it turned out.

There were various problems with an over traveling clutch release bearing being the first. I managed to waste a fair bit of time due to me miss diagnosing this as a repeat of the master cylinder issue. Once the motor was out the problem was obvious as the release bearing was half out of the housing. We fixed this and got the motor back in and thought we were all good. Unfortunately the slave cylinder in the gearbox then blew a seal and was leaking Hydraulic fluid into the gearbox, which brought the weekend to an end and with some work to do when the car was back home.

Taking the drain plug out of the gearbox confirmed what we had diagnosed at the track as a mixture of clutch fluid and gearbox oil came rushing out!

With the gearbox out (I have to remove the diff to change the seal as its internal to the gearbox) and seal changed it was just a case of getting it all back in one bit again for DDD.

That said I also fitted a line lock in the clutch line and looped the line with the valve round the line lock just the same as most that are using them have done. The line lock is activated of a throttle switch so it only works on full throttle which has proved to be a good solution with the clutchless shifting.

Up until this point I simply had the clutch valve in the main line between the master and slave cylinders. This would not be an obvious solution in most cases, but with only using the clutch on the start line I thought it would be a good simple solution for me, but I was wrong! Most of the seasons drama to this point had been clutch related but hydraulic rather than mechanical unlike previous years.

With the car together I was off to Germany for the last event of the year for me.

DDD is a great event and I had a great time. The weather played its part on Saturday but there was plenty of track time over the weekend.

The car was running well in general bug I was struggling to get on top of the clutch adjustment now I actually had some. This was partly due to not having anyone with me to watch what was going on and video the car of the line but mainly because the data logging channel I had set up was not working so it was just a trial and error job over the weekend which was not ideal. That said I did eventually get round to running an 11.15 by the end of the weekend.

So that was it for the 2015 season. The main success was to finish the year with the engine in one bit and proving the oil system and valve train was up to the job. The only motor maintenance I did in the year was the usual oil changes, valve lash checks, and bit of ecu adjustment. So all in all a decent year.

So inspirable, keep those stories coming.
Really love your rear suspension.

Regards Edgar

Still cool engine,cool storys and lots off work to keep good times!good luck in 2016

The first job on the to do list when I got home was to get the tinware on the engine so I can get the car back on the road as that was the worst bit of the year not being able to drive the car.

I was intent on getting on with this when I got back from DDD, but things at work meant that didn't happen and it was not until the run up to Christmas that I had any garage time and got started with the tinware.

By this time I knew the engine was to be featured in Race Engine Technology magazine and that they wanted the motor on their stand at The Autosport International Show at the National Exhibition Centre here in the UK.

The motor was still in one bit so this was no great problem, but I needed to do a few jobs not least of all clean it as after a seasons racing it did not look quite as it did when I first saw it on the engine stand at JPM!

Fortunately we took some pictures of the motor before we fitted it to the car which was just as well!

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With a few jobs done I got the motor out and on the stand cleaned it and got a few other bits ready to see if I could make it look something like it did in the pictures above!

The magazine was due out for the show so I'd not seen it before getting there, but I was really chuffed to see an old beetle engine on the cover!

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I met Lawrence from RET at the NEC and he and I got the motor and some other parts set up the day before the show opened.

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Lawrence gave me a copy of the magazine to read that night, so once we were all set I went back to the hotel to read the article, which was a really nice 11 page treat before the show!

Johannes came over for the show with a couple of friends, to take in the sights. They were a little delayed due to snow and ice on the wings in Copenhagen but a cup of tea later and they soon arrived

If you fancy a trip to the show in the future it’s a really easy journey if you are traveling from abroad as the airport in Birmingham is just a short free shuttle ride and walk from the NEC.

It’s a good show if you’re like your technical stuff. There is not often anything specifically ACVW related, but there is lots of the usual peripheral parts suppliers if you are after parts or want to speak to their tech experts.

Your reports are fantastic! Thanks for your time and effort sharing your racing experiences!

Great read as always Peter!

The 10 second 1776 engine spec
The new 1776 is based around a modified standard crankcase. There's the usual full flow, shuffle pins as well as a few extra modifications. The most obvious of which is the steel plates used to help keep the wobbly old mag case stable. Several other oil control modifications were also carried out with a view to keeping the oil away from the crank and the 3 & 4 side of the engine and getting it back to the oil pick up which is now at the back of the case.
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The crank is a billet EN40b by Phoenix Crankshafts here in the UK. The flywheel is a modified standard VW 12v 180mm, with a Kennedy steel pressure plate and 180mm black magic center disc. The front pulleys were made by Martin at Taylor Machine toothed for the crank trigger. Martin also made the crank trigger sensor bracket.
The rods are Pauter ti.

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I've used a CB single suction stage dry sump pump 21mm supply and 26mm suction gears. The lines to the Canton filter, oil cooler and dry sump tank are all -8 and the tank to pump line is -12 as is the vent from the tank.

The cam is a one off JPM design with reduced width magnum cam gears which have been super finished.

Cam location signal for the ECU is via a modified standard hall effect distributor.

Lifters are shubek ceramic.

The pistons are custom 2 ring JE with light weight DLC coated piston pins running in JPM cylinders.

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The heads are MS250's with only minor modification with 7mm stem Dell West ti valves, keepers, lash caps and retainers.

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Pushrods are Manton steel dual taper and the rockers are split ratio 5 stud JPM.

The exhaust is a stage 2 CSP Wasp.

Induction is via JPM 50mm roller throttle bodies which are cable operated. Injectors are by Keihin originally designed for single cylinder motocross bike engines and run at 3.7bar. The fuel pump is from Bosch Motorsport, which runs 2 Fuel Lab filters  one each side of the pump and a regulator on the return line to the tank.

Ignition is via a Bosch Zetec coil and expander Taylor leads and NGK plugs

The ECU is a Motec M4 Pro with the usual collection of sensors.

So that's the 10 second 1776 engine spec. The collection of nice parts doesn't really tell the story though as the detailed design is where the power comes from. The good quality strong and lightweight parts just help it live and do what it's capable of.

Thank you for sharing!

Why not JPM alu pushrods?

-BB-

A couple geeky questions if you don't mind...
Any reason you went with a mag case with steel plates rather than an aluminium case? Is it through bolted?

What length are the rods?

Thanks for sharing the details....This engine is the perfect example of what can be achieved when every component / detail of an engine is optimized and a high degree of engine tuning and testing has been done with the combination. You get the optimum results as you have here. Awesome! Best of luck with the continued development of the engine and your car.  8)

Thanks for the encouragement all, hopefully there is still some more to come.

BB, there was too much spring pressure for the ali ones. We have a plan B for some lighter ones, which we'll be testing so will have a better idea once we have the results of where we are and where we can go next.

Zach, the rods are stock length, and there were a few reasons for the mag case. There are as you suggest through bolts to help keep it in one bit. I do like the quality of the original mag cases, the weight, and just the fact they are the original item. There are disadvantages too of course the strength and expansion being the main ones. Overall strength is less of a problem in my case (no pun intended), but the expansion is the biggest problem in general, with all the baggy tolerances when things get hot. Consequently I always try and keep the temps down to reasonable levels. The good news is so far so good and I’ll be sticking with the mag case all the time I can. 

Jeff, your dead right just keep plugging away improve what you can where you can and it’s amazing what you can do when it all comes together.   

Peter

What did the car weigh when it ran its 10 second pass, Pete? Thanks, DB

DB,

I'm afraid I don't know. I've not weighed the car with the new motor in it. It will be heavier than it was, but still around 1500lbs mark with me in it as a best guess.

I have a few plans to save some weight again before the car gets back to the track and I suspect I will weigh it again then and post it up here.

Peter

I hope you dont mind me asking but which valve springs are you using?

-BB-

BB just to be sure I've understood when I said lighter ones I was meaning pushrods not valve springs. Springs are from PSI with around 480 on the nose which is more than we would want ideally. The plan is to stick with this spring for now and try and reduce the weight of the valve train parts to a point where we can get back to the cam we originally wanted in the engine.

Thats a fair bit above K800`s which is the highest I have tried with alu pushrods. I guess that is what it takes to have control @ 11000 rpms. You do not want float with those lifter that is for sure. I used K800`s with 430 on the nose and with a 51mm titanium intake valve in combo with a FK98, 10800 rpms and the same ceramic lifters as you.

Best rgs
BB

Hi BB,

That is seriously good going! Was that regular 10,800rpm? On the 1641? I need to hear it as I do love a bit of rpm, youtube?

Peter

Nope. It was my old 2386ccm. 281hp at 8800 rpms but it kept on going until 10800 rpms. Angle flow heads by JPM. Not sure youtube existed at that time  :D Kidding... here I am at a street legal race with 7.60 break out @ 1/8 mile. Launch only 7500 rpms. Max rpm at this race was set, if I remember correctly 9200. Non prepped and very narrow street:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDMQ3olee50 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDMQ3olee50)

Best rgs
BB

Very good!
Got to love a little fast blue VW! Just as well it is little too judging by the width of the track.
Really impressive to keep good power 2000rpm past the peak, particularly when you consider where your peak power is relative to most! Must be a good looking torque curve....
Nice to see and hear, keep at it
Peter

What is new Peter?

Sorry to say there is not a lot to report. Won't be racing the car this year as there are jobs for me to do and I've not had time to do them.

Since DDD there has been next to no meaningful progress basically as I've had very little time in the garage. I've got bogged down with 3 major issues at work which have taken just about all my time. That said all 3 are fairly well sorted now there is a bit more to do with one of them but I'm hopeful garage time is on the horizon.

I did go and see Johannes to test some new engine parts for the next development of the engine in March. The first test (pushrods) went incredibly well but the second test valve spring retainers went incredibly badly!

I hope to get back to fitting tinware and once that and some new fuel rails are done we can hopefully get back to testing the other parts I'd made with a view to making a plan for the motor over the winter.

I'm afraid that's it!

Peter

So its been way longer than expected, but life really overtook me! But finally news worth reporting. The car has been on the JPM dyno breathing on Sweden's finest air over the last two days to test a number of changes. Lots to update here no time now, but the headline changes are top shot injectors, big bird pushrod tubes, MMC pushrods and the old cam. 9k bmep 14.22! We learnt some really interesting stuff, so there is already a plan C, but first we need to prove what we have again.
Fantastic few days, can't wait to get the car home and the tinware fitted and street legal so I can drive it as its been far to long!
Now its time for beer, barbeque and some bench racing.
Some pictures on the JPM faceache page for those of you who can't wait.
Peter

I'll say it's been too long - it's been 12 months since the last update! :D

Are you coming to Drag Day at all, with or without the car? Be good to catch up!

The injectors look interesting, cool you got it all figured out now 8)

cheers Richie

HI Pete it seems you got it figured out now 14.22 BMEP  ;D
Tell me about the MMC pushrods,did you also make the retainers out of it?


Well done mate.

Rgds Steve

Hi Neil,
Yes far too long, but I've been busy. I had originally planned to get the car to UK DD as the street car shoot out would have been fun, but it’s not going to happen. I've lots to do still and I'm not going to race it until its street legal again and that's not going to happen this week as I've come back to a mountain of work. That said the plan is to keep working on the car (starting tonight) and get it on the road ASAP then I'll get it to the track to see what it can do.

Hi Richie, yep top shots are go! Amazing really we just moved them from the port stuck them up top and it just started and idled with no changes to the fuel map at all! I can tell you I was certainly not expecting that! There was a bit of tweaking done to the map to get it right when we did some proper pulls but not a lot. We had no idea how it would pan out, but once it was running we just blipped the throttle and it responded well so we took it for a drive on the rollers and were amazed how it drove without any problems and this was before fine tuning the map. I know I've read plenty about reduced throttle response and only good for top end power etc, but we found neither to be true as we picked up power all over rev range and no perceivable drop in throttle response.

Hi Steve,
I had actually hoped to call in and see you on the way home, but time was really tight on this trip so had to just get the journey done and get home.
The motor is fitted with the MMC pushrods, but Ti retainers. The single cylinder test was with the MMC pushrods and MMC retainers. It was the retainer that let go and rather ruined the single cylinder engine! We are hoping to get back and test a new retainer design, but Johannes and I have a bit of work to do before we get to that point.
So the new pushrods basically saved 39g per pushrod and allowed us to rev the motor Just beyond 10,000rpm when previously we only managed just over 8,500rpm so we gained about 1,500rpm with the weight saving.
The hot lash was far better controlled too, and I do think this contributed to the additional rpm capable as previously the ramp on the cam was all gone by the time the lash had been taken up so the lifter was crashing into what is a very aggressive accelerating cam, which is obviously not a nice combination mechanically.
So the added strength of MMC and the fact it expands much like 7 series aluminium's makes for a really good pushrod material in our engines, the only down sides I can see are the price and the difficulty in machining it.
We have a bunch of other MMC parts made to check on the single cylinder motor once its back in one bit. There are a number of other possible parts to make and test too subject to how we get on with what we have made to date.

The real unsung heroes of this trip were the pushrod tubes though. Plenty of work to get them designed made and fitted, but the big pushrods don't touch them and they don't leak which is a massive step forward as it’s been a constant problem given the short stroke of my engines. I hope this a good long term fix now as I can't stand oil leaks!

How are you getting on with your stuff, any chance LGK or Fast Scrap will be out and about this year?

I'll get a proper update done here too when I'm next on the train and have some typing time.

Peter

good stuff peter look for ward to seeing it back out

Finally a proper update.
So back in March 2016 I went to see Johannes with a bunch of parts I had made to test on the single cylinder engine. These were generally with a view to saving weight in the valve train plus a few other weight saving bits.
The main aim of this was to get back to using the original cam that Johannes had designed for the new (back then) engine, but given the issues we had previously with this cam we decided the place to check everything was on the single cylinder engine.
The first test was the pushrods which turned out to be a massive success. We did a few initial baseline pulls with regular steel dual tapper Manton pushrods so we had a starting point. Then fitted the new pushrods which were 39g lighter. As you might expect this gave us an rpm limit increase (about 1500rpm), as the valve spring had less to do, and a power increase as the power had not yet peaked. The added rpm was certainly responsible for added power above the point where we lost control of the valves with the steel pushrods, but there was also an increase below that rpm which certainly looks to be down to the valve lash control with the new pushrods expanding far more than the steel.
I know there has been a fair bit of discussion recently regarding valve lash with various opinions, but I can say from what we found on the dyno controlling lash to reasonable limits does help hp, and valve control. We all know our engines suffer hot engine valve lash due to expansion, but I had not understood the full extent of it until I had seen it, measured it and compared it with the ramps on the cams. When you consider the single cylinder engine is quite narrow (69mm stroke, std rod length and high compression), the push rods are short relative to most. Consequently the physical material in the engine for expansion relative to the pushrod is a lot less than some with long strokes. Even with a narrow engine the hot lash with steel pushrods was 3 plus times that of the the MMC (aluminum based) ones!
So beyond the mechanical nicety of not having the all the valve train parts slapping in to one another in a hot engine, the engine actually gets to see a bit more of the cam it was intended too as it is not taking up a bucket load of lash before it try's to open the valves. I'm sure we all spend hours deliberating what cam we should use then in a lot of cases throw a load of its lift and duration away with excessive valve lash! Get your dial gauge's on your hot engines and check and you will see you are not getting anything like what you get when the motor is cold and sat on the engine stand.
Suffice to say I won't be using steel pushrods again unless I absolutely have to.
So having had such a good result with the pushrods we were feeling very please with ourselves.
Valve spring retainers were next on the list, but unfortunately this test did not go so well in fact it went really badly. Part way though the 2nd proper pull the inlet valve retainer let go. This resulted in real mess. Bent valve, broken guide, cracked head, stuck top ring on the piston scored barrel and piston, broken ceramic lifter, buggered cam lobe, knackered oil pump and bearings.
Needless to say we were not quite so pleased with ourselves now! I was mortified to be honest but Johannes was very matter of fact saying it happens and it's in part why we test. He was keen to point out that it's not that often you find much with testing but its a long game so you just need to keep trying and you will learn and find things that help even if its not what to do!
So that was a very abrupt end to the fun, but on a positive note the pushrods were really good news and by calculation at least the weight saving was enough let us use the old cam.
Here are the gruesome pictures.
What no retainer?
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Theres the retainer well part of it....
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A bit rough round the edges!
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Peter

After the single cylinder dyno disaster, things went on hold during what proved to be a very busy period where life overtook me! It was back towards the end of 2016 when I finally found some time to get in the garage and make some more meaningful progress with the car. I had been thinking about various things and noting a few ideas down,  but spent almost no time actually working on the car.
When got back in the garage I got on with a list of jobs I had made from the last time I had run the car, but the two main ones were fitting tinware as well as finalising the design and location for the top shot injector fuel rails. This was all with a view to getting the car back on the street which remains my main priority. Moving the injectors was necessary as in their current location they hit the fan shroud in a fairly major way. It was actually always the intention to give the top shots a go and the throttle body extensions in the inner wings were originally designed with this in mind, so other than designing, drawing and making the rails, fitting them was a simple job.
I eventually got these two jobs finished as well as a bunch of other smaller jobs, but we were well into 2017 now with various deadlines I had set my self having come and gone, but I was finally ready to get the motor back to Sweden to take a look inside to see how it was all looking.
 I agreed a date with Johannes to get the motor crated up and posted to him with a view to getting out there my self in May to be able to make a plan for the next steps.
I flew over to see him as planned in May. The main job before stripping the motor was to measure things for the new pushrods and tubes. Because the engine is narrow it causes a problem with the angle of the pushrods being greater than normal which in turn causes clearance problems in the tubes particularly when using big diameter pushrods. We measured and re measured everything to check we had the room required as the tubes would need to be made to suit so given the opportunity we wanted to be sure.
Once we got to a point of agreeing a loosely sensible plan we took the motor apart to see how things looked.
I'm pleased to say it was basically all good news with the bearings generally in good shape. It did look like one bearing had eaten something it shouldn't have but it had not damaged the crank so was not a drama.
Basically that meant all that was needed was a good clean, some new bearings and a light hone of the barrels and the long block would be good to go with the new (old) cam.
I did also take the opportunity of getting a couple of new pressure plates whilst the motor was apart as I have some new clutch parts to try to see if I can finally get the car off the line successfully, which to date I've failed miserably to do!
Finally we had some fuel injectors to test at varying fuel pressures which we did just before I left to ensure we had things covered with the proposed top shot locations.
We made a plan for me to get back to Sweden at the end of June with the car and the new pushrods and tubes. As I've said this was all with the intention that we could run the more aggressive original cam a hope the valve train would cope with the required rpm to reach peak power rpm and hopefully some headroom to see where we are.

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Plenty of room here!
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Not so much room out here plenty of clearance required!

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Just about ready to go in the car.

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Ready to go in the car

So in late June I set off on my pilgrimage to JPM with the car on the trailer ready for the engine which was now back in one bit and ready to go back in the car minus pushrods and tubes which I had picked up from the machine shop the day before I left.
The journey does not get any shorter that is for sure, but it all went to plan but for the last 5 minutes as I got stopped for speeding just before I was due to get off the motorway having driven for nearly 900 miles! Fortunately the policeman had some sympathy, told me to slow down and sent me on my way. Phew! Just so you know its an 80 kph speed limit when towing in Sweden not the 100 kph as I thought so don't be caught out with all the trailers with 100 kph stickers on them!
Anyway I arrived unloaded had a cup of tea and a catch up Johannes, went for some food and then fitted the pushrods and tubes and did a few other jobs so we were set to put it in the car the next morning.
So with the motor back in the car and all the oil fuel and electrical stuff hooked up we were ready to fire it up.
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My exhaust is longer than your exhaust......
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Ready to rumble.

 I hooked up my laptop so we could see what was going on, but this is where electrical problem number one struck. The laptop was dead! Absolutely nothing happened when I switched it on. Needless to say this was very annoying particularly given I had been using it the week before I came away from home having changed some stuff in the ECU and then just charged the battery so I knew we would be good to go, only we weren't!
Fortunately I intentionally got the same ECU as Johannes has in his red car so that dramas like this would be less of a problem so Johannes used his laptop instead which got us going.
So we got some oil pressure fired it up which was fine other than the idle being sky high. So we sorted that (nice simple mechanical job) plus resetting the tps.
I have a new alternator on the car this year so Johannes suggested we just check we are getting a decent charge. This is where electrical problem number 2 appeared. Brand new (very expensive alternator) 12.8v! Battery charger to the rescue and we were underway, with my list of electrical jobs for when I get home growing.
So we got the motor warm and checked everything was ok, then there was nothing more to do but to see if the calc's were going to stack up in reality?
We set the rev limiter to 10,200rpm and it pulled round to the limiter and we still had control of the valves! Needless to say this was great news. The calculations had suggested this would be the case, but it was great to see and hear it doing it for real. I say it was great, but I still don't like the dyno and I step further and further back as the rpm increases!
That was it for the day so we packed up and got a good nights rest.
The next morning we had a few more adjustments to make so planned to just get on with it. The problem was that we turned the ignition on and nothing happened. The battery was totally dead. I have to put my hand up for electrical drama number 3 as I had re wired the lambda heater as one of my other jobs and had picked up a permanent live not a switched one so the heater was going all night. My little Li battery was not at all happy about this, but Johannes had a spare so we were soon up and running again and I had another electrical job to add to the list!
We carried on with the mapping, but there was another drama. During a pull there was a load of stuff came flying out from under the car and all over the floor. I say stuff as I was not sure what it was. The motor was still running and sounded OK but Johannes realised something was wrong and shut it off.
It turned out that the clutch center plate let go and with the holes I have in the bell housing it flew out and the fans blow it out the back of the car.
It was all a bit dramatic at the time but once it was clear what had happened it was just a case of getting the motor out and replacing the center plate having a clean up and getting it back together.
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We did this and ran the car up and all was well.

We were all but done with the set up as it was, but during a final pull there was a big bang and the motor just died! There was no visible mechanical nastiness, but that didn't help my nerves. Rocker covers off everything looked OK, so turning the motor over by hand was next and again everything appeared to be doing what it should be so I was feeling a bit better. It turns out the ECU had no power so it was electrical issue number 4! We soon traced this to a blown fuse, but fuses don't blow for nothing. That didn't stop me just putting a new fuse in and trying, but of course that blew too. So off we went looking for a short. I was huffing and puffing at this point sifting through all the spaghetti in the back of the car, but fortunately it didn't take to long to find. It was an injector wire that I had not tied back up away from the head when I connected everything back up and it had fallen down and melted through the insulation. So simple fix but some more time wasted, and a lot of initial heart ache!
With the wire insulated and tied up where it should have been and a new fuse, we did a final pull and all was well.
Next stop was to move the injectors. This was a nice mechanical job after all the electrical drama. I had pre fitted everything at home too and extended the injector wiring and the fuel hoses so the only job of note was to block the existing port injection holes before we could give it a go.
This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Johannes and I were stood at the back of the car looking at the injectors sat there in fresh air with no idea if it was going to run or not! So a quick check for fuel leaks then we hit the start button and it just ran and idled perfectly, a quick blip of the throttle and the rpm jumped up and fell back to a clean even idle. We switched it off and laughed! Neither of us had expected it to do that straight off. So Johannes jumped in and took it for a drive on the rollers, to check the air fuel was in the ball park. It turned out it was really close actually and it drove well and throttle response was all good too. We had both heard plenty of comments about reduced throttle response, but it certainly did not apply in our case. All that was required was a bit of minor map adjustment and we were right on it with the air fuel.
We did several pulls to check it was all good up the rev range at various throttle positions but as we were running out of time we concentrated on light throttle cruising for general street driving and full throttle for the track just roughly filling in the gaps in between.
We then did a couple of proper full pulls and found we made more power all over the rev range relative to the previous port injector locations, which needless to say was very welcome news and there were no obvious downsides. Obviously this was great news as I had to move the injectors and it looks to be a good solution to not only make more power but allow me to fit the tinware too.
I had wondered about the external (to the throttle body) injector locations with there being fuel being exposed in the engine bay being a risk, but it actually appears that there is no fuel spill. Needless to say its not like a dribbling carb or an uncontrolled leak and the injector position and spray pattern is very intentional to ensure the fuel and air mix does not get sprayed all over the throttle body walls but fills the 50mm diameter bore and makes the most of the air around the stacks.
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I have also made an air box to test on the single cylinder engine when we get back to that, but I'm sort of hoping that won't make a positive performance difference as it will make general access and maintenance a pain in the car, but is a backstop position if there is a problem with stand off or fuel spillage in use. The former did happen quite significantly at particular rpm with the old 1795, but looking at the inner wing enclosures for the throttle bodies it looks like its far less of an issue with the 1776. When we get to a point of testing the airbox on the single cylinder engine if it makes a positive difference I'll make a decision then.
What was clear though is that the quality of the air and fuel mixture entering the cylinder is an important factor in overall performance, and all you can do to improve this you should if you are looking for the last few hp.
The last job was to check out the exhaust (collector to exit) options as I will be sticking with the Wasp 2 but running with the muffler. I did also want to check it would be safe with the stinger too and not lean out dangerously if I fancied making some noise.
We had generally been running with a muffler on the dyno with this in mind and so as not to annoy the rest of Sweden by running with the stinger. Once we knew the fuel map was good we bolted on the stinger and amazingly it was ok (not lean) which was looking like good news for the muffler. I had brought 3 different mufflers and a bunch of pipes, but as time was limited now we just agreed to sort the best pipe length between the collector and the muffler with a straight pipe and I would make it all fit when I got home. If all had gone to plan I was hoping to make, fit and test it to be sure, but with all the previous drama that was not going to happen before I had to head home. It turned out the motor was not that sensitive to the length of pipe between the collector and muffler but we got to a range where there was little difference to give me some fitting options.
So that was about it in terms of the fun all there was left to do was pack up and head for the long drive home.
It was an action packed few days and as ever I ended up learning a load of stuff, and finding there is still plenty more to think about.
The end result was really interesting and has confirmed that neither cam we have had in the engine is quite where we want it to be, but it has given a good indication about where we should be going. Having learnt what we have means I won't be able to leave what we have discovered alone and I will no doubt be back in Sweden with the car for cam number 3 at some point in the future.
So the numbers. On the face of it they don't look like they have been worth all the effort as we made no more peak power (the figures we all tend to use when asked). What we have done though is move the peak from 10,000rpm to 9,000rpm. Consequently the engine accelerates more quickly to its peak, but then holds this with very little fall off till 10,000 so there is quite a bit more area under the curve to work with in reality.
Some interesting lines!
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This does create a problem though as I'm going to run out of gearing at the track before I get to the stripe.
That said I need to get the car off the line properly before worrying to much about that as its undoubtedly the biggest issue holding the car back in terms of et. I'm fairly sure all that we have done to the engine this time was not necessary to get the car to run in the 10's regularly as the old combination was capable if I could have got it off the line properly (1.56 on the 10s run is the best to date). That said I'm hopeful that the engine making more power lower down the rpm range will help here as well as the clutch plans and the monitoring of the clutch if I finally get a reliable laptop!
Also with cam number 3 in the pipeline I might well leave the gearing alone as realistically peak power rpm is likely to rise again with plan C so the the gearing may well come back to me.
So the car is back home now and I've got the list of to do jobs on the go. The  wiring related jobs are done, the clutch centre is being re made and the new pressure plate is at the balancers. The alternator has been fixed (faulty regulator), the laptop might well be dead so might yet need a new one, I've managed to recover the Li battery which I was pleased about as that might well have proved to have been an expensive error. Whilst waiting for these other bits I've been doing a few maintenance related and MOT preparation jobs so that once the clutch bits are back and I can get the motor back in the car I can get on  with the exhaust. This should be the last job of note before the car is back on the road. It is a bit more complicated than normal as I do have a number of future plans that I want to take account of when positioning the silencer but it all looks like it will fit all be it that it will be tight.
I'm on holiday now hence finally getting time to update this, but I hope when I get back home life does not overtake me again and I get the car back on the road and back to the track to see where we are.

 :o TTTTTtttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttturbo?  :D ;D


Awesome write up as always Pete 8)

Nice reading.
It is about time you bring your car back over to europe so we see and hear it run again. ;D

Henk!!!

Peter,
Do you think the ability to run more RPM came more from the pushrods expanding with the engine, and using more of the cam, or being lighter?  Did you test by chance at varying engine temperatures?   

Turbo! Never say never, but no never! I've got enough trouble with all the bells and whistles the car has now and I definitely don't want any more complication! I still think about a set of IDA's and a mag and junking all that spaghetti and the mysterious black (gold) box!

Henk, I would love to come back to DDD but this year it clashes with my wife and my youngest son's birthday celebrations and as much as my son might like it I'm not sure I'd still have a wife if I suggested a romantic weekend away in Germany that turned out to be a drag strip! I'm sure I'll be back though as its definitely a favorite of mine. Just need you to show me the way to the new track......

Hi Taylor we did not check varying temps other than cold to hot and that hot was loosely the same each time. In the single cylinder tests I think the extra rpm was mainly down to the reduced weight although an amount of it would be due to the engine seeing more cam. The majority was just more rpm (beyond the point where we lost control with the steel pushrods) as the valve spring was still in control and the engine was still making good pressure. There was a power increase though below the point at which we lost control of the valves with the steel pushrods and its this part I was referring to as being the engine seeing more of the cam. Basically when we overlaid the curves the MMC one was higher than the steel curve before we lost control of the valves. I don't have the exact details here on the train but from memory it was about 3.5hp on the single cylinder engine so could amount to 14hp on the actual engine but realistically perhaps 8-10 at peak power rpm. It did make me wonder if we have all just put to much cam in our engines over the years, but in reality the engine never got to see it all once its hot. So in "old money" effectively if an engine really needs an FK87 on paper put an FK89 in it and it will get what it needs. I don't mean that literally but hopefully you understand what I mean. I suspect in days gone by before we had such accessible sophisticated cam measurement equipment, data and dyno's there was simply more trial and error with cams just getting bigger until the power dropped off and they might have realised the same thing and took up the "slack" in the cam not the expansion of the pushrod. This would not resolve the mechanical issues, but they might not have been to bothered for a short term drag race engine, as I suspect suitable pushrods that are both strong enough and expand have not been available untill relatively recent times.
Peter

Fantastic to read how the car has developed, looking forward to more updates and seeing it back at the track


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Whats next Peter?

Thanks Jamie, hope to have a few more updates before the year is out.

Nick, turbo 1st..... oh no I said never.... The main priority is to get it back on the road as after the last racing season not driving it that year was a real killer. Consequently I've said to myself I'm not going to race the car until it's street legal and I've done a few miles and checked its all OK.

Beyond that there is still plenty on the to do list, but I just need to prove what I've done to date is going to be reliable before getting carried away as I've only raced the current engine.

Once I have the new pressure plate back from the balancers I can get the motor back in the car and put it back together, then hopefully the fun can start!

Peter

A great read as usual Pete. Looking forward to seeing you racing again.

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Street car? Not quite, but it’s getting close now.

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Pure Hardcore Pete ;)

Well done,get in touch soon.

Rgds Steve

LOVE those TB's!!
The top mount injectors reminds me of when Ducati first did that on the 996SP motors.
Pure engine porn!! ;D

One question I have Peter is wrt filtration? If you DO get it back on the street aren't you concerned with all the crap that might/will get sucked into the motor?
Will the new airbox have a filter in it?

Cheers
Marc

Will do Steve hope all is well with you and the gang over there.

Peter

Hi Marc, I do worry about the motor eating crap but it’s not like I do 15,000 miles a year in it and I never had a problem when I ran with unfiltered IDA’s. That was with an open deck lid most of the time too. I hope to be able to run with a closed deck lid as I did in the end with the 1795cc motor which means it’s less likely to be a problem and the way the TB’s are tucked away in there little recesses in the inner wings they are a lot less exposed than they were. Hope I haven’t tempted fate now!

The air box could be filtered but I’m a way off that at the moment, as we need to prove it works first and even if it does it will be a fair bit of work to get it all in the car, and I just want to get out and drive it now!

Peter

Still not a street car yet, but it’s just got a bit closer.....

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It's a standing joke between my dad and I that he manages to get the cables for any power tool tangled into knots almost by just looking at them. You've beaten him by doing it with an exhaust! It looks amazing Peter, can't wait to see it in the flesh. Do you have a date in mind for first runs? Street car shootout at the Pod in June?

Now that's different. I like it.

Hi Neil,

Just need to get it MOT’d and get some miles on it before getting to carried away but planning on running at Big Bang as a first race if all goes to OK then I’ll make a plan from there. Time as ever is my biggest restriction as there is a lot going on at work and at home but will be focusing on the OFF MSA rounds.

It is a bit of a tangle but I’ve never been a fan of the silencer hanging out the back of the car. I like the turbo cars with no visible exhaust but the collector location means that is not an option for me so this was the best compromise. Having it tucked up out of the way is part of the long term master plan for the car too.

Peter

So I drove the car for the first time in a long time today. Not far but far enough remember how much fun it is to drive a street car with short gears and 250hp when it only weighs 1500lbs with me in it!

Rain forecast now for most of this week but need to get some decent miles on it before the end of the month and it’s first race as a street car. No slicks or stinger for me this year and driving it to the struck and home again so fingers crossed the weather improves as it’s a bit grim here for the Easter Holiday weekend.[attachment=1][attachment=2]

The business end
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good stuff peter look forward to seeing it at track end of month  8)

Would be so cool to hear a high revving beetle drive by on the street. enjoy it Peter.

Nice work Pete  :D

Shiny paint job next then Peter  ;)

We won't believe its a REAL street car until we see in-car video of you burning off a wide boy in an STI (what do they drive these days??)...

 ;) :D ;D

NNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
 ;D

Don’t worry he’s taking the piss. No new paint, no interest, time or money for that not to mention the weight! Anyway I thought it looked shiny!

Not sure how many street miles I’m going to get looking at my diary just have to hope the weather gets better and I can get some evening drives in once the kids are in bed. Not that they will sleep all that well with it warming up on the drive!

It’s a really good feeling to have a car I can just drive again though.

Hope to have more updates soon.

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Peter

I’ve had some time over the last few months to put some street miles on the car. The first drive was, in some unusually warm weather which was a good test for the cooling system and temp control.

I was able to run with a closed deck lid with the 1795, but with this engine and the shorter gears meaning more rpm it looks like this might be a bit more of a challenge.

To start with I ran the car around and got the oil temp up to 100 degrees without the fans on the oil cooler being switched on. Switching the fans on kept the temp in and around 100 (stoped it rising), but with any significant and extended use of the right peddle the temp would rise and not come down again until I slowed up a bit. Probably manageable but a bit dull. I had a tennis ball in the car to prop the bottom of the deck lid open and that did cool things down a bit and the temps to dropped perhaps 5 degrees C across the range with loosely equivalent driving. This was still with the fans on the oil cooler running. So it was better but still not ideal.

On this basis I decided to fit the deck lid stand off’s for the next drive to and see if it would help, all be it it’s not my preference visually, if it helps I’ll be leaving them on the car.

I didn’t fit the Venturi ring on the fanshroud in the end as there is a load of spaghetti and the plug leads where the coil comes through the bulkhead which is all in the way. I decided this would reduce it’s effect due to their close proximity to the ring. It would be a major job to move all that now if it’s needed, so I’m hoping the deck lid stand off’s will improve things to a point where the temps are manageable without being too restrictive relative to the way I have to drive the car. Typically it’s not been as hot as it was that first drive for a realistic test so I’ll just have to wait and see what happens when the weather picks up again.

The gearing is not helping either as it keeps the rpm up at the point were the motor is feeling quite lively and starting to make some cylinder pressure at a sensible motorway speed. In the future this might mean racing with 5 gears and having a lazy 6th for the motorway street driving. This looks feasible now given the new cam is making more power lower down the rev range but as I will be changing the cam again in plan C I’m not sure what I’ll do yet.

As you would expect the oil pressure dropped in relation the rise in oil temp, but not to a point where it’s an issue but everything feels and looks good, with the oil temps around 90 degrees so that’s what I’m aiming for for general driving. I’m happy for it to rise to 100 if it’s working hard as long as it can then be brought back down to 90 ish degrees once I’m driving normally again, or if the ambient air temp is particularly high

I’ll do a few more miles now the deck lid stand offs are fitted and see how it pans out, and what I can put up with, in terms of temps relative to driving, before I get carried away taking it apart in the middle of the summer as regardless of the temp control its been a lot of fun driving the car again.

During the drives to date I have discovered 2nd gear is noisy and not in a particularly nice way, so I’m considering my options with that, whilst I sort a few other issues as I appear to have a charging problem again, which actually resulted in me breaking down, but a quick battery swap and I was up and running again. I have a fuel line to move, and a harness to fit too, not to mention trying to get back to the ecu stuff now I hopefully have a reliable laptop again.

So that’s about it for now I think my main issue is not wanting to take it apart again as I’m enjoying just driving it as it has been a while since it’s been a turn key car I can just jump in and drive.

The more I drive it the more I want to keep it in one bit so I think for now I’ll just be driving it and sorting any smaller issues as and when they arise and just enjoy razzing around for a while. I might do this until Bugjam in July. Hopefully I can drive it there race it and have a better idea where I am with the long drive and racing with the current gearing and make a plan about what to do next.

More to come as I try and catch up again!

Peter

I can fully sympathize with not wanting to take the car off the road - mine ran out of mot and insurance in early July so I took it off the road for a couple of months while I have holidays and housework and I'm really missing it! I'll have it back on the road when I start my new school in September tho!

Couple of questions about the data you're getting - what sort of sensors are you using for oil temp and pressure, and where do you have them located? I've still got my old VDO gauges for oil temp, oil pressure and cylinder head temp in a box somewhere, but haven't got around to fitting them yet. Just wondering what you do before I fit mine over the six weeks.

I’ve had a bit of time on and off to put some street miles on the car this summer and the good weather has been great for the hot temp testing.

I’ve got to the point now where I’m happy I know where the car is with hot running and with the deck lid open it is manageable even when the outside air temp is in and around the 30’s which does not normally last for long here. It is a bit marginal at times and I do need to slow down every now and then, but it’s manageable.

What has not been manageable though is the lack of charging but two regulators and a replacement alternator later it looks like I have a working system now. I had wondered with all the electrical power hungry gear I have in the car now I was just short of power which would have been a real pain but thankfully that was not the case and it all looks to be good to go.

With the new alternator fitted just in time for Bugjam I had a 1 hour test drive one evening in the week before the event to check it was all OK. Thankfully it was all good as I really wanted to drive the car to the track for the first time in quite a while.

So I was all set, a bit last minute, but what’s new. I had the day off on Friday so once I’d dropped the kids off to school I packed up the car with all the gear and set off. SantaPod is about 100 miles from home and I had not driven that far in one go in any of my previous drives in the car, but I was confident all was well. Other than the traffic the drive to the track was fine and the car behaved really well, with good temps and pressures so I just drove non stop to get there as the track was due to open at 12 which was about when I arrived. As it turns out I didn’t get to run on Friday as I wanted to change the oil check the valves and have a look through the car and check the data log and have a look at an oil leak that has sprouted. As it happens by the time I’d unpacked and done this little lot it started to rain so the track closed early and that was that, but I was all set for the morning.

In the morning I got signed on and got the car warmed up and down to the start line. The first pass is always a bit of a moment (and generally a balls up) and it was no exception this time! I decided to skip the burnout and just drive it, which I sort of managed, but for stalling when trying to stage then I nearly rolled through, but just caught it in deep stage. It spun the tires hard of the line so a bit of a peddle to get going then I managed to barge into the Rev limiter on most of the shifts and was on the Rev limiter at the end of the track. The latter was a known issue as I was limiting at 9500 rather than 10500 as before. The main thing was though that I’d got the first run under my belt.

Just being able to drive straight back to the pits with the engine being cooled on the way is a joy.
Back in the pits it was clear I’d not resolved the oil leak though and the tinware was not such a joy when trying to find the oil leak given the fan had given the oil a rollercoaster ride around the engine bay.

The nice thing was that the push rod tubes were bone dry which was a major step forward as over the years I have spent hours trying to get them to seal properly, but with the short stroke and the increased pushrod angle I had failed miserably till now. I did end up having to make pushrod tubes and Johannes cut the heads at the correct angle which made all the difference. So the other oil leak is currently ruining joy of dry pushrod tubes. At least the back of the car is not going to rust away any time soon!

As it turns out my 12 year old son noticed a loose nut on the generator stand and it turns out they were all loose so I nipped them up and ran again but there was still oil. I decided this might be residual oil from the previous leak so mopped it up for one last run on Sat but there was still oil.

Sat night I set about taking it apart and having a proper clean up and putting new gaskets and glue on the generator stand. There was a fair bit of oil around on the inside of the tinware so I was hopeful it was good to go.

In the morning first run guess what more oil! Looked like it might be the 1&2 rocker cover this time so after the mop up it was a new gasket bend the bale to tighten it (thanks Dave) and it felt good and snapped on with some purpose. But of course the next run there was still oil. By this time we were into eliminations so there was next to no time to do anything but mop oil and go again. Typically its the only event I’ve ever gone rounds.
Fortunately the whole oil escapade was not lots of oil and any which did drip got caught in the tray so no dramas for the track but still very annoying and on top of the to do list now the car is home.

So eventually my luck ran out when I came up against Udo, but that was in the final by then. I did have a glimmer of hope when he missed 3rd gear and was catching him briefly but he found 3rd 2nd time around and had enough in the bag already to cover me off with some ease, but I was more than happy with the weekends work and just looking forward to getting the car home sorting the oil leak and getting the clutch sorted.

During the whole oil slick debacle what also came to light was that what I had hoped was a good clutch solution proved not to be. So in the short term at least I‘m going back to the steel pressure plate and a sintered iron disc for the next outing. I had gone back to the aluminium shoe and a new centre disc I had high hopes for but it’s not worked out as I had hoped there is another disc option for me to try but I think that will need a bit more time to organise than I have before the next race.

I’m in California at the moment so hope to call in at Mcloed and sort out a couple of 180mm sintered iron discs as I know that is enough clutch and I have a steel pressure plate balanced and ready to go so is a quick fix.

The clutch was fine for the first few runs but the 5th run it was fine in the burn out (a short no line lock 3rd gear effort), but off the line it slipped. This actually resulted in the best 60ft of the weekend and pointed towards slipping the clutch a bit to keep the motor up in the rpm. Sadly the run after slipped more so I needed to manage it from then which meant no burnout to save the clutch for the start which was better but a compromise. Basically it got me through the rest of the weekend and the drive home, but it’s certainly not the long term solution I was hoping for.

To complete the hatrick of drama the serial port on my laptop was not playing ball or at least it was not for the whole weekend. This meant I was struggling with any data logging, but it was a bit academic as the clutch that I was looking to monitor was clearly slipping without me trying to slip it.

Fortunately the Outlaw pit came to the rescue (thanks Darren) with a spare laptop so I could at least nudge up the Rev limiter so I was not stat on it going through the line each run. 200 extra rpm gave me 3mph (116-119mph) which was just about enough.

So the actual runs other than the 1st and last were all 11.2* actually between 11.24 and 11.26 with a best mph of 119. This was a big improvement on my proper street car pb (street tyres, fan belt and muffler) but mainly because I’d not run the car like this in ages. Regardless it’s the new marker to work from and hopefully I can now nibble away at this next time out with with a clutch and laptop.

Other than the general social and actually getting the car to the track for the first time in a long while was the drive home was really good. Whilst I was lording it up getting my trophy for 1st looser and packing Dave was moping oil and glue in another rocker cover gasket to the head and cover in a hope we would not leave an oil slick all the way home (thanks Dave). I decided to leave the oil try on just to see what difference it made to the temps and they did go up a bit perhaps about 5-10 degrees but sort of manageable in the traffic on the way home as it was all fairly slow moving for the first hour or so. I’d been watching the temps and pressures the whole time as there was not much else to do and all was steady at about 100 degrees and good oil pressure on a really hot evening for us in the UK. So I was a bit shocked when I looked over at the temp guage to see it at 170+degrees! Fortunately it was obviously an electrical fault as I’d only checked the guage moments before so there was no way it was a real temp reading. I pulled over and it turns out the sender wire had shorted out on the oil tray. So we took the tray off and problem solved and a minor job to add to the list to modify the tray slightly so it does not happen again. The rest of the ride home was plain sailing and the car behaved perfectly.

As ever it was great to drive the car to the track and generally having it as a turn key car again is the only way for me.

So I’ve a few jobs to do when I get back from the family holiday, but hopefully all doable in time to have another go in early October and get some decent street miles in before that.

That’s about it for now, but I’ll try and post up video or 2 but a photo will have to do for now.

Peter

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read through this thread after seeing the motor pics in a racing mag - major congrats on all the work and design thoughts that have gone into the car and i'll bet you're stoked at it now being streetable

Bean, the street car ting for me is the most important bit, but I’ve had a lot of fun along the way with the car and met a lot of good people too.

Neil, sorry I missed your post. Get the car back on the road as soon as you can is all I would suggest!

The senders are just regular off the shelf items from CB for the ECU and the Autometer gauges just use the ones they came with. The oil pressure comes off the old std oil cooler location oil temp on the galaxy where it exits so it’s done the work and is off the the filter, cooler and tank.

Peter

Hi Peter, this topic has become one of my all time favorites on the Lounge. Good luck with the oil leak issue. I fought one for weeks with my last engine assembly and it was a real bonehead move on my part. The new cylinder heads I am running have a reinforcement which interferes with # 2 and # 3 intake pushrod tube @ head end, IF you run the Type 1 seal. Once I swapped the seal to 411 style, no more leaks.

Have a good stay here in California.

Jim

Hi Jim,

Glad you like the car and my ramblings. Fortunately the oil leak is not a pushrod tube issue. I’m sure I’ll find it when I get back as I can take it for a short ride with no tinware on it if necessary then it should be more obvious with out it hiding under the tinware and the fan throwing it all over the place!



Given we are in the home of the Callook VW I was hoping to show the kids some nice VW’s in their natural habitat, but to date the only AC VW we have seen is a bit of a clapped out super beetle, which was not quite what I had in mind. Having said that we have not made it anywhere near LA as yet. We are on a bit of a whistle stop tour from Vegas, Death Valley, Mammoth, Lake Tahoe, San Fran then down the coast to LA. We are not due in LA till a week on Saturday and we fly out on Thursday afternoon. This means we miss Irwindale so I was wondering if there are any other possible VW gatherings  or general car shows where we might see some nice VW’s?

Peter

awesome updates Peter. I dint realise we can run EFI with generator. always thought the other way round.

What engine oil have you been running on this beast if you don't mind sharing.

It’s actually a generator look a like with an alternator inside hence the aluminium casing.

Oil is nothing particularly special Millers 10-50 I do like to change it regularly though, more than I need to I suspect but it’s good peace of mind.

As I keep saying it’s just good to be able to use it again as it’s been a while, and prove there are no problems with using it on the street. The efi the short gears and light car make it ridiculously drivable.

Peter

I used to run my mega squirt with a generator and it was okay before I went Porsche cooling if that helps?.... what’s ment to be the issue?

Hello Peter,
Saw your car at bugjam and it's really impresive.

Are you using any headtemp sensor or are you only using the oil temp sensor?

Hi Broen,

I don’t run head temp sensors, but have contemplated them. I’ve got so much spaghetti in the back of the car now a few more would not make a lot of difference! That said it’s not height on the list of priorities.

Glad you enjoyed Bugjam it’s was a fun weekend for all of us racing there too, trying to keep the ACVW numbers up!

Peter

I’m beginning to wonder if I should not call this the eternally out of date thread, but once again time has been limited for an update.

I did race (we’ll sort of) again after Bugjam last year at the National Finals. The journey to the track from home usually takes a couple of hours give or take, but on this occasion it took nearly 3 and a half. Suffice to say it was not the best journey in fact it could be the worst ever and I’ve been driving up there since the mid 80’s. Looking at the positives I can say the car will sit in a traffic jam on tick over for hours on end and not get hot.

I did finally get to the track, but needless to say I was quite a bit later than planned due to the journey time and the fact that I left home later than planned too. By the time I had faffed about (as I do) to get set up and ready it was getting late and I was in two minds about getting a run in. Then there was an oil down which made my mind up.

As it turns out that was a bad decision on my part.

Alex had brought his camper and offered me a spare bed for the night which was great, so we packed up for the night had a bit of a social, some food and got off to bed.

Saturday morning and over night on Friday was really wet though and it was clear that there was not going to be an early start on Saturday. In fact it soon became clear that the rain was heavy and persistent and looking at the forecast was due to stay that way all day. Unfortunately the forecast proved to be accurate and there was literally rain all day and nothing to do but sit and chat and eat and drink so we were even more grateful for a camper to sit in! The only thing that was clear was that there was no danger of any racing.

The forecast for Sunday was much better though and we woke to a dry morning all be it there were still a lot of puddles around from the rain the day before although one in our pit area was more like a lake! The track staff were out early drying the track though and it all looked promising.

Everyone was getting ready and moving their cars into the sun to dry out and warming them up and checking that all was well. I did the same and all looked good.

As there was no qualifying on Saturday the elimination ladder was just drawn out of a hat and I was paired with David Swift which should have meant a close race as our cars run similar times. I say should, but it didn’t turn out this way......

Having driven the car for 3 and a half hours to the track checked all was well on Friday after the journey fired the car up and got it warm Sunday morning, I drove the car down to the start line from the pits, did the burnout, sat on the start line ready to go launched off the line and the car was flat. No nasty noises or anything just no power.

Needless to say I didn’t win so that was the end of my weekend in terms of racing and I now had an issue with the car.

I drove back to the pits and sorted my self out and started looking for problems. Fortunately mechanically it all checked out so I started it again and it was still flat. This is where Mr Clagget came to my rescue. I switched the car off again and was looking around the engine bay when he reached in behind the fan shroud and his hand came out with the plug  lead from number 3 in his hand where it had come off the coil pack! As you might imagine there was a mix of relief closely followed by frustration that such a simple thing had ruined my weekend of racing. Unsurprisingly with 4 plug leads attached it sounded much more sprightly!

I had had the motor out of the car the week before the race changing the clutch and I think I must have knocked the lead on the coil pack some how. They all come through the bulkhead behind the fan shroud and I’d perhaps knocked it / them when putting the fan shroud on and not checked them properly or at all once it was all back together. Needless to say this is something I’ll be adding to the check list in future!

So after licking my wounds I packed the car up with all my gear and headed home. Fortunately the journey back was much better than the one there and I got home in usual time with no dramas running on all 4 cylinders!

This all got me thinking that it would have been an even worse weekend if I had a race car and not a street car. As in my case at least I got to enjoy the drive back rather than loading it all up on a trailer again and towing it all home having barely driven the car at all!

So that was it in terms of racing for the year, but I have managed to drive the car here and there on the street this winter when time and weather has allowed which has been good as I’ve not had the car in a hundred and one bits this winter as I’ve just been doing various small jobs to the car. It actually reminds me of what I did over the winter years ago when I used to just improve a few small things here and there to see if it made any difference.

The only job of any note this winter was to add another engine breather.

As you will know if you have followed this thread previously I’ve been constantly chasing oil leaks and I’ve fixed several now, but I’ve still got at least one leak to find.

This all sounds quite simple but it’s proved to be anything but. Having said that it does appear to be concentrated around the crank pulley area now.

So the latest theory is that it’s getting past the oil flinger behind the crank pulley because there is to much crankcase pressure.

I do run a dry sump so in theory there is the potential to actually pull a vacume in the case, but the engine is not sealed (quite evidently!) as I’ve not got a sand seal and it’s only a small single scavenge stage pump.

I do currently have a -12 breather hose from the fuel pump block off to the dry sump tank and a -12 to a breather tank but my initial thoughts were that that was not enough.

I decided to get the bits together to add another -12 line from the oil filler tower to the dry sump tank and a replacement larger -16 from the tank to the breather box to loosely double the breather capacity.

When doing this I did discover that I may have had another issue which effectively meant I had no breather. This was because the existing breather hose had a dip in it between the engine and the tank and this may have been sufficient to block the hose with oil or at least significantly restrict it. So it may be the single -12 was sufficient if it had been routed more thoughtfully.

Regardless I added another breather so hopefully this is it and I’ll have a oil free engine but having fixed other issues and potential issues I’m not holding my breath but hopefully this is the one!

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I had my first drive in the car for a while last night. Just a quick half hour drive about and the initial news looks promising as the motor was dry and it’s the first time in a while I’ve been able to say that! I’ll need to go on some longer runs to be sure, but initial signs look promising.

Oh and as I usually say at this point it is very easy to forget why we spend all the time and money we do on these stupid old cars but one quick drive is all it takes to remind me what fun they are and how bloody fast this car is! So if you have not got your cars back in one bit yet keep going it’s worth it!

The first race outing this year is not until mid May though so I do have a bit more time to look again if this is not the solution I’ve been looking for.

Peter

Was about time to hear something again from your car. ;D
Nice read again.

Henk!!!

You sure you need all those cable ties on the 3 hoses in that last pic? seems like extra weight to me :o ;D

Hi Henk, usual storey not enough time to be doing anything like as much as I would like to be doing, but it’s back in one bit again now so I can have some fun, so there might be a few more posts again

Oh and the zip ties are just adding a bit of weight to help the turbo spool up.....

One day soon :o :D ;D

Drilling more holes!

Nick the trouble is I had to fill the holes with a hose....

Had a good little ride out to Wheels Day on Friday which is the first time I’d been to a car show in ages. Lee came along for the ride so it was a good social too. Great weather the car ran good and we still look to be oil free.

Still need to go on a longer run and do a bit of clutch testing between now and the Doorslammers in May. The weather is making a turn for the worst now though so it won’t be this week.

Peter

Hi Pete,
I was reading the RTE Magazine story,
and there was mention of some sump baffling to reduce oil slosh,
but no pictures.
I DID like the 'moved' oil pickup tube too,
but would like to see a picture of the baffles if you have one!

Thanks in advance,
Dave.

Its only rain, come on its a street car and your in England, it rains a lot here :D ;D   



Good to see you on entry list for Doorslammers, tea & cake will be available ;)

Richie, sorry I mean Jo, tea and cake was the only reason I entered! I’ll be straight round......

Dave, the sump baffle is just the regular one you see but with a scraper profile to get the oil off the crank and some windows in the plate to direct the oil that you have got off the crank below the baffle plate and towards the relocated pick up tube. I might have a photo somewhere I’ll take a look and if I can find it I’ll post a picture. It’s all very close to the crank and a bit of work up to sort out. You can see in some of the pictures that there is an extra stud and nut on the sump plate which adjusts the height of the scraper to make sure it’s close but not too close!

JP and I had a funny discussion about the extra stud and nut, thinking people would wonder what it was there for, but no one has ever mentioned it which we have both been surprised about, but that is what it’s doing.

Peter

Thanks Peter, a picture would be great if you can unearth one :)

I can't find a picture of the completed thing but here's the scraper so hopefully you get the idea.

Peter

[attachment=1]

Thank you Pete!

Peter,
Ordered up and just read the feature on JP in race car engineering.
Awesome piece of work that looks like its paying dividends now!

Recommend a read to anybody out there!!!

Cant wait to see/hear it one day..

Cheers

Brewsy, glad you enjoyed the read. I remember reading it for the first time myself in a Premier Inn at the NEC the night before  the Race Car Engineering show. We had just set the motor up on the Race Engine Technology stand and I went to get some food headed back to the room and got stuck in to it. It’s a strange thing reading about all this stuff you know so well having planned it for years. It was much the same as when the motor first ran in the car. It certainly felt like quite an achievement long before we even know the numbers.

Good times!

Since the last update I’ve used the car a bit here and there on the road just to get used to driving it again check a few things out and make a few adjustments here and there as well as putting a few miles on it not to mention just having a bit of fun!

Lee Maynard and I took a trip to Wheels Day on Good Friday and called into North American for the after party. Both of which were rammed given the good weather. We got to see a load of people we hadn’t seen in ages, but as it turns out it sounds like we missed at least as many people based on how many subsequently  said they had seen the car there but not us.

The car ran well though with no drama and no oil leak on this or the other drives recently so all was looking good and things were coming together for my first planed race in May.

The down side of not having any more mechanical jobs to do was that it left me with no alternative but to try and sort out the laptop, which means I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel on the to do list!

Given my recent history with anything electric based this proved to be far less troublesome than it had been in the past. With a new cable and battery it looked like I was in danger of knowing what the car was doing when I got to the track.

Alex called in at home the week before the race and picked up the tent (for the car) and a few other bits and bobs so I didn’t have to pack them in the car. The intention being that I would not have so much of an excuse to dither around when I got to the track so I could make the most of the track time on Friday as it looked to be the best weather of the weekend looking at the forecast.

With the car packed Wednesday night I was ready to go Friday morning but for getting some fuel. This proved to be problem number 1 of the weekend as I ran out on the way to the fuel station. Fortunately I nearly made it and was actually about 50m from the pump by the time I stopped. So only a minor delay and I was soon on my way. The journey to the track came and went without dramas and the car ran well with good temps and pressures and still no oil leak when I arrived at the gate which was encouraging after 2 hours plus of driving.

I pulled round into the pits found our home for the weekend an unpacked.

I was soon (we’ll soon for me) ready to go, so I got signed in and drove down and joined the queue in the fire up lanes. It didn’t look too busy, but various delays meant it was getting late by the time I got towards the front of the queue.

Eventually it was my turn, but they were only running a single lane by this time, which was actually quite good given it was my first run of the year.

I had adjusted the clutch on the road to a point were I thought it would at least be a half decent starting point on the track following a few blasts up and down my local practice track so I had a starting point to just give it a go.

I decided not to do a burn out so just spun the tires before the line. The car left with no wheel spin and some controlled clutch slip which was a result in itself as this is were I have been trying to get the car for some time now. I’ve become a bit of a specialist in uncontrolled clutch slip, or wheel spin or both, but this was the first time in all this time I’ve been trying that it’s been controlled.

The car ran a tidy 11.12 at 118mph which was a great start to the weekend.

I don’t stop at the top of the track these days all be it that this used to be my favourite place given it’s just the cars and drivers and a nice calm place after all the excitement of a run. I now just switch the cooling on and trundle back to the pits to let everything settle down and it’s always good to get back and look at the data now the logging is actually working!

There was a moment of un planned comedy on that 1st run in that my new glasses obviously don’t fit my helmet that well or I didn’t push them back enough, but suffice to say they were wobbling around all over the place and it looked like there were 6 tracks in front of me so I was glad to be racing on my own and in a straight line!

Back in the pits the main news was no oil as this was the first time the car has had a really hard workout since the winter breather changes. I still think a sand seal might be on the cards though just to be sure, but it was nice to see a dry pad in the oil catch tray and no sign of the previous oil spray off the pulley in the engine bay.

I checked over the usual stuff on the car and all looked good and downloaded the data log from the run.

After a bit of familiarisation with the software I managed to have a decent look at the run. I knew I was on the Rev limiter as I went through the line as it was holding back and you can still hear it quite clearly in the car even with all the other racket going on.

The only odd bit was that after the hit and the usual rpm drop as the clutch engages there was a bit of a flatline for about 0.35 of a second. I’ve not seen this before and have no explanation for it. I concluded to have another go and see if it was a one off.

I bumped up the Rev limit 200rpm to 9,900, as it was clear it needed more at the top of the track particularly as the flat line also indicated I had lost quite a bit of time at the start. The time ticket confirmed the same as it was a fairly shocking 1.67 60ft which made the et sound even better.

I have to be honest I was feeling good. Hitting the rev limiter at the top of the track the blip after the hit and me just driving a bit better were all positive signs that there were gains to be had.

There is a video of most if not all the VW’s running at The Doorslammers in Richie’s thread in Pure Racing including me. You can hear the stutter at the start and me also hitting the revlimeter hard in 3rd and at the top of the track.

So that was it for Friday, but as I said I was quietly confident I could go a bit quicker on Saturday.

Friday night was the usual social and we all got to sleep at a sensible hour only to be woken in the morning with the sound of rain, this is UK drag racing after all!

I decided to check the valves whilst the engine was completely cold and all was good subject to some minor OCD adjustment check, check and double check as with the rpm I’m still paranoid about the valve train.

I started the car to check all was well and to get some heat into it as it had stopped raining and the track crew were out drying the track. The car sounded ok and the pressures were good and the temp gauge was showing signs of life after 4-5 minutes of running I was about to switch it off, but just gave it a few last blips of the throttle then came an unwanted noise! As fast as my right arm could reach the key I switched it off.

In that moment my mind was racing not the car. Ever optimistic I thought perhaps a lash cap or broken valve adjuster, but it didn’t sound quite like that to be honest, but I checked anyway. All looked good with the valve train which was good and bad news all at the same time. Turning the engine over by had all felt OK, but clearly something wasn’t happy as it was not the sort of noise that would just fix it self.

As tempting as it was to have another listen, there was nothing to be gained so that was it for the weekend for me.

As luck would have it Lee was heading home on on Saturday night so he was good enough to tow me and the car home on the A frame Alex brought with him on the off chance! How jammy was that!

Obviously I was stewing trying to think what it might be, but the truth is I don’t know and won’t know until it’s apart.

Every cloud has a silver lining though and the reality was that I was only planning on one other race this year before taking it apart anyway.

Johannes and I had been talking about Plan C almost immediately after our last dyno session with the motor as it is and as I write this I’m busting to get on with it now.

So with the car back home I dropped the oil and checked the filter and there were no horror stories just the usual little bits in the filter.

I might be a bit premature, but in the big scheme of things it looks like I’ve been lucky. The data log from the warm up shows 5,423 rpm when the nasty noise struck and it ran for no more than 0.2-0.3 of a second after this peak with no load on the motor like there was when it was on the track or even the drive to the track so all in all it could have been much much worse.

I did even allow myself to wonder if it was the clutch release bearing briefly, but when I pulled the motor out that was fine.

So the next stop for the motor will be a little holiday in Sweden and I’ll nip over for a day and Johannes and I will take it apart and see where we are.

So from the excitement of Friday night thinking this could be a good weekend, having driven this little car all the way to the track clicked off an 11.12 straight out of the box with a less than perfect run it all went a bit pear shaped. That said I couldn’t help thinking the old girl had done pretty good as it’s taken quite a kicking and done quite a few road miles too now.

I’ll get the box out for a refresh too as 2nd gear has been noisy for a while now and have a general clean up under the car to check there are no other jobs to sort out before I make another pilgrimage to Sweden with the car.

Peter

[attachment=1]

Turned out to be a shorter weekend than planned but a good one none the less

Mate,
That really sucks! One run and then the engine (sort of) expires?
BTW you mention turning on the cooling but from the pictures looks like you have a fan and housing. Do you slip off the belt for a run?

So come on then, whats Plan C??  ;) ;D
Guessing that JP has now got springs that can hold the pressure you originally wanted and mean you can go back to the original cam?
Or maybe hes managed to source a lighter valve-train component? 
Either way Id hazard that you could then run more RPM on the aggressive cam and wring some more out of it  8)

Cheers

Desmodromic for the win 😁👍

Nice write up Pete, sucks it happened, going to put my money on a lifter failure, they don't like sitting on limiter for long, am actually surprised you got it set so low? was thinking it would be up around 11k for hard limiter

cheers Richie

Now THATS an idea..
4x Ducati heads??

The 851/916 both had 94mm bores and the 4 valve Ducks had a decent cylinder head design (rather than the 2 valve hemisphericals).
Only problems I see would be a) getting them to fit b) adding water cooling to all 4 and getting them to seal on the barrels c) getting drive belts to run them and d) passing drive through one head to the other (unless JP used 4 belts?)..
Apart from that it sounds like a right easy job  ;) 8)

Would sound AMAZING Im sure

Brewsy

No drama re the engine. As I said, the reality is I’ve been very lucky that it happened when it did. I don’t like to think what it might have done at 9,700rpm at the end of the track!

The cooling is a little something I’d been working on since the original plan was made to make a 10,000 rpm efi street engine. I was told you have to have at least 12v to keep all the electrical stuff happy so wanted to run with the fan belt and a decent alternator. I obviously didn’t want the losses of running the fan on the end of the alternator shaft though.

The last time I raced at EBI this was highlighted when I struggled to get into the 11’s with the fan belt on with the old engine and ran mid 11’s when I took it off. I knew there was no way I could afford to give away 0.5 of a second and it was only going to get worse when you consider I was  planning on running with around an extra 2,000rpm!

You may know some modern cars decouple various belt driven non critical ancillaries when the ecu detects full throttle. This got me thinking if I could do this with the fan.

What I have done is not that sophisticated, but allows me to switch the cooling fan on and off when I want with a switch.

In basic terms there is an electromagnetic clutch like the ones you see on air conditioning pumps on the end of the alternator shaft that either runs the fan or lets it free spin on a bearing when it’s not required.

It all sounds simple, but it actually proved to be a serious pain in the backside to get it packaged as there is not a lot of room, but it’s great now it works. What I really wanted was something you can’t see and as no one has noticed it to date that appears to have been a success. Perhaps if I hadn’t written it here maybe no one would have noticed as the only visible clue is a wire coming out of the alternator back plate and off round the back of the fan shroud.

The problem is alternator alone costs a small fortune now (I bought mine years ago) and with the clutch on it I suspect it’s about the most expensive ACVW alternator known to man! That is nothing to be proud of, but all I can say is if there is anyone else stupid enough to want to do it good luck!

Here’s a picture. Don’t shoot me as I have already been lambasted about the alternator strap by the fashion police so holes like the old one on the 1795 engine and a ti nut and bolt are on the way and yes the nut and both will be at the bottom.

[attachment=1]

Plan C is simple new cam and pistons. The main issue being the cam as you suggest, but the cam in the motor now is the original one which we lost control of at about 8,500 rpm. We now have lighter pushrods and more spring pressure so the engine is good for 10,000 rpm with the same cam. As it turns out neither this cam or the subsequent one is quite where it needs to be, but we have now hopefully proved that the lighter pushrods and new springs have survived, which gives us a bigger safe operating window to design a cam within which is closer to optimum than either of the two we have tried to date. That said what I have come to realise is that actually getting it right where it needs to be is all but impossible. We are hopefully learning though and getting closer to the ideal cam with what we now know about the two tried to date.

I’m certainly looking forward to cam number 3 though, but don’t be surprised if there is a 4th.

Vwhelmot, no fancy valve train configuration changes coming for me.

For some inadequately explained reason I like keeping it just as VW intended with just a bit of a twist

Peter

Hi Richie,

I hope it’s not a lifter for various reasons, but not least of all as if broken bits of ceramic lifter go for a dance round your engine it makes a real mess of most of it! The single cylinder motor tells that tale unfortunately...... we’ll see, but I hope you’re wrong!

P

[attachment=1]

What’s going on in there then....

[attachment=1]

The end result

[attachment=1]

Caught up with Martin and all things NSU during the long wait in the fire up lane.

Did you get him to decide on a colour  ??? ::) ;D

Lee

Sounds like a form of torture

No wonder it broke >:(   Was thinking some more and reckon you would have seen something in valve train if lifter broke badly so maybe not that :)

Man, that fan solution is ingenious.

The clutched fan is brilliant, thought about something along those lines many times but never really figured out how to package it, great work!

Poor old Martin.... no colour, I just told him to put it together and use it! It did save me doing a Big Pete and falling asleep though, good point about the breakage though, in the absence of anyone else to blame it does make good sense to blame him!

Alex / Eddie, it’s a good solution if a bit heavy for the weight conscious. You could even use it as an F1 style overtake mode on the street if you come across a particularly troublesome ricer.

I do wonder if I might not have been better off running a bigger battery and whip the belt off at the start line and save some weight on the car and kept it in my wallet, but it’s done now.

Peter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg

What is the latest Pete? I am sure I am not alone in anticipation!! 
 :)

So it’s been a while, but the long overdue update is that the gearbox has been rebuilt and it and the rear suspension are back in the car.

2nd gear had some misplaced teeth, it needed some new dog rings, new R&P was precautionary plus some bearings and seals.

Who knows perhaps the car might even make it to the track this year.

Peter

You better make it to the track this year and give us some updates.will not be much else to do otherwise i think.

Henk!!!

What noise-cause did you find in the engine Pete?

Sorry another big gap between updates but first a trip back in time, in fact right back to the beginning for me with this car.

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So the noise was a bit of valve guide which dropped into the cylinder but not the one it came from which is a bit odd but it shows what’s possible all be it not obvious. Given it was caught quickly and not under load I got lucky with little damage. I was planning new pistons anyway and the head will repair so given how bad it sounded the outcome was not nearly as bad as it might have been.

Hope to make some more positive plans subject to what Covid 19 has to say about it.

Stay safe all. P

Hi Pete,
Hope you are well.
Glad the damage wasn’t too bad. I am guessing that’s also a very early pic of All Torque in the garage?

Lee

Your not wrong Lee. That was right towards the end of my time with the oval. I bought it in 1987-88 ish and that photo must have been around 1999. I think Matt bought it in 2000-01. Not sure where it is now, I’ve still got the original ignition key and wanted to give it to the current owner at some point, not that it will be a lot of use in the wild state it’s in now!

I assume Nick Edwards still owns it? Only remember his name as an old assistant manager of mine had the same name!

Great to see these pics of it when it was a stock 'as found' car Peter :)

I really enjoyed reading this thread Peter, thanks for taking the time to do the write up and sharing your journey. It's great to see someone thinking out of the box with these old cars and the quality of the work looks outstanding.
I hope you manage to get out this year and put some miles on it  8)

So it really has been a long time since the last update. There are plenty of dull excuses which are not interesting so here’s the next instalment of more positive news.

Quick recap.
The motor went off for a holiday in Sweden back at the end of 2019 to check out the nasty noise at the last event I did in 2019, as well as a freshen up and a few planned modifications.

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Every front room needs one.

This was timed so I could also re build the old small and damp single garage that the car had been living in for the last 20 years. With the motor away the car had a more local holiday in a mates garage, whilst the old garage was demolished and the new shiny one built.
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The building work for the garage got completed at the end of winter 2020 just in time for COVID to get in the way, but the car was back home and in the garage just before lockdown.

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Fast forward to September 2020 and the gearbox was apart to check out the noisy second gear. The problem turned out to be an obvious one.
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Following a new 2nd gear and a general freshen up and a precautionary ring and pinion the box was back in the car in January 2021.
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November 2021 Johannes had the motor unpacked and apart and found the offending bit of valve guide Sat in the cylinder which made the understandably nasty noise.

There was also a piston which had picked up and the exhaust valve keeper groves were not what you would want either.
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That meant new pistons (cylinders honed OK), valves and the new 3rd time lucky steel cam. The plan was always to change the cam and pistons, so the only extra un budgeted expense was the valves which although unwelcome was definitely a no brainer necessary expense given the hard time the valve train gets.

By the end of November 21 the heads had new inlet guides new cuts on the seats and a few more cfm which was a welcome addition so the heads are now re branded to MS260’s.
Interestingly the heads as they came off the motor still flowed 256cfm at 16mm lift 25”H2O and they are out of the box MS250’s. The new additional flow was all in the valve seats no other head work. So a bit of extra air speed too as they are today.

The new cam was designed and in production. We went for a steel cam this time in a hope there would be a bit less flex given the valve springs and work the whole system really hard.

Come Feb 22 the cam was done the case was modified with the through bolt to support the centre cam bearing the new pistons had arrived so it was just the valves left outstanding.
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The short block was together in June 22 but still no valves.
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The valves proved to be by far and away most difficult parts to source and the biggest delay which ultimately meant looking for a new supplier. Ferrea came through in the end as the best alternative and the valves eventually arrived in Sweden in August 22.
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The motor was complete by the end of August and it was time to make a plan to get to Sweden with the car to fit the motor to see what we could find.
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The stars eventually aligned and we were set for the end of October for me to make the long trek to Sweden.

The journey turned out to be about the best weather of any of the journeys to date and although the journey doesn’t get any shorter it went without a drama and I arrived in the late afternoon sunshine.

We unloaded the car and all the gear before it got dark, I had a quick peak at the motor on the stand and headed off for some food a catch up and an early night as we wanted a good early start the next day.
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All went loosely to plan and we soon had the motor in the car and we’re fitting up the ancillaries. Before long we were putting oil in the tank (most of which I managed to spill inside the car as a bit of additional rust protection), we spun for oil pressure which soon came up then put the plugs in sorted the valve clearances and put some fuel in it and primed the fuel system and we were ready to go.
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Ready to make some noise.

And...  :D

.... you know how to tease people.  ;)
once again it is excellent to read about your car and the 'journey'

Good to see it again after so long ;)

But one thing really bothers me :o  how heavy is that old dizzy? just looks so out of place :o ;D  Guessing its for cam sync? must be some lighter options out there ;)

Sensor through front of case and magnet on cam gear would be my suggestion for less weight and less friction :o  :) can lose the dizzy drive as well then.  Something for next time though.

cheers Richie

2nd crank and it was running and after a little warm up Johannes took it for a quick drive on the rollers. As ever hopeless at the links to the videos but there are some clips on Instagram but will try and get them on YouTube and put a link here.

After a few more gentle runs and cooling time it was time for a few higher rpm runs to check the fuel map which turned out to be close and only needed minor adjustment.

As the rpm crept up and the motor came alive there were a couple of runs where it spun the tires and went straight to the rev limiter. This made it sound so aggressive and it was making good power already which all looked promising. This meant a quick pause to glue the tires and strap it down a bit tighter.

It was the next pull when we hit a misfire and a strange vibration, which after a lot of chasing around and methodical checking turned out to be the spacing of the crank trigger sensor to the trigger wheel. We certainly have a bigger gap now than before but surmised that the ignition was working a bit harder with the extra cylinder pressure.

We did a lot of checking before going for another pull, but decided the vibration was nothing engine related and was just perhaps the gearbox and the solid mounting of everything.

So with everything checked and misfire cured we went back to set up and found that it preferred less ignition timing which was a good sign as we crept up the rpm range.

As I’ve said I’ll post some clips but 10,000 rpm does not get any easier to watch / hear stood at the back of the car and I think I take a step or two backwards for every 500rpm increase! Much better filming from the front of the car.

Honestly we didn’t find all we hoped for given the improvements we’d made in terms of peak power, but as ever we learned a few things along the way not least of all that there are no givens regardless of the theoretical improvements made. None the less it made more torque, more power and there is more area under the curve in the operating rpm range, so all things being equal it should be a quicker car. How much quicker if at all we’ll have to wait and see. 144hp/ litre is still a very stout little motor though so it’s all relative.


We did decide to make a racket with the stinger too just because and it did make its best numbers with this setup, but I still plan to run with the muffler in general, although I might run with the stinger just because at some points next year.

Realistically the main thing holding the car back in terms of et is getting it of the line, and to 60ft well and consistently, which remains a challenge. I’ve made a few changes to the car which I hope will helps but time will literally tell.

I’ve got various jobs to do now to get the car to a point where I can drive it on the street and a few performance related mods to make which if time permits I can try next year.

Plan D is already taking shape, as there is unfinished business here,  but as ever we need to prove what we have is reliable next year and see what the improvements made look like when I get the car to the track.

Hopefully there will be a few more frequent updates in the next 12 months, rather than the 18 month radio silence.

Peter

So the dizzy thing is a bit of a compromise, but I do like it. Realistically there is compromise all over the place with the car most of which are on the back burner. I need to get after this 10’s street car thing again, before getting carried away…

That statement pretty much sums up racing a rear engine aircooled VW based car full stop  :o :D

cheers Richie

Thanks for the update, cool reading again Peter.

So I don’t really know what I’m doing with YouTube but I have posted 3 clips of the car so hopefully you can find them and someone who knows what they are doing can post a like on here.

There is one through the muffler with a bit of roll on roll off throttle where it spins the tires when it gets on song. There is another from the back with the stinger to the 10k limiter and another from the front again to the limiter.

Enjoy the noise.

Peter

https://www.youtube.com/@petershattock

Thanks for sharing with us.

Thanks Steve, glad someone knows what they are doing…

Peter

That really is an amazing sound. I'm not sure I could be in the same building as the car with those runs going on, you must have nerves of titanium!

So as usual a longer than planned delay in this update, but as ever time has just slipped past  but there’s not been a lot of interesting things going on.

So when I got back from Sweden I had a few jobs to do, but nothing major and soon enough the car was back to a point where I could drive it on the street. The only problem was the weather although I did manage a short drive just to check all was well in a brief dry spell in the weather. I did have trouble starting the car though which was a change from the norm. Given the weather was cold and wet and there was no obvious chance to drive the car I decided to change the rubber tubes which connect the inlet manifolds and throttle bodies and organise some spacers between the two now the inlet tract length is set. As ever a simple job turned out to be a bit painful with some really poor quality hose and then some hose the wrong size, but I got there in the end when Johannes brought some with him when he came over for his tech talk at the Volksworld Show.

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Finally some dry weather arrived and I started to use the car again on the road, although starting was still a problem.
I found what I thought was a tps problem just before the volksworld show so set about changing that after the show, but no change.
Actually what I had thought was a problem turned out not to be and was only user error on my part! On the positive side I do have a spare tps in the tool box now…..

The starting issue turned out to be a simple fix as we had moved the crank sensor away from the crank trigger pulley when on the dyno to cure a misfire. Sensor back to its original position and starting returned to normal and rather strangely no obvious misfire. From a few cold start checks I positioned the sensor as far from the trigger wheel as possible without starting issues in a hope that the misfire that triggered the change would also stay away.

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Doing a bit more street driving it was fairly obvious the low speed street running with light throttle was a bit off and needs a bit of dyno / street driving time to sort. Given the clock was ticking to the Doorslammers event which I entered having missed the first Outlaw round I decided to tow the car there rather than drive it given the light throttle running issues which is exactly what it gets for the 2 hour drive to the track and no time to sort it as this was just before the event.

So after a 3 year absence from racing I found myself walking round the garage early on Friday morning wondering what I needed to take which felt quite strange after all this time.

Setting off to the track towing the car is never what I want to be doing, but it did feel like the right thing to be doing as I hadn’t done anything like the usual mileage I do in the car having changed a load of stuff, and given the low speed running issues it turned out to be an easy choice.

Once at the track I unpacked the car and the very first job was to fit the oil catch tray and I realised I’d forgotten a block of wood I use on the jack. No big issue but I think I need a list. So once the car was checked over I was ready to run for the first time since the same event 3 years earlier.

Dave Dinning was there at the weekend to keep an eye on what was going on outside the car, so we headed down to the staging lanes to see what does.

I did a little burnout to clean the tires off staged and off it went, well nearly. The clutch did something a bit odd so I shut off and then went again and then it did actually go. This all resulted in a 12.** et but as it turned out it went well in terms of top end speed at over 120mph. In fairness unusually for Santa Pod there was a tail wind which no doubt helped.

Back in the pits there turned out to be two problems both clutch related. If you have followed this thread for a while you will know clutch issues are a common theme and the phrase clutchgate has been used more than once in my ramblings. Fortunately this version was not as problematic as it has been in the past. The first very simple issue was the cotter pin on the rod, which actuates the master cylinder was loose so the simplest of fixes. The second was either a dodgy solenoid valve or proportioning valve. After a bit of head scratching with Dave and taking various hoses off the valve and solenoid we discovered it was the valve which was not holding pressure. As I had no spare we parked the idea of using the valve and decided to use left foot clutch management instead.

By the time we had all this sorted the track was closed, but we were all set for the morning.

The left foot clutch management actually proved to be reasonably successful all be it leaving on time was not my strong point with letting the clutch up slowly with my foot. To be fair I was never going to be competitive at this event in a 4 cylinder class with predominantly 9 second cars quite a few 8 second cars and two 7 second cars. So this was very much a test weekend for me.

Having warmed the car up and checked the clutch we were all set and on the way back to the staging lanes. Quick burn out and an uneventful run.

That said the car pulled a bigger wheelie than it has for years, which in fairness did surprise me. Dave and Ian claimed that I lifted, I’m claiming it bogged the motor. As luck would have it something went wrong with the data logging and the run was never recorded so there is no evidence either way and I’m sticking with my story.

The uneventful run turned out to be quick as they often do. With the car set up for the street (fan belt, muffler and street tires) it ran a new PB of 11.01 at 122mph. Needless to say that was great news and oh so close to the 10 I’ve been chasing. Needless to say this fuelled discussions of me lifting and the car being up for a 10, but the driver not so. Once my light weight driver skills had been fully debated we got the car ready for another run.

This time the plan was no burnout and to just drive around the water as the track was in really good shape and obviously the motor bogged last time and we would be back out at the hottest part of the day.

This resulted in another uneventful, but quick run. This time though not only was it a new street car set up PB, it was also the quickest the car has ever been with a 10.90 at 123mph and only the second time the car has run a 10 and previously that was with slicks, stinger and no cooling on the car.

This was a bit of a moment for me, the car and all the people who have helped to get me and the car to this point as this is the 10 second dream I’ve been chasing with this set up for about 10 years now.

The only problem is I didn’t drive it to and from the track so there is still a couple of boxes to tick, but it’s good to know the car is in the ballpark performance wise.

I did another run later in the afternoon, but the track was not as grippy and we got the setup wrong, but still ran a scruffy 11.06 at 122mph so fairly consistent all day.

What was also consistent was some fairly awful 60ft times with a 1.62 best for the 10.90 and a 1.73 worst for the 11.06.

I was really happy that evening when my head hit the pillow, but it all went down hill rapidly on Sunday morning. On the first run in eliminations, just after leaving the line I broke the driver’s side axle. I managed to limp to the end of the track just in case there was a chance of getting a bye and making the next round as Jonny in the other lane really broke. Unfortunately it was a no go and that was the end of the weekend for me.

As much as I would rather have brought the car home in one bit and it feels odd to say but I really wasn’t disappointed with the weekend given what the car did on Saturday.

So with the car back home in the garage, I need to sort some axles and hopefully get the car back in one bit in time for Bugjam.
 
Veedub racing has the 3 runs on YouTube which hopefully you’ll see here. https://youtu.be/n_AxuqX4Fig

Glad the excess of cake didn't slow you down  ;D

cheers Richie

It did on the way home as I might have said I’d take a few bits for the family, not all of which made it all the way home. I’ve got a while to get back down to race weight though whilst I get the car fixed.

So ‘just enough’ was just enough in the end.

I did miss the car. but jealous, yes jealous, about what you and Johannes, and all the people involved really, are doing. take care!

So I’ve just read my last post to see where I left off and I see that I had some misguided idea that I might have been back out in the summer of last year. Needless to say that didn’t happen. I actually didn’t drive the car again until Good Friday this year. I did run the car before then, but the maiden voyage in 2024 was a quick run down the road to a local car show at a mates garage. The car ran ok, but still had the light throttle running issues it had last year so not the most enjoyable drive ever, but it was good to get out in the car again and see a few people I’d not seen in a while and talk car stuff.

With the car back in the garage I had a few small jobs to do and to sort the low speed running. I thought the latter might have been an issue with the new TPS so I decided to swap back to the old one as it was a possible variable from the previous starting issues it had and I was not sure that I hadn’t inadvertently created this new issue. This involved a bit of faffing about extending wires and finding and fitting a new connector so that the two sensors shared the same type of plug and are easily interchangeable. As it turned out it made no difference, but on the bright side it means I have a spare TPS in the toolbox.

I spoke to Johannes and he suggested trimming the overall fuel map as a quick check. As the stumble is just off tickover it’s easily detected with the car just sat at idle. So I added 5% and it was no better and if anything maybe slightly worse. On this basis I decided to take 5% fuel out from the original position and it was better. Not perfect, but certainly better. I took the car for a drive to check the air fuel on the data log which looked OK and sent the logs to Johannes to be sure he was happy. We agreed that assuming it was just light throttle which it is for general road driving it was fine.
This conversation was the morning of my drive to the track for my first race of the year.

So with that sorted I set about packing the car. It was nearly 12 months ago when I did this last and I really should have a list as I always manage to forget something. I got what I thought was the necessary tools, spares, fuel, oil, clothing, helmet, race suit, sleeping bag, pillow, a drink and a bit of food in the car for the weekend and set off.
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The car was fine on the journey and I played the usual oil temp / oil pressure / speed comparison game whilst messing about with the fans on the cooler to see what difference they make. Temps weren’t a problem as it was a cold day so 55-60mph was just over 40psi oil pressure with oil temp at 90 degrees C. The drive was uneventful, but for a bit of rain, traffic and a diversion due to a road closure. The journey was consequently a bit longer than usual, but about 2 and a half hours after leaving home I arrived. I was glad to get out of the car, but not for long as it was really cold. I caught up with those already there and got myself signed in. I’d arrived before Alex who was providing somewhere for the car and I to sleep for the weekend, but Alex soon arrived and we got set up, unpacked the car, had some food and got our heads down for the night. The first run was not scheduled until lunchtime so we had a leisurely start and had plenty of time to get the car to tech inspection. The car was all good, but I was told I needed some new race boots. Fortunately Alex had his in the camper which I borrowed for the weekend (thanks Alex). It was a bit of a clown shoes job as he has bigger feet than me but it was all fine.
Ian, Dave and Lee arrived in the morning so we had a good crew of eyes ears and experience to try and keep me and the car on the straight and narrow for the weekend.
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I put some fuel in it and warmed the car up about an hour before we were due to run. It really was cold still so it certainly needed it.

The first run was a bit odd in that I got round to the burnout box tried to spin the tires but spun the clutch instead. There was a bit of smoke in the car, but definitely not tire smoke as planned. I put it back in 1st and it pulled away, so I tried a quick spin of the tires and the clutch gripped. With nothing to loose I pulled up to the start line and ran a nice opener of 11.03 @ 120mph. After the run I was a bit confused about what had happened as the clutch felt fine up to the line and on the launch. I drove back to the pits with no issue with the clutch and I did a bit of unnecessary start stop and gear changing using the clutch. Back in the pits there was nothing visually to indicate any sort of issue and the data confirmed the clutch held and if anything didn’t slip enough off the start line so all very confusing.
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I decided to run again and see what happened. We pushed the car down fire up lanes and when it was our turn I fired it up, selected 1st and tried to pull away, but there was an unusual momentary pause a bit of the thud and then the car pulled away. All a bit alarming. I dipped and released the clutch again and it was fine. I did this several times and again all fine, usual feel bite point etc. So just like the first run I decided I had nothing to loose so I did a little 1st gear spin of the tires and rolled up to the start line. The car left the line in an unusually scrappy manor pulled right, not drastically but it was all a bit messy. Otherwise the run was uneventful. I was not a happy bunny though as I’d not controlled the launch well either. I got back to the pits and had the hump as it felt like a wasted run until Alex rocked up and said it was a 10. That didn’t compute at first and I thought he was winding me up, but I could see in his face he was serious so all of a sudden the world was much better place.
The timing ticket confirmed it was a 10 all be it only just with a 10.99 at 121mph. So smiles all round.
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Anyone who has followed this thread will know this has been a long time coming as it was way back in 2011 when I first got after the idea of a 10 second 1776 na street car. Whilst the car did run a 10 in 2015 when it was first out with the 94x64 1776 that was on slicks, with a stinger and no cooling. There have been various issues between then and now which have slowed progress, but it was not until 2023 that I ran another 10. The delay was in part due to me wanting to get the car to a point where I could drive it to the track and most importantly run a 10 on street tires, with the cooling and fan belt on and through the muffler, basically in the same state as when I drive in the gate to the event. The only compromise I make is fuel. Whist I run the car on the street on super unleaded I’m a bit cautious running it all out on the track without a bit more octane to make sure I keep things safe. So wanting to run a 10 and just rock up at the track unpack the car adjust the tire pressures and put some fancy fuel in it proved to be a bit more difficult than I had first thought. Even the 10 in 2023 although through the muffler, fan belt on and on street tires was good, the problem was I didn’t drive it to and from the track.

So this was the 10 I’d been chasing all be it to complete the job I needed to drive the car home.
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Looking at the data it was clear that the clutch slipped a bit after initial engagement as it kept the rpm up at around 7,000 which is better than normal. There was clearly something not quite right with the clutch though. It was one of those fellings when you know there is something not quite right, but I really had no idea what it might be. After a bit of thought and a cup of tea I decided to take it for a drive as I was planning to get the car weighed anyway so jumped into the car and fired it up but it was running on 3. This again was really odd as it had just run a 10 and I’d driven it back to the pits after the run and it had been running fine.

So I started with the plug leads as I had an issue with a lead coming off the coil before, but they were all connected. However number 4 felt slightly odd so I pulled it off to check it. It turned out the 90 degree connector in the boot had broken off and half of it was left on the coil and half of it was still attached to the lead.

When this happened, how it happened I’ve no idea, but needless to say I needed to fix it. I do carry a few connectors but they were all the plug end variety not the coil end type I needed. I run a Ford Zetec coil pack and they have a smaller diameter connector. No one else in the pits had one of but one of the guys who runs in Competition Eliminator recognised the connector type and mentioned that there was a Ford Focus round at the other side of the track that the monster trucks were due to run over the following day. We needed some food so we’re heading over that way anyway and sure enough when we got there there were actually two Ford Focus’s to pick from. We asked the Monster Truck guys to see if we could nick a plug lead to which they said ‘no problem help yourselves’. A few minutes later we were wandering off to find some food with 8 plug leads, which needless to say was a right result.
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That evening I cut off the boot and unpicked a connector and fitted it on my existing one so we were hopefully good to go in the morning.
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I fitted up the lead fired the car up but it was still on 3 cylinders and you could see some unbury fuel tripping from the exhaust joint of number 4 which was the cylinder with the lead issue. The assumption at this point was that it had killed the plug. I switched the car off and checked to see I’d not missed anything else. Nothing obvious found, but having checked everything and reset the TPS I started the car again and it was back to 4 cylinders. I do wonder if it was a bit of heat which recovered the plug but can’t be certain. I took it for a quick drive to check and to try and weigh the car. The drive was fine, but they were not weighing cars when I was there so it was back to the pits but happily with car on 4 cylinders.

There was due to be a bit of sketchy weather Saturday with some on and off rain, but the forecast for Sunday was really wet so I decided to call it a day and pack up and head home. The only reason I was at the track this weekend was to drive the car there run a 10 and drive it home. With two of the three aims completed I was thinking more about driving home than another run particularly given the clutch issues I’d experienced and not actually diagnosed or fixed.

Decision made I packed everything back in the car had some lunch with the guys before heading home.
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The drive back was all good but for the rain for the last 45 minutes and it really did rain but the car was all good and pulling back onto the driveway at home this time really was a big deal as this plan to run a 10 in a n/a 1776 street car took some doing.
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Having arrived home a day early I decided to get the motor out of the car the following day to check the clutch. It looks like the pressure plate has gone south not entirely sure why yet, but I’m working on that and have a plan to be out again at the end of July with a happy clutch and another change which I hope will help improve the cars performance a bit too.
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That’s about it. I’ll get some videos up on Instagram and try and remember how to put a link up here.

The moment I pulled onto the drive at home job done!

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Super Super Cool!  Well done Peter!

What a great story to wake up to  ;D
well done
what clutch are you using at the moment?

Thanks both it was a really good weekend.

Clutch is a Kennedy stage 1 180mm pressure plate with a black magic disc.

This has been the best solution to date for what I’m doing and will be what I’m sticking with for now. I have a garage night tomorrow night so hope to have a plan if it’s not fixed.

Great story and thanks to take the time to write it up  :)

The next challenge ought to be figuring out a way to get heater boxes to work on it, so you'll have your 10 second driver and be comfortable too!

Seriously though, this car's such a masterpiece, congrats on finally getting to your goal!

Always a good read,
Thanks for sharing.

Time for another out of date update.

The clutch drama which stopped the fun last time at the track turned out to be the shoe coming loose in the cover. All 3 of the rivits which connect the shoe to the cover via the sprung steel straps were loose at the cover end. One was particularly loose and I’m not sure how much longer it would have taken to break altogether. All things considered when I had it apart on the bench I felt very lucky that I stoped when I did and got to drive it home and get the job done.[attachment=1] you can’t see much but the heat colouring tells you all you need to know.
[attachment=2] you can see here the slot the spring steel strap was making in the shoe as it moved.

As fixes go though it was a simple one so I ordered some new pressure plates and centres from Kennedy to get balanced. All I had to do was wait for the bits.
Given all the issues I have had getting the car off the line over the years, I had decided to add some weight to the pulley end of the crank to add some inertia to the motor to see if it would help. Given the motor is built I decided to use a damper pulley to save balancing issues that I would have had with adding a new billet pulley. The previous pulley weight was about 1.5kg all up and this new one would add around 3.5kg. Those of you that have read these ramblings previously will know adding weight to the car is generally not my thing, particularly when it’s right at the very back of the car, but there are exceptions and this is one of them.
I did some research and settled on the ATI damper pulley as its SFI approved (not all are). Unsurprisingly they don’t make one for an ACVW so I knew I would need to make a new hub. The hub that came with the pulley which is for a SB Chevy provided the dimensions for the pulley mount part of the hub. The remainder to fit the hub to the crank and allow for the crank trigger wheel and v belt grove for the fan belt was basically all as it was before. Martin Taylor from Taylor Machine made the original pulleys and still had the details on CAD to re draw the new hub required to fit the damper pulley and Martin was happy to make the new hub. As you would expect the whole thing sits further out from the back of the motor and is a bigger diameter so there was a chance of a clash with the oil pump and tinware but whilst it looked close it looked like it would fit or worst case would fit with some minor modification of the rear tin.
I hadn’t appreciated that I would need to fit the fan belt on the pulley before fitting it to the motor not that it’s a drama unless you forget to fit it or if you break the belt as there is not sufficient room between the oil pump and the now bigger diameter pulley to fit it after the event.
Martin made the new hub and delivered it in time for Bugjam so I was good to go. The tinware fitted without modification too so that was a result.
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The only other drama I discovered after the last race was that the rivits which hold the rebuildable rear silencer together were lose so I drilled them out with a view to checking and rebuilding the silencer. It turned out that the perforated pipe in the centre had collapsed. I knew I was risking it when it was made as the whole silencer is aluminium and whilst the the really rather lovely looking bit of aluminium tube that I had perforated on a CNC machine did look amazing and save weight I think it’s fair to say that I was risking the possible issues with heat and that proved to be the case. With the silencer apart the perforated pipe has collapsed and separated along its length. I don’t know when it collapsed, but I suspect it would have been fairly early on. [attachment=1]
As I’ve been racing recently with the silencer I think it’s fair to say it would not have helped the cars performance. I didn’t get the silencer fixed in time as it’s rather more difficult than you might imagine being a one off part. It will be back but with a stainless steel perforated pipe this time. This meant I ended up trailering the car to Bugjam which was not the original plan, but without a silencer I had no choice. This also meant I’d be running with the stinger which I’d not done for a few years.

On the basis of potentially having a bit more power and some more weight on the crank I was feeling quite optimistic that I’d done a couple of good things to make it worth going back to the track to see what difference they made.
I packed the night before the race which is a 3 day weekend so was planning on heading off early to get set up and to be able to check everything was OK and get a run or two in to blow out the cobwebs on day 1. I met up with Dave and Lee on the way and got to the track in good time and soon got set up and met up with everyone there in the Outlaw pits.
I had a small list of jobs to do with the car which I went through and got signed in.
I always hate the first run as it all feels so awkward until I’ve got one done particularly as I hadn’t driven the car to the track this time.
So I got down to the line did a quick burnout, got up to the line and did a bit of a scruffy run, but as I shut off the car filled with smoke no nasty noises (that I heard) but I dipped the clutch as soon as I could and switched it off and coasted off the track. It was obviously oil smoke and not just a little bit of it either. I got out to take a look and there was oil on top of the engine and a decent size hole in the top of the crankcase! Needless to say that was not a welcome sight which obviously brought the weekend to and end before it really got going.
Once we had the car back in the pits the case had stoped venting oil smoke. The hole in the case was just over number 4 rod and I’d assumed it would have been number 4 rod having let go, but it was visibly still there and complete when I could see in the case. I dropped the oil which was carrying various bits of nasty looking metal. Rocker covers off and the 3 and 4 side looked normal but on the 1 and 2 side the number 2 inlet rocker was broken. Although the valve looked broadly straight or at least not really bent and the pushrod was straight too.
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[attachment=2] fixed it amazing what a bit roll can do.

At this point I decided it was time to sit down have a beer and have a think and chat things through with Dave and Lee.
It was a easy choice in the end as I knew I was not going to be able to enjoy the rest of the weekend at the track so I decided to pack up and get the car home and get the motor out for a better look.
The only obvious positive at this point was that I hadn’t driven to the track so had an easy way to get the car home. I decided to pack up that evening as I wanted to make the most of the time over the weekend to get the motor out of the car.
Back home with the motor on the stand it was a bit of a horror show with the motor upside down and the sump plate off the number 2 rod had completely disintegrated and unfortunately I’d also broken a part of the head of on of the ceramic followers. I took the 1 and 2 head off which happily looked broadly OK and the number 2 piston was complete and still moved in the bore.
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Explicit photo warning!
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I’ve had a more somber catch up than normal with Johannes to talk about what happened, but realistically I just need to crate up the motor and post it to Sweden and book some flights to get over there and take the motor apart and have a proper look and assess the damage and make a plan.

I know I’m hardly a regular contributor here anyway, but I think it would be fair to say there could be a bit of a break in the updates.

Peter

That looks horrible, hope it’s not as bad it looks.

that is a big sacrifice to the gods of speed  :-[
I look forward to seeing the next iteration as you motor, car and you are a real inspiration to me and I'm sure, many others
Have you got any thoughts at this stage what caused the carnage?

damn... I feel for you. that isn't exactly what I was hoping to see in this update. I hope you ship it as quickly as possible to not rethink this twice and get on with it it. all the best and hopefully not too many more setbacks and broken parts will be found upon disassembly.

I like the positive responses, but I think realistically the damage will be bad, but if you play with fire for long enough you are bound to get burnt at some point. I have obviously wondered what it was that caused the problem which resulted in the failure, but there is no point in trying to guess as with the visible carnage I think it will be difficult to be certain.

My plan is to get the motor and myself to Sweden before the end of the year and perhaps in time to get some bits on my Christmas list.

That said perhaps we’ll just have a few beers and build ginger bread houses instead…..

Ugggh.  Sorry to see that Peter.  D.C.

A few beers and building some gingerbread houses over in Sweden sounds like a good way to sort out what the next iteration of the fastest beetle in the village will have motivating it... Sorry for all the struggles with it over the years, but I can say with some degree of certainty that myself and the other Loungers will absolutely be awaiting the next bit of lunacy you and Johannes cook up.

 :'( Sorry to see that mess. One of my favorite car. I think you and Johannes are going to get this sorted so we once again can hear it scream down the track with the cool gear changages

You don´t drink beer when building ginger bread houses, you drink Glögg! (https://i0.wp.com/helenalyth.se/app/uploads/sites/18/2024/09/01_Blossa_24.jpg?resize=683%2C1024&ssl=1)