Small powerhouses and old school

[67nos48ida]

I was active in the Cal-Look seen in the mid to late 70ty's. At that time had a 1750 too. lots of head work, and with a FK89. Transmission somewhat total different that is where most of my money went. Lets just say on the freeway, in the slow lane I would be doing 45 miles an hour. We wont talk about RPM's either But also I ran a little additive to help me down the 1/4 and  behind Nabisco's. My car was 19967 Black VW (old school) and hung out with DKK which I was a member of. But to this day I will still build another 1750.(almost the same thing I had as I had back in the day) Track time at OCIR without help12.90, and with help12.10. The unit that I was using was installed my Miller Brother's.

****I am trying to get in touch with Bill S. from DKK, since I don't live in California any longer.*****
       Phone or cell? email address?

Thank you.

[Neil Davies]

Welcome to the Lounge! There are lots of Deeks on here, including Schwimmer, so if you post in the main Cal Look section you'll probably get a response pretty quickly - I don't know how often he checks the Pure Racing section!
Neil

[Peter Shattock]

Hi Peter,

It sounds great.  I am assuming that with the dog-box you are not using the clutch to upshift.  If that's the case what are you using to kill the engine temporarily?  The shifts sound too quick to just be "bliping" the throttle while you yank it into gear.

As you suggest no clutch to shift up, or down actually just a blip on the way down to release the gear. I was lifting slightly originally on the way up the box, but to be honest my brain did not cope particularly well with the coordination and I kept making a mess of it, so I ended up keeping my foot in and just giving the lever a good tug. It shifted as you can hear on the clip from Alex. I spoke to Hewland about the possibility of this beforehand and have since and they suggested as long as the gear releases and you are quick then you will be OK. I got the impression this was particularly so in my case as my car is not heavy and has relatively little torque or horsepower, relative to what many modern Hewland boxes are designed for.

I'll have the box apart at the end of the year assuming it stays in one bit till then and see how it looks, but as the upshifts sound crisp and the gears release easily and there are no nasty engagement noises, fingers crossed it will be OK.

I'm going to MOT the car tomorrow and assuming it passes I can start getting some street miles on it, so hopefully I can get the hang of driving it before EBI in a couple of weeks.

Peter   

[benlawrence]

Peter, thats such an incredible car, i remember years back when you bought the engine from ian how well it went, youve come a long way.. differently, absolutely incredible.

[Peter Shattock]

Peter, thats such an incredible car, i remember years back when you bought the engine from ian how well it went, youve come a long way.. differently, absolutely incredible.

Hi Ben,

Thanks to a lot of help from Ian (WPS) and Peter (Cogbox) for the best part of 10 years the car came a long way with us collectively making small incremental improvements which eventually resulted an the car running regular high 11's street driven and reliable as you like. I can say there is a lot to be said for staying with a combination and developing it! I learnt a lot, and had a great fun along the way.

Things have moved on a bit with the car in general, but Peter and Ian have continued to help and be involved along with many other friends I've made along the way.

The car passed its MOT today so had my first drive on the road since New Years Day 2011. I know I've said this before, but my good it feels fast on the road when you have been used to a diesel polo for 2 and a bit years!

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it, but I've been driving around this morning just trying to find an excuse to change gear! The acceleration and noise and generally feeling is just fantastic! A hot VW on the street really is such great fun.......

The good news the back of the car feels really planted and a big improvement over the way it felt previously on the road. That said I've not been going too quickly as yet, so its still a bit early to tell but it certainly feels promising.

One other interesting thing. I'm currently running the car without an external oil cooler or the standard one on the block and it still took at least 20 minutes of driving to get the oil temperature over 80 degrees which was a big surprise. I have the external cooler pre fitted in a new location due to the suspension mods and just need to make up some new oil lines but I knew my initial journeys would be just a few short local runs I didn't bother thinking I could just keep an eye on the oil temp. As it turns out I could go far further than I thought, but to be fair it was a regular traffic low speed so that does go some way to explaining it. That and the fact even thought its nearly the longest day of the year here in the UK it was only about 15 degrees!

I've a bunch of must do jobs before EBI, and a few which might have to wait as I'm leaving here a week this Thursday which means I only have two nights in the garage between now and then. I had hoped to drive the car there, but its looking less likely now, I'll see how I get on with the must do jobs.

Peter       

[Lee.C]

I can't wait to check it out in more detail dude - That is one amazing car/engine/gearbox 

[richie]

I've a bunch of must do jobs before EBI, and a few which might have to wait as I'm leaving here a week this Thursday

Peter       

You could build a complete car in that time   Now stop messing around on the internet and into the garage



cheers Richie

[spanners]

Nice work Peter, very clever rear wishbone lay out adapted to the exsisting, that maywell  be legal for circuit racing, all it says in my regs is,,  ' the original pickup points must be retained',  well mine are in the tool box, just in case i get pulled.  Beetle drivers get an easy ride,,
untill you start winning... then the bichin starts..love the trans' choice as well,  i could use a 6 speed, something like that alone would be worth 1/2 a second a mile on the circuits. well done sir..

[slowlearner]

First time poster...

I remember coming across this thread and Johannes 1603 a few years back and being transfixed by the idea alone. Of course the engine itself is more amazing. I've got some 'out of the box' plans for a mini-mouse motor of sorts. I swapped my subaru powered dunebuggy for this oval last year...



Nice original paint (mostly) car. Came with a Judsoned 40hp. Cool setup except, it wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding and I am really beginning to miss autokhanas I used to do. I live in Australia. It is a great place to find rust free cars, but an awful place to get modified cars approved. I was up for building a blown 1600 for the car when it was made clear to me that swapping to front discs would involve thousands of dollars of brake testing and certificates. Dumb, but they're the facts. We don't have the dollars or room for tow cars or trailers. So, I need to keep registration and stay within capacity limits. Which means a supercharged 1300. Still figuring the details out, but I'll be taking plenty of cues from this thread. Low budget, thinking outside the box, etc.

[modnrod]

Morning Mr Slow! 

I too live in our great red land, in a state that also has a disease called "Tech Inspector Apoplexy". I have had a 1641 with Solex and modded stock exhaust running mid-15s, lots of others here have run mid-14s all day with a stock-looking centre carb set-up (hide them under a factory air cleaner assembly), and I have heard of a guy in the US, who is my undoubted hero even though I don't know his name, who has achieved low-13s out of a 1584 with single Solex! 
Now even though that's 2 seconds slower than Johannes twin-IDA'd motorbike motor, it won't even cause a second glance at a roadside inspection by one of our red dust covered finest...........

Great ride by the way! Cool as.

[slowlearner]

Hey modnrod, yeah I've heard about WA from guys building buggies. 

This circled word on my tech inspection sheet opens up a few legal options others don't have...

[modnrod]

Hehehehe!
It's all good man! 

[Peter Shattock]

Well after what seamed to be a long break in the calendar before Ebi, it came and went in a flash.
I had a list of jobs to do after UKDD, which just about got done in time, but I only just got the car MOT'd before leaving for EBI. So with basically no street miles I decided not to drive the car to the track, which was a bit of a disappointment as I had hoped to drive.
There was no running on Friday due to the track not being safe / dry following a lot of rain the day before but it was good to have a look round the pits and catch up with people.
The track opened on Saturday and stayed that way for the rest of the weekend, but was single lane only and 1/8th mile initially on Sat again for safety reasons.
It was a shame there were no side by side passes, for the crowd, but I don't think they were too disappointed judging by the number of people watching.
I ran the first run with clutched gear changes just to get back into the swing of it and all felt good then shifted without the clutch for the rest of the weekend. I'm getting the hang of the shifting now and the good news is both the suspension and gearbox have been reliable to date.
Unfortunately the oil leak issue I thought I had resolved was still a problem but the plan B parts I had with me fixed it. That said it turns out that in fixing one issue I'd made another which resulted in a temporary fix at the track which needs a proper fix now the car is home again.
Nothing spectacular to report in terms of the times but I was pleased to get into the 11's (11.89)on the street tires on a road based track.
Hopefully I can now get some street miles on the car and get back to driving to the track. That said next race is Bugjam which is only in a few weeks, so I better pull my finger out!
There are a couple of short film clips on the EBI video thread in happenings if you're interested, thanks to Jo, Ian / Mav. You can hear the ratios are all wrong but 1st to 4th should give you and idea of what 5th and 6th will sound like next year.

Peter

[Peter Shattock]

Quote

One other interesting thing. I'm currently running the car without an external oil cooler or the standard one on the block and it still took at least 20 minutes of driving to get the oil temperature over 80 degrees which was a big surprise. I have the external cooler pre fitted in a new location due to the suspension mods and just need to make up some new oil lines but I knew my initial journeys would be just a few short local runs I didn't bother thinking I could just keep an eye on the oil temp. As it turns out I could go far further than I thought, but to be fair it was a regular traffic low speed so that does go some way to explaining it. That and the fact even thought its nearly the longest day of the year here in the UK it was only about 15 degrees!

Well the car is back in one piece again after a few fixes and upgrades and took it for a drive on Sunday afternoon as is was about 30 degrees so I thought it would be a good hot running test with the oil cooler in its new location and to see if I can leave the deck lid closed as I never really liked the look of the standoffs.
The oil cooler is now where the torsion housing used to be as I figured getting the weight further forward would be a good thing and if all we under and about air running of the back of the floor pans and into the area under the boot floor it should not be too bad. That said its closer than ideal to the underside of the boot floor directly above where the torsion housing normally sits.
The car got up to 90 degrees with about 10 minutes running in traffic and a couple of short runs at 60mph on some open roads. A short blast later and the temp was just over 90 and it then stayed between 90 and 95 with similar traffic and open road driving. Oil pressure was still good at this point around 40psi at 4000rpm. I then switched the fans on at 95 which dropped the temp to 85 in about 1-2 mins. I left the fans on and the temp stuck at 85 or there abouts for the rest of the journey.
When I got home I left the car on tick over with the fans on and with the low rpm the oil temp dropped to 80 degrees.
So it looks like I still have some good temp control for the longer journeys to the track as it’s unlikely to get significantly hotter over here.
As before the oil pressure and oil temp were quite closely linked with a 10 degree increase in oil temp resulting in approximately a 10 psi drop in oil pressure, perhaps slightly less if anything.
All this with the deck lid closed, but I might nick one of my son’s tennis balls to open the bottom of the lid just to give a bit more air to the engine and see if it makes any significant difference to the temps for the drive to the track on Friday as it looks like it’s still going to be hot still.
More street miles on Wednesday just because I can!
Peter

[Shane Noone]

Hi Peter,

Very Interesting reading and real life tech feedback, as I also drive my racecar out and about and to the track and back. ( Just raced at Dragstalgia after driving there and back in those same 30 degree temps ). My 2332 Comp Eliminator motor was sat around 100 degrees C Oil Temps measured in sump via VDO dipstick sender on the road jouney. My cooling is stock doghouse plus 19 row Mocal and Kenlowe fan. I had the fan on the whole journey. When I got home with the motor idling on my driveway and the fan running it did pull down to 95 quite quickly and I expect would drop to 90 if I waited. ( I have seen the fan drop the oil temp by up to 10 degrees C previously but on cooler days ).

Your setup is running nice cooler oil temps. I can't remember do you have the MS230 heads on your mouse ? What's you Compression Ratio set to ? ( am assuming as road car your using some 99 RON pump fuel ).

Have you got any pics of your remote cooler location you can share on here ? I did have a quick look under your car at DD but can't remember.

Thanks,

Shane.

[Peter Shattock]

Hi Shane,
Good to hear you're another one who driving your car on the road and to the track, and with any luck home again!
I run modified std heads so plenty of fin area to help with keeping the heads cool, a CSP non dog house fan shroud with a wide fan and a power pulley. My oil temp sender is also in the sump. CR is 12.7:1 and it runs on Shell 99 pump gas.
I'm sure I have a picture of the cooler some where but I'm hopeless at all the resizing and all that to post them. I'll have a go at some point, but basically its in the std torsion housing location.

Peter

[Shane Noone]

Hi Shane,
Good to hear you're another one who driving your car on the road and to the track, and with any luck home again!
I run modified std heads so plenty of fin area to help with keeping the heads cool, a CSP non dog house fan shroud with a wide fan and a power pulley. My oil temp sender is also in the sump. CR is 12.7:1 and it runs on Shell 99 pump gas.
I'm sure I have a picture of the cooler some where but I'm hopeless at all the resizing and all that to post them. I'll have a go at some point, but basically its in the std torsion housing location.

Peter

Morning Peter,

Yep, there's not too many of us left that still do that ! 

Ah ok, yes the extra cooling ability of a stock style head on a street driven motor. Wise choice ! Are you running any additives like anti-det stuff when racing on pump 99 with that kind of compression ratio ?? And you just cruise around the streets  presumably at low speed RPM's where the effective CR is much lower due to cam bleed off on plain 99 without any signs of detonation.....?

Ok no worries about uploading pics etc - I'm pretty useless at that stuff myself  Just wondered if your cooler was flat or upright in location and whether you were forcing air through it with some sort of ducting or just relied on an electric fan to push / pull air through the cooler as and when you switched it on etc......

Cheers Shane

Ps when / where are you next planning to race as if I can make it I'll come take a fresh look and say hello.

[Peter Shattock]

Hi Shane,

No det issues, but as you say the cam has big duration so at low rpm it makes very little dynamic CR so not much heat. Not had to use an octane booster but I do have a bottle just in case....

Open road speed is slow though 4000rpm is about 60mph but temps are well under control then. I like to keep them as low as poss within reason (80-90 degrees), so engine expansion is kept in check so that the oil pressure stays good with nice tolerances for the bearings and lifter bores.

Next outing with the car is this weekend at Bugjam.

If you can face the mayhem that is Bugjam drop by.

Peter

[Lee.C]

Hmmmm interesting reading on the fuel/CR/det etc

I know there are ALOT of other factors to consider but I was worring about 11.8:1 

[1946vw]

9.04 143.10 with a 1668cc engine G/D

[Neil Davies]

9.04 143.10 with a 1668cc engine G/D

Amazing, well done! I'd love to see your engine matched up to Peter Shattock's gearbox - I'd imagine it would sound like a swarm of angry wasps with chainsaws!

[Peter Shattock]

Neil, I think you'll find Brian has a gearbox well suited to his dragster and engine to run that sort of number.

Very impressive Brian which motor was this?

A new PB I assume, did it get you a record back too?

Less is more!

Peter

[speedwell]

Neil, I think you'll find Brian has a gearbox well suited to his dragster and engine to run that sort of number.

Very impressive Brian which motor was this?

A new PB I assume, did it get you a record back too?

Less is more!

Peter

peter there's a tread about brian's engine here

[Peter Shattock]

Well this is my last update again for a while following the race last weekend at Bugjam, as I’ve decided to make an early start to my planned winter updates, in a hope I can avoid a last minute rush next year
I’m glad to say Bugjam was far better than I had expected as an event. It’s been a few years since I was there last and the way they have set up the racers pit meant there were only people interested that bothered to walk in which was good. I’m sure there were plenty of revellers there but they didn’t make it to the racers pits. To the credit of the Santa Pod staff it was all very well organised and all in all an enjoyable weekend.
I finally got to drive the car to the track again which was the first long drive I had time for with previous longest runs being  only around 30-35 minutes. I just bumbled along for the 2 ½ hours it took to get to the track from home.  At about 55mph oil temps were just over 90 degrees with the fans off and the deck lid closed. Fans on they got down to below 75 degrees and as before the oil pressure increased over 10 psi in this temp range.
The first long run with the gear box revealed it shifts quicker with warm oil (no great surprise) which is now on the list of jobs to contemplate for the future.
Friday was a day of bracket racing for me with a string of 11.5* second runs, but the clutch was marginal on a good track after a couple of runs and that familiar clutch aroma filled the garage after each run. On Saturday this resulted in me trying to get the car off the line without a burnout or even a tire scrub the latter was what I was doing on Friday. This worked remarkably well and I actually managed to run a couple of 11.4*’s just to break the monotony of the 5*’s. I went backwards on Sunday with 2 11.6*’s, but I managed to get back to the 4*’s for the first round of eliminations but got beaten by JG (again). The highlight at the track was a 117mph run which is my best terminal speed, but I think this was mainly due to a healthy tail wind rather than anything either the car or I did.
Having packed everything back in the car again the drive home was great on a nice warm evening, I left the fans on and drove faster when there wasn’t traffic jams and could keep the oil temps at 80 degrees between 60-65mph and did this for about an hour on the last part of the journey, again with the deck lid closed.
Big thanks go to Ian, Alex and Mav for all their help and advice over the weekend.
The cars not gone any quicker this year and has actually been at best 1.4 tenths of its best time from 2010. It would of course have been nice to go quicker, but this year was all about trying to prove the new setup works and is safe and reliable. The good news is that this has proved to be the case in all respects having driven the car a fair bit on the road now and on 3 different tracks. Hopefully there are no horror stories when I get the car apart, but I’ll just have to wait and see on that front.
I have to say a big thank you to Luke and Andy at Robinson Race Cars, as they mounted the gearbox, built the rear suspension and set the car up and provided loads of advice and help along the way. Also Paul for the gearbox and the suspension design advice which in all has made the car very easy to drive and a lot of fun to change gear with!
I have a busy winter ahead, but looking forward to 2014 already.
Peter

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cs5dHwTLqmQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Cs5dHwTLqmQ</a>

[Martin Greaves]

If someone was to put together a 62.5X94 where would be the best place to get shorter than stock head studs as the rods are going to be 4.75..

[dangerous]

Short of having some made,
you can go for 10mm studs, from 36 and 40hp engines.
They go in steps of about 1/2" from the 36hp upper and lower,
right up to the last 1500 and 1600 dual and single port M10 studs.

[Old Guy]

6.28 @ 115MPH in the 1/8th with a 1641.  Take a look at the "Hyper Bug" for sale.

[Jee Ent.]

What! Are you running a 6-speed tranny?

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cs5dHwTLqmQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Cs5dHwTLqmQ</a>

[SixGun]

this ?

[folkevogn]

What! Are you running a 6-speed tranny?

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cs5dHwTLqmQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Cs5dHwTLqmQ</a>

Here is Peter's description of the tranny(cut and past from page 21 in this tread).

"Its a Hewland JFR 6 speed sequential shift gearbox with straight cut gears and dog engagement. Its a smaller and cheaper version of their well known FTR box. They get used in formula 3 cars and some single make formula cars like Formula BMW, Chevron also use them in their new car single make racing series."

This is old news Jee, you need to pay attention to what goes on here on the Lounge