Race Day

We had a race day on Friday, which went pretty good. This was the second day with the new engine, but the first day running my new scoops (no longer running the fan) and having the wideband air/fuel ratio controller on board. Because of these changes, I decided to sign up for the "open" group along with the typical race group, since the club ran a special combined price.

We made two jetting changes during the morning, after a session of running. AFRs we originally in the 11:1 range, which is a bit rich, which we knew it would be. We bumped down from 165 mains to 160 and down to 155. AFRs were very solid in the 12.5 range after the last change, in the 90-95 degree heat. A funny thing happened too, as we leaned the car a bit. I picked up about 500rpm on the front straight! I'm now just touching 6,000rpm in 4th on the front straight.

The new cooling scoops seemed to do their job too. Oil temps would get up to about 220-230 degrees after a few laps, but just stablized there. The previous event with the new motor and cooling fan, temps would get to 250 pretty quickly and I couldn't run full throttle down the straights the last few laps of the sprint race. This time, I had no issues. and it was at least 10-15 degrees hotter outside temps.

I also had a Cylinder Head Temp gauge and sending unit installed for the first time. I didn't know what my head temps were before, so it is always a case of "new information can be too much information." Head temps generally ran in the 400 range, and never got much hotter after many laps in the heat. I have a temperature compensated Mini 1000 CHT unit from Aircraft spruce.

I did have two "funny" problems that caused me to have to get towed in. On the second track session, the car just shut off on the exit of turn 5. I was able to coast around and park it in a safe zone in a bypass road. Turns out the coil wasn't as tight as it should be in its mount, so it fell down and pulled the main hot 12v wire connection off. We fixed that, and got it nice and tight. The second problem happened on my last session. Again, the car just shut off on the main straight. I figured it was the same problem again, but it wasn't. In the pits, the car wanted to start, then wouldn't, then would, etc. It ended up being my last session so we just packed it up. We found a loose wire connection on the main power switch back in the garage. Over the winter I'm going to rewire the car anyways, as I've added a bunch of stuff lately and don't like the mess of wires behind the dash.

So I ended up not running the race sessions, but actually ran more in the day than I usualy do. I did a bunch of shorter sessions and am pretty pleased with the performance of the car, and the tuning we got done. I was 10 seconds quicker than the last time we ran the cyclone configuration on the dunlops vintage tires. Not bad!

It was also fun having Sean down for the event. He brought his Subie 2,5RS and ran his first track day at Thunderhill. I had a blast playing navigator for his first couple sessions. Makes me miss my Subie!

Coming in after a session:


Sean's tow and race rig:


Getting towed in:


Chris H.

Scoops Finished

After getting the internal ducts sorted out, I turned my attention to the exterior scoops. These mount to the engine cover and scoop the air into the ducts which feed the oil cooler and cylinders/heads.

I started out with a block of foam:


After some fiberglass, I had the basic shape:


After a LOT of sanding, fitting, sanding, priming, and painting:


From the front, kinda like Dumbo ears:


On the car. Note oil cooler is located slightly higher, for ducts to feed air to it:


Now let's just hope they work!

Chris H.

More Scoops/Ducts

Since it has been hot as hell the past couple weeks, I haven't bothered going out to the garage after work to finish up the scoops. Until this Wednesday and Thursday when I did a bunch of little fitment and trimming to the inner ducts. Then Mr. A came over Saturday morning and helped me slop some epoxy into the joints of the interior baffles that separate the air flowing to the cylinders, and to the oil cooler. After a bit more trimming and final fitting, I hit them with some flat black paint. These don't need to be "pretty" since they sit inside the engine cover mostly out of view.



I'll have some time later in the week to work on the exterior scoops since Susan will be off to Jesus fest at Laguna Seca for a few days.

C'

Making cooling ducts for the FV

One of my planned mods for the FV is to replace the cooling fan and shroud with some duct work and scoops. At higher rpm, the fan belt tends to slip enough to where the fan essentially stalls out at say 4,00rpm, even when the engine is turning 6,000rpm. With the greater horsepower of the bigger engine, my oil temperatures were climbing up to about 250 degrees F at the last race, and it was only in the mid 80s temperature wise. Without better cooling, I would never be able to run in hotter temps, or for longer sessions.

I am attempting to kill two hot birds with one cold stone. First, I want to use some air scoops mounted on the outside of the rear bodywork to suck in air and push it through duct work down onto the cylinder heads. Second, I want to also direct some air to the oil cooler.

Previously, the oil cooler was located just in front of the fan shroud intake. Not the most ideal position, since the fan is pulling air through the oil cooler and then sending that warm/hot air onto the cylinder heads. But, with the 1200cc engine, I never saw high oil temps, so there was no real reason to "fix" it.

I'm hoping that the combo of ramming air onto the cylinder heads, and providing cool air directly to the oil cooler will solve my issues.

The first part of this job is to create the internal duct work. And by internal, I mean what fits inside the rear bodywork, which is mostly exposed. The duct work will fit between the opening in the body down to the cylinder head tin. After carving out the rough shape of the ducts, I quickly realized I could simply add on a bit of extra duct work to send air to the oil cooler. Instead of having to make individual ducts, or mess about with hoses etc.

The shaping and sanding of the foam was actually a lot of fun. It took a bunch of test fitting to get it right, and each side was slightly different in final shape and size. Here is a shot of them fitted inside the engine area, but before the final shaping took place:



The oil cooler will be moved to the right and up, so that those two curved parts of the ducts are centered on the cooler.


And here is a closeup of the "passenger" side after shaping and sanding:



The upper right part of the duct in the above photo is where the air enters. The air will be ducted down and out the bottom for the cylinder heads, and across and through the upper curved pieces for the oil cooler. I'll make a small dividing wall to separate the two flow paths.

These foam pieces are essentially the male plugs, and will get wrapped in fiberglass. I can either melt out the foam with chemicals, or simply hog it out with some screwdrivers and wire brushes. Basically, a perfect example of a "lost foam" process, like how I've made motorcycle seats and gas tank extenders before.

The next part of the project is to make the outer air scoops, which will attach to the stock engine cover. I'm trying to keep things both simple, and original looking. I'm hoping the air scoops won't be that noticeable, yet provide enough area for adequate cooling.

C'

Spring Cleaning

After the extended FV engine build I finally got around to cleaning up the garage a bit. I still need to organize a bunch of stuff hanging out on the FV side of the garage, but at least the motorcycle side looks more respectable.





Thats the 1200cc FV engine sitting in the middle, awaiting its teardown.

And a quick shot of the bikes hanging out in the front yard, after receiving a washing.





C'

New iPhone!

Just blogging from my new iPhone.

GTF's Setup Chart

For GTF:

It Runs, Part Deuce

The 1750cc engine runs. In fact, it started up instantly, doesn't smoke like it did on part 1, and has no visible oil leaks. This time, we built an engine test stand, using the engine stand as a base. Mr A. came over and took care of the wiring, and by about 11am we had it making noises. This way I can run it and actually see any problems, unlike when the engine is buried in the race car frame.

Here are a few pics, and a link to a short movie:







And the link to the video:


I'll run it a bit more this week before swapping into the chassis.

Now for beer and grub.

C'

Chico Brewfest

Oh lordy, we just got our tickets for the sold out Chico Brewfest. A "couple" breweries will be there, according the event site:

http://www.sibidwellrancho.org/index.php?pg=microbrew

Let me emphasize one of the lines:

"includes souvenir glass, food and unlimited beer tastes"

mmmmm, unlimited beer. And the event is almost within walking distance.

Chris H.

A Beer for Sean

My Mexican mother gifted me a beer today, in honor of Victoria Day, a holiday in my home land of Canadia. I think she selected it based on the label design. As it turns out, I think I have a beer Sean would be jealous of.



Lagunitas Brewing's Ruben and the Jets, brewed in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the same-named Zappa album. Sean is a big Zappa fan. I should know, he attempted to convert me over to the dark side during numerous road trips to national autocross events.

I'll report back on the beer after it gets a day to chill.

Fv Corner Weight Chart

Just a quick picture of the corner weights on RalphVee. I had gone through a full alignment a couple weeks ago, but never checked the corner weights. I only had to tinker with the right rear height half a turn on the spring perch to get where I wanted, which is just a tick heavy on the left side. I was shooting for a full percent heavy, but this was close enough.

Thunderhill has mostly left hand turns, with 1, 2, 6, and 9 being key points for keeping up momentum. Based on video and data aq, I spent about 18 seconds a lap going through turn 1 and 2 at roughly 75-85 mph. Turn 6 is slower, but it is key since it leads to the longest section of 4th gear acceleration up the hill through 7,8 and into 9. And of course turn 9 is a fast kink leading to a downhill straight into 10, where I actually hit my top speed.

Enough babbling, enjoy the chart.



C'

Dear Rod Bearing,

Dear Rod Bearing,

FUCK YOU!!!

Ah...that feels good to stay. In a minute, you'll understand why.

After a man date with Justin, I came home and decided to get the 1,700cc engine on the engine stand, in preparation for tearing it down this weekend. As it happens, I just got out the cordless impact, and went for it. I had it apart in about 30 minutes. Pulling the cases apart was a task, as I discovered one of the rods didn't want to rotate about the crank. It was stuck. And it was stuck at a funky angle, so the right half of the case couldn't come up past it. So I zung off the rod bolt nuts, and managed to get the rod out. Minus any bearing.

After getting the case apart, and the crank out on the floor, this is what I found:



That's right, the two rod bearing shells decided to get all snugly, and nest inside each other. WTF?

The rod looks like it enjoyed the party too:


As did the rod end:


Best Case: I can have the crank turned down and run "undersize" rod bearings, and get a replacement stock rod.

Worst Case: I have to buy a new crank and new rods. I almost bought new performance rods when I built this, but didn't. So I'm leaning this way. Maybe not a new crank, if I can get that journal turned. But we'll see.

At least I found something very obvious. The only mystery is how this happened. I mean, it ran for about 10 hours in the car before it went eeeeeeekkkkkk. Maybe a rod bolt wasn't torqued properly. Maybe the bearing shells were fucked. Who knows.

Now I will enjoy my ice cream and dream of new rods.

You said rods.

C'

Relocating the Steering Box

One of the items I've been wanting to fix on the FV, was the slow steering. My car used a stock steering box (per the rules) but with no extender on the pitman arm. It had a short extender (like 2 inches) when I bought it, but the brake pedal hit it when I braked hard, so I took it off. I guess I got used to having to shuffle my hands on the wheel making the big sweeping esses from turn 3 to 6.

Relocating the box wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. It needed to forward enough to clear the upper beam it mounted too originally, yet too far forward and it would interfere with the body work. After much measuring and test fitting, I got to work.

Me at Work


I made a mount that consisted of a short section of vw beam, that protruded off the stock beam about 6 inches. It it located a tad lower too, to clear the nose cone. I got this done on Sunday, and then spent yesterday evening making a new pitman arm extender. The extender is what quickens up the steering. The stock pitman arm has a length of 6.5 inches from the pivot to the where the tie-rods mount. As the pitman arm rotates, it pushes or pulls the tie rods. Making the pitman arm longer, means the same amount of turn on the steering box, will equate to more movement at the end of the pitman arm extender, which will move the ite rods more.

Forward Location of Box


Log story short, I made a beefy extender with an extra 5.5" of length. Which is a very healthy increase in movement. Hopefully not soo much it makes the steer too heavy. The steering has alays been relatively light, so if it gets heavier from this mod, it might be nice.

Anyways, here is the finished product. A basic extender cut from 1/4" thick steel plate with a rib welded on the bottom length wise. It does not flex even when I jump on it. I beefed up the main bolts to a full 1/2" diameter, with full nyloc nuts, so things should stay together during battle.

Extender, doing Extender Things


As it happens, I've also managed to get rid of most of the bump steer the car had. The tie rods are dead nuts level with the earth when the car is loaded in a turn. So no funky tow changes during hard corning, or bumps mid corner. It wasn't bad before, but it wasn't perfect.

Chris H.

Day 2 Race

Well, sorry for the delay on the day two race report. It was a hectic week last week, and frankly, I was eager to spend some time in the garage this weekend making a few improvements. Better late than never!

Day two started off better than day one, simply because I didn't get dragged in on a hook. I mnaged to get through the practice and qualifying sessions with no issues. Likewise the race too, although I noticed an oil leak after the race that was significant enough to warrant further investigation back in the garage.

But back to the race. We still had the Nascar guys with us, although there were a few less regular ARC members. Maybe 20 racers instead of 25 like on Saturday. My times were identical on Sunday, even though there was a significant head wind. As in, 30mph winds all day long. It was coming from the West, so I was head on going up the hill from turn 6 to 9. The longest section of fourth gear acceleration on the course, even longer than the front straight. I was seeing 300-400rpm less into turn 9 because of the head wind. Worse yet, there is no section of course longer than 50 yards that runs west to east, so I had no advantage of a tail wind.

End of Front Straight, Helmet Buffeting in the Wind


I gridded toward the back again, and didn't get a great start. A Mustang got by me at the green flag, and really parked it into turn 1. An RX7 and Miata got by me into 2 as a result. I played it cool and let things sort out for a lap. I knew I was quicker lap time wise compared to a few cars ahead of me, so I just reeled them in. I made a great pass on the RX7 on the outside of turn 2. Just drive around him and we were side by side into turn 3, me having the better line. I caught the Miata a lap later into turn 3, and got by into the cyclone (turn 5) on braking. After that, I just ran consistent times, and once again cut my fastest lap of the weekend on lap 11 of 11 laps.

Passing the RX7 on the Inside


There was however, some controversy after the race. A GT1 Corvette spun on the exit of turn 1, and was just parked on the edge of the track. Waving yellow into turn 14/15, and waving yellows on the front straight for the last 3 laps. Unfortunately, I got passed by three cars, two into turn 14, one on the front straight in view of everyone. Apparently those cars got black flagged with two laps to go, and parked. So i moved up several spots in teh stands. I finsihed mid pack, first in GT4. With two points races under our belts in 2009, I have two wins.

I'm a weiner!


After the race, I have a small laundry list of fixes. Things I should have worked on over th winter, but didn't because I was so tied up in the new engine, and eventually worn out.

Item 1 - Relocate the steering box forward, and run an extended pitman arm to help speed up the steering. Between turn 3 and 6, I have to shuffle back and forth on the wheel, and it gets old fast.

Item 2 - build a new breather box or puke box. My current puke box is a 1 quart oil can that has apparently rubbed through on its mount. That meant I sloshed oil all over the inside of the body, which ran up under the pedals. After a good douching off, everything is clean now, but I want to fix that. In addition, the 1,700cc engine had a LOT more case pressure, so a better solution is required.

Item 3 - The throttle cable support bracket worked loose during the race. Nothing failed, I just noticed it was loose. It was always mickey mouse (one of the things I did not change when I got it) so i want to make a real bracket.

Item 4 - Relocate the battery a little lower so it doesn't rub on the front nose cone body work.

I've already worked on Item 1, which will be detailed later.

Chris H.

In on the Hook!??!?!

I had an adventure filled race today, day 1 of 2 out at Thunderhill. With the old 1200cc engine slotted back in, everything was pretty much the same as I ran the car last year, with a few a very minor changes.



We got out to the track super early to go through the 7am tech. Luckily, we don't have to tech tomorrow, so we can show up late. This weekend our ARC Club is sharing the race group with the Historic Stock Car Group. Literally old Winston Cup Stock Cars from the 80s and 90s, all built and painted up in their colors from back in the day, complete with the names of the original NASCAR driver over the door. We had ourselves some Alan Kulwiki, Morgan Shepard, and Brett Bodine. In reality, we had a group of guys in their 50s and 60s out pounding the asphalt in these great big beasts, running pretty damn fast! Like 1.57-2.02 times. Thats' Corvette ZO6 and 911 GT3 territory. They even had a full support truck with tire changing equipment.





I went out for the practice session and made it about 2 laps. I got the meatball flag as I was smoking a bit around turn 2, a long left hander. I went back out after the marshall gave it a look over and said it was just a little oil on the header. Going up the hill to turn 9, all hell broke loose. I lost power, and the exhaust sound had drasitcally changed. Uh oh. I switchd it off and coasted around to a safe spot outside turn 12. Then I got towed in on a rope.



I was assuming something terrible had happened, and even thought the weekend was over. After letting the car cool off, I inspected. I found the newly vented valve covers I had made for the 1700cc engine were leaking around the venets. And the valve covers themselves weren't that snug. And then I noticed the #3 spark plug (still attached to the spark plug wire) was just sorta keepin' it real, hanging out on the fan shroud. As in, not actually plugged into the cylinder head. Hhhmmmm.

After installing it, and making sure it was snug, the engine fired right up.

I went out for a full qualfying session with no problems, except I still had some smoke. I got out the big wrenches and really snug down the valve cover vents. I immediately planned a visit to the VW/Race shop on the way home to purchase new valve covers. I only vented these because the 1700cc had so much crank pressure, but never had that issue with the 1200.

I gridded up 26th out of 34 cars, which sounds pretty sad. But in fact, The top 15 cars were made up of GT1 Corvettes and all the Nascar boys, 10 in total. Without those fast guys, I would have been closer to my usual 15th out of 20 cars.

The race itself was good. It was exciting at the beggining, and then got boring. I managed two passes on the first lap, then traded positions with a Mustang GT and a white Spec Miata for the next few laps. In fact, we went two wide through turn 1, 2, and 3 on one lap. The Miata attempted to get inside me into 1, we were both a little slow, so the Mustang powered through. I went around the outside of the Mustang in turn 2, and held off both cars into turn 3. Of course, by the back straight they both left me. I stayed with the Miata for a few more laps, but it got busy with the leaders coming through at the half way point. I finished first in GT4, and beat about 6 or 7 cars. The last two laps got exciting too, as a full race Mustang lost a motor into turn 14. This was my first experience going through and across an oil slick, and holy shit was it slick. I damn near went off the track on the cool down lap, as I forgot the oil as there (no oil flag on the cool down laps.)

I gave the car a good douche after we got home, and installed the new valve covers. Hopefully we'll have less of a smoke show.

Of course, it started raining here a few hours ago, and rain is forcasted tomorrow. I plan on running, rain or shine. Unless it is dumping like a mad man. As it turns out, we showed a raise of hands in the race meeting today for those with rain tires. None of the big boys had rains, and said they would be running. So if we get rain, it will probably be me and half a dozen spec Miatas dueling it out for the slowest 10 lap race ever!

C'

It did run..for a while

Well, long story short, the new 1700cc VW engine I built was in Ralphvee and running just fine for a couple weeks. I had about 5 or 6 hours of running time on it, getting the carb jetting sorted, and seating the piston rings. Then it just went eeeeeeeeekkkk. As in, no horrible mechanical sound, it just stopped. As in frozen up stopped, won't turn over by hand.

After pulling it out and putting it on the engine stand, I drained the oil and actually removed the small oil sump extension, to find some small shavings of either bearing or aluminum or both. I think I screwed up the end play setting on the crank and ate the front main bearing. I'll know more once I ever tear into it.

I only had a few days before the first practice event of the year (February 13th,Friday) and I almost got the old 1200cc motor back in the car. Actually, the engine was in the car by Tuesday, but by then I was just done. Done working in the garage, and didn't want to spend the next few nights busting my ass. Also, the weather forecast called for heavy rain on race day.

So after a couple weeks of not working in the garage, I finally got back out this weekend. I got a good deal of the back end pieces back on, and have another hour or two to get it back to track duty status. I'm just taking my time and enjoying it.

Saturday, I got the rear suspension, trans, clutch, headers and all sorts of things bolted back on:



Last night, I fit a new pair of wheel bearings to the right front corner.



I'm considering building new intake manifold end pieces to mount the bigger weber carb to the 1200. Might as well take advatnage of the freshly rebuilt carb, and savor the extra 5-6hp it might give, right? If not, I'll just throw the Solex back on and run it like I ran it last year.

The first race is March 21-22, a two-day race weekend.

Chris H.

It Runs! Sorta

After much fiddling with the carburetor, and realizing we had the #3 and 4 spark plugs wires crossed, the new engine in RalphVee came to life. And holy shit is it loud! I'm not exactly sure why, since it literally has the same headers and stinger as before, but when we had it running at 3,000rpm, it felt twice as loud as the 1200 motor. I'm petty sure the entire north end of Chico heard us running the engine.

Before we got it running, we fought all sorts of little problems. It would run for about 2 seconds then die. It seemed like it was getting fuel initially after pumping the throttle, but then didn't have enough to keep running. Of course, after realizing the spark plug wires were crossed on the cap, it fired up. It still took a bit of fiddling with the throttle position and choke, but it eventually lit off and would sorta maintain a running attitude.

It feels lean. It backfires, shoots flames, and generally just acts like it is lean. So Mark is going to send us down a selection of larger main jets. We had a selection from 140 to 147, but we may need something in the 160 range. Luckily, Mr A. has a large selection of jets, and with Mark now in Oregon, he can send some down. Hopefully that will get it running better.

It may just need some more time to warm and break in. New engines can be a real bitch to get running.

Of course, I manged no photos and no video of this process since it was a cluster in the garage. But trust me, this thing is LOUD!

C'

Beer, Coffee, Tools, and Beer

Why good afternoon! It's Christmas day, and Susan and I are wrapping up our day of gifts, grub, and for me, lots of booze! I'll let the pictures tell the story:

From the in-laws, Jessica and Rick, I received a grouping of beers from both Washington (where they are from) and from Oregon. Several varieties of 22oz bottles to keep me happy over the next few days:



In addition, Santa got me an awesome little Coffee machine. A Keurig single serving machine like one of our customers has at their work. It came with about 50-60 single serving coffee containers of different flavors. So yummy. I'll be taking it to work so I can enjoy a cup of luscious brew and drive my co-workers mad with envy.



I also nabbed a pair of new slippers, an excellent de-motivational calendar, sausage and cheese and mustards, and various tools (not shown) from Mr A. Overall, a good haul on my part I would say.

Off to drink more beer......mmm.....beer.

C'

Engine is in the Car!11!!!1!!11

That's right, the built dual port engine has been sitting in the FV chassis for the better part of a week. I only had to take it out twice, and hopefully not a third time. I had expected some "issues" during the install, mostly because of the slightly bigger intake manifold end castings and their close proximity to the upper frame rails. As it turns out, I had to massage that area a tad. Luckily the frame was massged in that very area back in 1978, when this car was run nationally in Solo events, no doubt fitted with the class legal 1600cc dual port engine.

The next big hurdle was getting it turned over and ready to fire up. I followed all the VW directions and turned it over without the rocker arms installed (to keep wear off the cam) and spark plugs out (to keep compression low) until I built up oil pressure. This didn't long. Neither did getting proper fuel pressure AFTER i hooked up the fuel correctly. Not sure how I managed to reverse the flow, but whatever.

During all this, i totally forgot about the fact I have a 6v starter, which turns nice and fast on a 12v battery. Which also means you don't want to crank it for very long. As in, maybe 5-6 seconds at a time. Not the 30 seconds I was cranking to get oil pressure, fuel pressure, and set the timing. Aaaahhh. Nothing like a fried starter.

So I bought a new 12v starter from Kragen, which is funny because they carry a lifetime warranty even though it ran me a whopping $39.99. But, it won't simply bolt on. The 12v starter is meant to run a 12v flywheel, which has 130 teeth. The 6v flywheel I have has something like 112 teeth. So, I found a tech article on how to switch over the starter gears between starters. Mr A and I are going to attack that Friday, after Xmas. Hopefully, I'll have a 12V starter capable of turning a 6v flywheel. This way, I can crank and crank and crank.

For what's it worth, the engine sputtered a few times during the starters death, so I think it will light off eventually. Of course I wish I could go out and run it right effin now.....but oh well.

And just to prove some of this nonsense, here is a photo of the engine hanging on straps getting lowered into the frame.



And it case you were wondering, yes, I have long hair and demon eyes.



Have a great Christmas!

C'

Engine Mockup

I piddled around the garage this weekend working on the 1700 FV motor, doing all those small odd jobs that turn into small projects on their own. I installed the oil sump extension, front pulley, oil cooler adapter, and after setting the end play, installed the main oil seal and flywheel.

I also spent a little time mocking up the rest of the auxillary items, like the intake manifold and end castings, carburetor, air cleaner, as well as dry fitting the upper sheet metal tin and dog house shroud. Nothing too difficult, but each little task took a bit of work to get it all to fit properly. A combination of old original parts trying to mate up with aftermarket items I guess.

I need to pick up some new intake manifold rubber boots, and then I think I'm pretty much ready to get the engine back in the chassis. I'm going to set in the chassis with the minimum amount of connections and bolts required to get it to fire up. No point spend a few hours hooking up the suspenion, shift linkage, and all the mounting bolts in case I have a problem during the initial startup phase, and have to pul it out.

As an early Christmas gift, Mr. A gave me his old timing light, which has seen duty on many a VW dating back to his days in the air force, when he went through a couple Beetles of his own, including 36hp Oval window equipped with a Judson supercharger kit. So that should help getting it timed correctly.

Here are a couple photos of the mockup, mostly complete minus the upper cylinder head tin, which has since been installed.






Looks like Susan has plans both Tuesday and Thursday nights, so we'll see how fired up I get. Maybe, just maybe, I'll have the engine in the car by this weekend, and I can wake up the neighbores with the sound of barking VWs!

C'