Tom's UVA fugitive, Tom runs a 14s quarter mile :)

Not unless you're regularly going to see over 6500rpm! In over 23 years of Volkswagening I can only think of one car in the UK that had a fan explode. For racing, where you'll see high rpm, you'll drop the fan belt off anyway as it saps quite a lot of power. For going up the hill at the gathering take the belt off for the run, then refit it at the top.

Alternatively, wire up a switch with a little circuit to the generator to make it run like a motor off the battery (or even a tiny second one), so you haven't got the physical losses from the fan being driven by the crank. Use it like that for a race, then fit the belt and flip the switch for driving home.

Didn’t see him enough to click that it was him.... only saw one buggy (but that was a green metal flake Manx)
And thought we saw the Chevy through people and cars but when we got there it was an Oldsmobile

We went up the farm, and it started to rain so we carried on over in the Corsa

Got held up a bit going up a hill



And had a good wander around and a bacon butty
Bought some books from the Willen Hospice shop, was really impressed that they’d got in loads of car related books for the da



Have posted some photos in various places on the general board

Now waiting for some bits to be delivered.... and emails suggest we’ll get parcels tomorrow

Happy new year all

Today we went to Bicester Heritage for the Sunday Scramble, met a few RRers and people on the way in....

like @quatermass says, I also tend to focus on the bits that need fixing or aren’t quite right rather than what we’ve got (I guess that’s the inner engineer) so it surprises me every time someone appreciates it, even though we pat ourselves on the backs all the time
We parked near a tea van and queued up waiting for mate, Andy to find us, and loads of people had a look at it and generally walked away smiling, which is what this is all about really



It was fairly chilly on the way over, so chilly I made a bit of a mental note to remember gloves next time! It was missing a little bit so we’ll have to look at that, but idled ok mostly just stuttered as we loaded it... but got us there and back, so we’ll look at that soon

We’ve sorted bits, I had scored some new cam followers from a mate but Engle state that you should use Engle followers because they have an additional oil hole to feed the cam lobe...
So gave them back and spent out



We also got a cam gear puller, on the 1300 we pried the cam gear off to swap the bearing... but didn’t want to do that on a balanced clank



Also ordered a tinware set, we have a few bits with the engine, but lots of parts were missing, we got a 36hp fan shroud set



The shroud has baffles but no flaps though

We also got a cheap piston ring compressor, I’ve got quite a good laser one, but it doesn’t work with these very well as you can’t fit it in behind the cylinders



And some paper gasket inlet manifold gaskets, as these are said to be easier to trim to the ported inlets



Will need to order some copper exhaust manifold gaskets for the 1 1/2 exhaust we have too

Also ordered some caps for the slots to finish off the wheels a bit



Would have done some engine building but ran out of time for various reasons... but want to get the engine built back up this month and then start with the bodywork stuff

Collected Christmas trees with the scouts yesterday, and off to go visit mother in law for her birthday this afternoon.....
that and visiting mother who has fractured some bones falling off of a ladder..... and the dreaded cold that everyone but the dog is slowly catching, have limited our playtime

Anyway enough of excuses, we got a half day on the engine today.

We pulled the cam gear and distributor drive with the tool.... it was still hard work (harder than the 1300, so guess the tolerances are a bit closer) but got that done, changed the main bearing and then heated the gears up before pushing them back on



The advantage of being married to someone working nights is you can sneak in and do stuff like this whilst she’s asleep... and as long as you burn some toast for lunch.... you won’t get caught

The gears went back on easily after heating up



So we carried on building up the bottom end.
We checked the thrust faces on the cam bearings and adjusted (with a mirror as flat surface and wet and dry paper, taking a little off at a time and checking until the surfaces stopped binding and then we had a small amount of movement.
We also checked for clearance between the cam and followers, as we were told this could be an issue on engines with high lift cams (it has been built before, but the cam and followers are new



After that we removed the cam, fitted the rest of the main bearings and then the crank and checked that moved smoothly (did notice it was harder to line the bearings up onto the dowels with the big counterweight crank)



We reinstalled the cam to the timing mark



And it was just starting to spot with rain, so we lubed the cam and followers up with the Engle assembly lube (not sure if there is any real difference other than colour) and then used blue hylomar on the case halves and bolted it all together





And then checked that it all turned over freely




Hopefully a bit more soon

We also got a doghouse cooler and the mount for a twin port



We could have got a reproduction one, but this is a original one, just needs some cleaning up

Will an OE cooler be man enough for such a frisky engine? I was under the impression a lump like this would need an external (ie not doghouse) cooler?

I don’t really know, reading the forums and trying to find an answer yielded more and more answers.
There are guys in Texas saying it’s all that’s needed on 2.3l engines
And other who say it’ll need a external cooler....,

So we reckon, by running the doghouse we will have a cooler that will have air blowing over it when stationary, using the fan. We have a oil temp sensor in the sump so can check how hot the oil gets.

It is already full flowed with a cooler, so the easiest solution if we need additional cooling would be to fit an oil flow thermostat between the oil filter and engine... but don’t know what size cooler we’d need, and hopefully we would just be able to fit a cooler somewhere in the airflow (that’s almost anywhere ) and not have to fit an additional electric fan to the cooler as well (some of the internet suggest that would be needed too)

But we are quite happy to change plans if someone has the right answer

If it works it works - you'll be down the railways looking for signalling wire to pay for all this before we know it !
Going to be a bit frisky with the new motor.
James

Nick, there are lots of options, but just keep it simple. You're not trying to make 600bhp so follow what others have already done. I think I said this before - build as big as you can and low stress. John Maher (very well respected engine guy, plus a pretty decent drummer!) once told me I could build a 1776 or a 2276 and get both of them to run 12.99 on the 1/4 mile, but the 1776 would need to be much wilder. For you, I'd go for a 2276cc with a pair of 40 or 44mm carbs, 9:1 compression, easy 120bhp. More compression, bigger cam, heads and carbs and its 180bhp. Less compression and a turbo and you're up to 250+bhp, but the big lazy one will get you where you want to be. Later on you can even change the carbs for EFI, which will up the power without sacrificing driveability.