TheSamba.com :: View topic

Thu Mar 31, 2016 7:54 pm

I've been driving bay window buses for as long as I've been driving. My dream vehicle has always been a VW pickup. Well I got the opportunity to snatch one up and took it. I've been collecting parts for about a year now and am ready to begin.

The vehicle in question:

The engine thus far:

2161cc

It's an aluminum super case. Some machining was necessary to get it ready. The decks were not square so I had it decked. The case is not machined properly for the distributor drive so I had to take some material out there. Also a tiny bit had to be taken off one of the cam bearing saddles for clearance.

It contains a DPR 84mm crank with chevy rod journals, balanced along with the flywheel, which is wedgemated. It has 5.5 Scat H-beam rods. The cam and lifters are from Jason at Paradise Motorsports. The cam is not too wild, just a little bit bigger than a 110. I'm using AA 40mm intake 35.5mm exhaust heads that I ported myself. I also had a friend unshroud the valves. I'm using EMPI 1.25 ratio rockers.
The pistons and cylinders are cima, forged 90.5 'b' pistons. I'm using Grant chrome top rings and totalseal seconds.

Sequential fuel/air and spark will be via megasquirt and a turbo.

Throttle body is a 2 incher from a saturn found in a junkyard. It has the tps and iacv on it and they are GM which is good.

Intake manifold is an old holly bug spray that I will have to modify a little. It's really close though.

It's gonna have coil on plugs from a 1.8t vw engine.

Map sensor is also from a 1.8t and I got a weld-on bung that I'll weld to the charge pipe.

Cam sync from CB:

Injectors are 30lb bosch red tops originally fitted to the ford thunderbird and GMC typhoon. They are saturated injectors which means megasquirt can drive them directly from the computer.

Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:00 pm

I'm building the exhaust myself. It's gonna be 100% stainless steel. I'm going to take it forward and have it exit in front of the passenger rear tire. I want this engine quiet hence the length. Here are some of the bits:

The VW flanges are SS from aerovee. The vbands are vibrant performance. The little ones will be where the j pipes meet the collector. The t3/t4 flanges I got on amazon. The merge kit is from cone engineering. I have pipes and a magnaflow muffler and a vibrant super quiet resonator too.

I'm modifying stock VW end castings to accept the injectors and building my own fuel rail.

I have a MST pulley and I got a trigger wheel setup from Mario at the dubshop.

I haven't bought the turbo yet but I got a TiAL 38mm air cooled wastegate and a TiAL recirculating blow-off valve. I'm planning on letting megasquirt control boost, but don't want anything above 12psi as I'm planning on making this a daily driver.

I also am converting it to a late bay beam and vanagon self-adjusting backing plates in the rear. That will get the bolt pattern to 5x112, giving more choices for wheels.

I'm gonna put a 6 rib in it which I'm having rebuilt with taller 3rd and 4th gears.

Cc'd the heads, worked out to 58cc

Had to have the pistons dish cut by my machinist extraordinaire friend. This will add 12 cc to the chamber volume

My deck height is -.160. Ouch. With .180 cylinder spacers bringing deck height to .020" and .060" copper head gaskets and 70cc chamber volume I'll have a compression ratio of 7.3:1. Perfect with 10lbs of boost for some decent horsepower with minimal heat.

Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:02 pm

Pics of my wastegate and blow-off valve. Shiny!

Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:56 pm

nice!!

how much boooossstttt you *really* going to stuff down it's throat?

Thu Mar 31, 2016 8:58 pm

Fun project! V-bands are the way to go. I have found that the coil packs from the 2.0T FSI motors spark hotter and don't die as fast. They have the same harness connectors as the 1.8T ones.

Thu Mar 31, 2016 9:12 pm

skills@eurocarsplus wrote: nice!!

how much boooossstttt you *really* going to stuff down it's throat?

I'm thinking max 12 psi. This is gonna be a daily and I don't really want to tear down the engine every month so I'm trying to be conservative. Buses need a lot more mods to go crazy fast anyway. Although Wagenswest's airbag beam and rear airbag kit are on my wishlist. :twisted:

Megasquirt does allow multiple fuel/air and spark table maps, and with an electronic boost controller I could switch between "eco" and "sport" mode if I really wanted. I don't plan on racing it but, you know, things change.

Thu Mar 31, 2016 9:35 pm

Nice! Looking forward to seeing this come together. That bottom end is similar to an engine I'm building for my '64 Bus (I'm using a CB case and CB H-beams with 90.5 B's).

Have you been scheming this build for a year and keeping it secret from the forum?? That takes patience!

Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:09 pm

tootype2crazy wrote: I'm thinking max 12 psi..

well, I saw that :lol: if 12 is fun, how much more fun would 14 be? :twisted:

Fri Apr 01, 2016 6:12 am

skills@eurocarsplus wrote: tootype2crazy wrote: I'm thinking max 12 psi..

well, I saw that :lol: if 12 is fun, how much more fun would 14 be? :twisted:

It's gonna be like meth. You keep craving more until you destroy yourself.
You guys have to keep me in check, I'm counting on you.

Fri Apr 01, 2016 7:22 am

can I ask why MS? I know it's possibilities are endless. I have played with one some years ago, and it was fun...very time consuming, but good learning experience.

I liked SDS...pretty much ran right out of the box and "self adjusted" with the use of a wideband o2. more money up front, but it did save a bunch of time on the back side. it was easily programmable too.

Fri Apr 01, 2016 7:32 am

I'm a diehard do-it-yourselfer. Megasquirt appeals to me because of this. I've long thought about how I would set it up, what parts I wanted to use, so on, so forth. Also, MS has a huge and vocal online user base with plenty of them willing to help and share. It's the people's FI. It fits for the people's car.

Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:26 am

Tapped a hole in the top of the case to install a breather filter. I'm using a fuel injected bug filler neck with the big hose. I will run a line off of it up to a catch can then down to the air filter side of the of the turbo. This hole I tapped will have a breather filter on it. It will serve as an intake for the case while the oil filler breather will have a slight vacuum on it from the intake. This is necessary with a turbo or else the case can get mighty pressurized and start spewing oil out of the seals. I'm not a fan of tapping the valve covers as half the time oil has the pushrod tubes blocked.

And yes I got all the chips out. :shock:

Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:40 am

But... But... But... It's not... STOCK!!!

Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:45 am

scrivyscriv wrote: But... But... But... It's not... STOCK!!!

LOL. I knew I'd hear it at some point. I have this thread going on ultimateaircooled.com too just in case it gets too rowdy here. You guys are cool though, all in good fun. That's what this project is supposed to be, after all.

Also, at least it's not a subaru. :wink:

Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:53 am

tootype2crazy wrote: Also, at least it's not a subaru. :wink:

Ayeeee. Can't wait to see how this turns out

Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:53 am

tootype2crazy wrote:

Also, at least it's not a subaru. yet. :wink:

^^^^ much better now :D

Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:55 am

All kidding aside, what's up with your gallery plugs? Looks like you have already finished the bottom end, but the gallery plugs haven't been pulled?

Fri Apr 01, 2016 12:03 pm

scrivyscriv wrote: All kidding aside, what's up with your gallery plugs? Looks like you have already finished the bottom end, but the gallery plugs haven't been pulled?

The threaded ones have been out while I was cleaning the case. I put the case in a parts washer in my friend's shop and let the cleaner go through the oil cooler output for about a day. We did that at the shop I used to work at and never had a problem. I have yet to seal the back threaded plug and the front one is for the full flow.

If you mean pulling all of them to tap them, I don't find it necessary. My friend has a 2332 that's turbo'd with about 500hp with the same case and it's held up up for years.

Fri Apr 01, 2016 12:06 pm

Just figured for having a brand new case with the money involved you'd want to pull all the gallery plugs for a scrub. Always heard that preached as shop etiquette when building an engine...

Fri Apr 01, 2016 12:19 pm

Nice! Please tell me you're gonna keep the body the way it is?