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Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:03 am

Way back when didn't Hot Rod magazine have article where someone stuffed a Olds Toronado engine & transmission in the back of a beetle....

Personally I would go electric....

VW Tesla conversion...

Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:21 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7sWdTzDSKg

these guys move pretty quick.

if you're set up for methanol and EFI, then it wouldn't be that hard to turbo it and stuff 30lbs of boost in it. :twisted:

Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:22 am

This might work:

https://www.youtube.com/c/v8stealthbeetle

Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:48 am

Speaking of 800 hp factory cars ,,,,,, there are lots of yt vids of police chases involving Challengers , Hellcats , etc. Arizona especially has a lot of dashcam vid out there. There was one where the AHP car was running 150 for what seemed to be several minutes. And the runner was not visible to the camera although the trooper probably could see the lights way out there.

Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:02 am

If you want to go VW based and beat the big boys Grab a Porsche 924/944, slap a turbo on an inline 5 out of a newer Jetta. You get VW IRS rear end, late VW Super beetle type front suspension, and a great handling lightweight car.

New V8s are a completely different league than the old V8s that ACVWs are competitive against.

Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:07 am

No chance a VW would ever beat a V-8 Not even a VW with 2 VW engines. not even with any kind of modified VW transaxle. Just simply not enough cubic inched.

Ryan Martin in the Fireball Camaro on the TV show Street Outlaws that is dominating the No Prep Kings series is rumored to be running 3000 HP. You also need to build a 112-115" wheelbase car to be competitive. Short wheelbase cars just don't work at those speeds. Last I heard Big Cheif runs 20% Nitromethane, and he isn't the fastest anymore.

I know the local guys running small tire are in the low 4's.

There getting 1500 HP out of a NA V-8 these days.

Damn Tesla can run high 9's 1/4 mile off the showroom floor.

Tue Dec 06, 2022 12:07 pm

The typical Joey Baggadonuts answer is to add horsepower.

The smart guys innovate and lose weight.

Got a horsepower problem? Make it way lighter than the other guy.

If I had a 200 hp VW and I wanted to go sicko fast I'd bring a gun to a knife fight. I would build a Sidewinder style motorcycle around my VW motor.

Especially if I had access to a full machine shop again...

BS aside, here is what we're up against:

We're trying to develop the 1965 version of a 1939 design. The original 1939 design made nominally 25 horsepower. The 1965 (ish) version as seen in the '67 Type 3 with dual port heads made around 50 horsepower. That's pretty good...

Glenn wrote: earlesurfs wrote: I just want to go beat all these v8 guys, the reason I got into VW’s in the early 90’s.
Go.with a STi engine

And there you have it. Any VW boxer is limited by mid- 1960s technology, even Type 4s or Waterboxers.

Classic Asian engineering is first to copy something and then improve it. If you don't believe me look at an old (1960s) Kawasaki W1. It's an exact rip of a 1960 BSA. Few years later along comes the H1, the H2 and the Z1. They have something thing in common: They all have an acceleration wobble above 100 mph that will turn you white after a full summer in the California sun. The acceleration wobble goes away if you accelerate through it. The bad news? The deceleration wobble is a tankslapper. :roll:

Anyway, look at 1970s Subaru motors. Not that different from VWs, eh? It's too bad they didn't just use the VW bellhousing and mounting bolt pattern.

Subaru continued to evolve their flat four after VW turned their back on it. The STi has a few basic design features that are difficult to emulate with a VW flat four no matter how nice your machine shop is. To be specific, the STi has four valves per cylinder and overhead cams.

A water jacket around everything doesn't hurt.

If I was going to machine my way into a world beater I'd do what Autocraft or Pauter did. I'd start with a clean sheet of paper. Four valves per cylinder with overhead cams sounds great to me. That solves a lot of problems. Your stroke isn't limited by how much room you have before you hit the cam. Your valvetrain isn't limited by eight noodle- y pushrods. Your combination isn't limited by one intake valve, one exhaust valve per cylinder.

Dry sump means you can pipe oil to exactly where it's needed.

Anyone who loves engines needs to look inside an old Offenhauser. There is nothing new under the sun. The Offenhauser was a couple generations removed from a now 100 year old Renault Grand Prix engine. Most attribute the Offenhauser design to Harry Miller. Miller knew a good thing when he saw it. I haven't seen it recently but the old Renault has what appears to be a double Offenhauser engine.

I mention the Offenhauser because it was well suited to sicko turbo boost. The last competitive Offenhauser qualified in an Indycar at Pocono in 1968. Its aging design was augmented by two huge turbochargers.

Point is if you're going to build a "race" engine then start with a "race" engine. Start with an Offenhauser or a Cosworth or the like. If you have your heart set on a flat four adapt your Cosworth or whatever to a boxer layout.

How about a slice of a Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer? By my reckoning a flat twelve is three flat fours. :D

Speaking of Grand Prix it's worth looking into anything that was banned from Formula 1. An unfair advantage? I want that. :D

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Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:15 pm

While winning drag races is a few seconds of fun in the moment, it's relatively pointless from any pragmatic perspective.

So:

What I really want to see is:

A "modular" "crate" motor that starts with a clean sheet of paper and a few simple parameters. The design brief is

It must fit in a vintage VW engine compartment with no trimming.

While we're at it we might as well make it bolt straight up to a vintage VW transaxle.

Further parameters of our "modular" motor concept are it should be "modular" in that displacement and power align well. I'd like to start at 1 liter, flat four, four valves per cylinder, overhead cams making 100hp / liter. That means 1500cc = 150hp, 2000cc = 200hp etc. The 100hp / liter output is arbitrary. It's simply a reasonable compromise between power, reliability and fuel economy.

I would insist that our 100hp version gets 40mpg highway in an old Bug.

It would be great if our new measure of performance is how much we could beat that 40mpg.

It would be great if we could keep the weight down to around 250- 300 pounds ready to bolt in including the alternator. That's not a lot more than the 240 or so a VW flat four weighs ready to go. It's also not as easy as it might seem if we use aluminum instead of magnesium for the engine case.

Then, how about

A 150hp 1500cc with fuel injection and plug and play engine controls? Plug that sucker straight into OBD2 or tweak it on the fly with your laptop.

Maybe we could sell a bunch of them for use in lawnmowers or farm machinery. The more we could dilute our costs, the more likely this thing would be a commercial success...

Light weight, relatively high output? Get it FAA certified for light aircraft use. :idea:

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Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:35 pm

So ,Dusty U never been " Down The Strip" have ya?

Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:58 pm

madmike wrote: So ,Dusty U never been " Down The Strip" have ya?

There's The Zen of the Perfect Lap or The Zen of the Perfect Quarter Mile. In the grand scheme of things, what's the point?

I used to get my kicks on absurdly fast motorcycles before I noticed 1/3 of my riding buddies are missing arms or legs. That's if they're not just plain missing as in "no longer with us."

My stepsister is a paraplegic after an angry midnight ride on an ATV.

The point for me is being able to walk away at the end of the day. Even better if I walk without a limp.

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Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:06 pm

It's called 'Risk' they all knew it, I'm not livin life sittin in a lazyboy chair :roll:

Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:25 pm

madmike wrote: It's called 'Risk' they all knew it, I'm not livin life sittin in a lazyboy chair :roll:

Life in a la z boy beats life in a wheelchair.

We reckon risk is what's gonna happen to some other person until it happens to us. Or close enough to home it's a lesson learned.

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Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:13 pm

Dollar for dollar match what they put in, the power to weight ratio is still on our side.

Tue Dec 06, 2022 3:37 pm

Dusty1 wrote: madmike wrote: It's called 'Risk' they all knew it, I'm not livin life sittin in a lazyboy chair :roll:

Life in a la z boy beats life in a wheelchair.

We reckon risk is what's gonna happen to some other person until it happens to us. Or close enough to home it's a lesson learned.

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As a "former" motorcycle racer, and local Vintage Champion, I would do anything to win.

I am also the old guy driving the speed limit in the slow lane. You have to pick your battles.

Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:19 pm

slayer61 wrote: Dusty1 wrote: madmike wrote: It's called 'Risk' they all knew it, I'm not livin life sittin in a lazyboy chair :roll:

Life in a la z boy beats life in a wheelchair.

We reckon risk is what's gonna happen to some other person until it happens to us. Or close enough to home it's a lesson learned.

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As a "former" motorcycle racer, and local Vintage Champion, I would do anything to win.

As a "former" motorcycle racer, you're likely my Brother From Another Mother.

Our '70 Daytona has been radar gunned at damn near 140mph comin' off the banking at Daytona. I say "damn near". 139mph and a whole lotta change is damn near 140mph.

I don't bounce as good as I used to. My rider crashed it at "damn near" 140mph at Mid Ohio.

My 7/11 is way faster. It has better brakes. :D

slayer61 wrote: I am also the old guy driving the speed limit in the slow lane. You have to pick your battles.

Yup. Brother From Another Mother.

Back in the Bob Bahre era the Daytona would ride to Loudon in the trailer and we'd just ride down. Picture a group of extras for the next Mad Max movie on ex- race bikes, would be race bikes and wannabe race bikes. Stuff as diverse as a Laverda SFC and a Ducati 851, my 7/11, a bunch of Prostar GS1000s thinly re- purposed for the street, stuff like that. We'd get off at the Tilton exit and make our way through local roads. The last mile was generally a free for all. We all came wailing past some dude on a maroon BMW a half mile from the track at about triple the speed limit. Got the group parked at the shack to sign in / sign off on liability with the bikes parked and pinging from hot metal.

Kevin Cameron from Cycle World rolled in on his old maroon BMW right about then. He was grinning and chuckling to himself like,

"Look at these cafe racer )*( )*( )*( )*( )*( )*( )*( s."

Sure looked like Kevin Cameron, anyway. :D

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Wed Dec 07, 2022 7:35 am

You don’t see the other imports going after the Street Outlaw. The few times the imports were on the show. They were horrible. Even the fastest and well funded GTR’s need a perfect pass and still can’t compete.

Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:30 am

"Street Outlaws" is a figment of video production/ entertainment industry where there is a boatload of money to back the "winners" just look back to the beginning days when they first started and as to where they are today.... Sure they are fast and decent drivers to keep cars in straight lines, but it is really all about the production of entertainment....

Every encounter I have had on the street I have come out ahead.... I don't go looking for any challenges but when one come up I oblige, its amazing what about 110 HP at the wheels of a 1550 pound buggy can do.... Most imports that have challenged me are slowly getting smaller in my rear view mirror....

At my age I really need to stop making the new kids look bad....

Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:41 am

Quote: I mention the Offenhauser because it was well suited to sicko turbo boost. The last competitive Offenhauser qualified in an Indycar at Pocono in 1968. Its aging design was augmented by two huge turbochargers.

Actually, it was 1982. Last win was 1978

Fri Dec 09, 2022 12:14 pm

welcome to the LS world. Your not winning any races without spending jumbo money or big turbo and long gears

Fri Dec 09, 2022 9:35 pm

Lights to lights there is nothing better than a lightweight car. You can have all the HP in the world but if it's trying to get 4 tons of steel and glass motivated...

Way back in the early 70's there was many a Detroit boat anchor embarrassed badly by the old 1200 cc Hondas, Datsons and Mazdas on a short block. 1200 to 1400 pound cars take very little power to be quick. Even a 850 cc Mini was a force to be reckoned with across the intersection and part way down the block!