Crankshaft Crossroads - Now 2027 Build

[Rob Combs]

[quote="Murt"]Looking really really nice Rob
Andrig velocity ring, is that a welded stock fan on yours ?
Dave[/

Thanks for the kind words. I’m pretty excited about getting it to this level looking pretty good. Yes, it’s a Pat Downs welded/balanced std fan.

Thought about the Andrig’s fan. Might go with his evo 2 at some point just because it looks awesome. At the moment I need to stay practical and just get it running. I could easily screw around for another year and spend another 3 grand if I don’t police myself.

[Murt]

I hear you brother
I'm my own worst enemy, always rethinking = always costs more !!
I absolutely agree, get this one running sweet.

Hopefully at some point you do manage to get some dyno time, but would like to see a quick video of it running
_________________
1966 VW Beetle ‘Jules’
1967 Kombi Splitscreen ‘Barney’
2018 VW Caddy Maxi R Line
2017 Golf GTD saloon
2008 VW EOS 2.0 TFSi

[Rob Combs]

I'll try to get a video of the dyno run and a link for you guys to check it out.

Is the mechanical-only curve on a 0 231 170 034 close enough for a dyno run? The vacuum can is not only wrong for the distributor but also dead. I'm not looking for a full driveability tune - my carbs probably don't have the right vacuum signature for an off-the-shelf vacuum can anyway, just a basic break-in, make sure my jetting is somewhat close, look for problems, and get a basic power estimate.

After it goes in the car it will get my locked out 009 and a new program for the Black Box.

Thanks!

EDIT: Or would I just be better off to go ahead and take the Black Box to the dyno with my already-locked 009 and, say, the std CB dual carb starting-place map installed? I have a standalone harness for the programming the Black Box at my desk; I suppose it would not be a whole lot of trouble to add a few more wires to make it a portable running harness.

Maybe I just answered my own question...

[Rob Combs]

Have spent the last few days getting the car ready for the new engine - wiring cleanup, making quick disconnect harnesses for everything engine-related, etc.

Made up/completed some more harnesses so my locked 009 will just drop in, bracket and all so should be very close to timed straight away, and the black box can be taken along to the dyno pull/break-in session.

Have been fighting a bit with proper belt alignment - here's the problem with new (and aftermarket) everything - it takes a while to track down the faulty part, or worse, the stackup of many minor variances. Turned out the biggest contributor was my new "made in Germany" alternator pulley sitting too proud of the alternator case when fully installed, almost as if it wasn't going all the way on. And it wobbled like hell. Tried to fix it by grinding the hub a little but no dice.

Special thanks to CB Performance for getting me a new pulley overnight. Had to remove the coating from the ID of the pulley hub and give it a couple taps to get it on there, but now the belt lines right up to the crank pulley (had already shimmed the aluminum crank pulley; I think it's an Empi).

Dyno day is Tuesday

[Rob Combs]

Well, a minor setback. Chico got it on the dyno, then...

Good news is it built oil pressure. Bad news is it puked oil out from the oil cooler area. We're not sure what the actual problem is with the tinware in the way.

Guess tomorrow or the following day I will break it back down, find out where it's leaking, get it fixed, then we'll try again.

Ain't the end of the world.

Precisely why I wanted to break it in on a dyno rather than in the car. I'd be far less happy about it if it were installed in the car and had to come back out.

[Rob Combs]

Oil cooler corrected; ready for the dyno again. Thanks to those who weighed in on my oil cooler leak thread a few days ago!

New CB cooler kit installed:

Went ahead and trimmed & installed the rear cylinder deflectors while I was at it:

Back in one piece (distributor is still in the car):

CDI and Black Box wired in:

And the dyno harness is cleaned up - included the CDI unit to the dyno harness so everything matches the car:

Will test the CDI inclusion to the dyno harness later this evening. May pull the distributor so I have all the pieces and no electronic surprises when we plug into the dyno for (hopefully) its first run. Hopefully my power supply is up to the task!

Hopefully we can go back to the dyno on Friday

[Murt]

Looking good Rob
I have a question ? In picture 2 what is the billet aluminium bracket ? and how are you supporting your Oil lines ?
Cheers

_________________
1966 VW Beetle ‘Jules’
1967 Kombi Splitscreen ‘Barney’
2018 VW Caddy Maxi R Line
2017 Golf GTD saloon
2008 VW EOS 2.0 TFSi

[Rob Combs]

Thanks, hopefully that will be all that's needed to get it going again.

The bracket in pic #2 is a simple lighting and sound rigging clamp for setting up soundstages. Cheap as chips on Amazon. I put a coupling nut and a through-bolt from the top to support the aluminum plate that's holding the coil and oil filter for the dyno run. You can see the through bolt is toenailed in at an angle - no need for it to be perfect. It will all be removed once it's ready to go in the car. The coil is mounted to the body of the car on a bracket near the battery, and the filter will go under the engine room floor next to the valve cover.

The M6 stud and nut holding the rear tin to the 3/4 cylinder tin also holds the corner of the mounting plate, and will be used to secure a wiring harness retention ring once it's all in place. That'll keep the wiring low and away from the carb linkage.

Edit: oil lines are supported/guided by the aluminum bracket attached to the #4 exhaust studs. You can just see it in there.

[Murt]

Cheers for the quick reply Rob
Hope it all goes well this time
Dave
_________________
1966 VW Beetle ‘Jules’
1967 Kombi Splitscreen ‘Barney’
2018 VW Caddy Maxi R Line
2017 Golf GTD saloon
2008 VW EOS 2.0 TFSi

[Rob Combs]

It lives!

After the oil cooler debacle was corrected, I got it back up to Chico for break in on the manual Stuska. The tune may still need some work; I couldn't really hold up his dyno availability to do a lot of tweaking, tuning, and experimenting beyond his initial tune.

It pulled less torque and power than I thought it would. Still noodling on possible explanations. But Chico did say it was right in line with what he normally sees for similar configuations, no cause for alarm.

The valve covers are stubbornly still leaking. New pair coming in today. And a new crank pulley is sitting here on my desk to be installed before it goes in the car, so I can get back to experimenting with my old pulley's low-buck crank trigger (flying magnet style turned on its head is in the works - we'll see how that goes).

Hearing it go to 6k was a good feeling though, to see all the work (and cash!!!) finally come to life. Never had one that would rev that high. My current 1600, at 5200 RPM, sounds like it's going to explode at any minute.

Still sounds and feels like it might have some more in it.

I'll get it installed as quickly as possible then do a baseline run on a chassis dyno to compare results, then start playing around with the tune, especially the timing table, from there.

Thanks to everyone who contibuted, both online and off!!!

Will keep you posted as things develop.

[Rob Combs]

Well, one thing I'm finding out is that I did not put enough effort into crankcase breathing. If I don't drive like a complete loon it doesn't smoke, but if I push it out past about 5800 RPM it smokes worse than a freight train. And weeps oil.

Only times I've ever seen that, working on "normal" engines of course, were on engines with plugged or inoperative pcv systems.

Now, it's possible the rings haven't seated yet. Oil level is set just under the "add" line on an aftermarket dipstick in an Empi T3/Universal case dipstick adapter.

But, I'm hoping the PCV system I conjured up for it will help with that. At the moment it's just scabbed in there to see if it works; It ain't pretty but I can make it look better if it helps the smoking & oil weeping. It has a vacuum tube running into each cylinder tapped into the carb risers through a pcv valve for a non-turbo Mitsubishi 4G63 (may be rudundant with the following main jet) and a 1.5mm DCNF main jet inserted into the first vacuum tee:

I bumped the idle jets up a size until I can figure out how this is going to affect the lower-end fuel curve.

Won't get another chance to play around with it until at least Monday so we'll see how it goes.

Any suggestions in the meantime?

[dunk]

Imo.....

If you dont have a sand sealed case..

Keep it simple, Just use a breather system.

1)Looking at your pic, you have the standard oil filler with 1/2" tube and road draft tube coming off it. Find a later one with just the 3/4" tube. Run 3/4" hose to an elbow on top of an airfilter, over a venturi(csp do a nice banjo for this).
Just this alone may work. However, If you want/need a breather box because you feel it won't be enough..

2)use a breather tower, cb, berg, empi, csp etc and Run the top tube 3/4" to the carb again. This will give you a little more breathing! room..

3)prefer a separate box for whatever reason?! mount a breather box of at least!! 1 litre capacity somewhere. Run the 3/4" oil filler hose to it. Run any other tube you have to it, fuel pump take off, whatever... Run a hose from the bottom to drain to a valve cover, for simplicity and ease of use...

There's many ways to do it... but in my experience.. small hoses, venting both valve covers, and using smaller than 1 litre breather boxes... do not work well. I like simple and effective solutions.

Good luck with it, very tidy looking engine you have there.

[richparker]

You need suction, venting to the carburetors will provide this.

What was the Dyno number?
_________________
__________
’71 Westy build
Adventure thread
’65 Deluxe Build
’71 Double Cab

[Rob Combs]

Thanks for the input fellas!

dunk, it's not sand sealed. Thanks for the comment about it being tidy. It did come out pretty clean. Now if I can just suppress the self-lubricating chassis feature (on old joke I picked up when I worked at a Cadillac dealer back in my 20s).

I'm not a big fan of routing crankcase gases directly into the carb tops. Just a personal preference, but I'd rather they either be vented to the atmosphere (a little dirty but it can work) or below the carbs. I realize drawing in below the carbs is essentially a calibrated vacuum leak that has to be tuned around.

The PCV valve, as it sits, is routed directly to the intake runners under the carbs, so suction will not be an issue. There might actually be too much. It's got a 150 main installed between the PCV valve and the intake runners so as not to pull too much volume on the crankcase or cause a terrible idle. That main will be easy to change to larger or smaller as needed.

If this setup doesn't work I will look at a breather kit, preferably one that mounts to the oil filler, and ditch the road draft tube system. I can probably get the Empi kit locally, or the CB kit within a couple days. The fuel pump blockoff is already threaded. I just need to drill it the rest of the way through and screw a barb or AN fitting into it if additional crankcase breathing volume is required.

richparker, it only dyno'd 105 hp and 121 tq. Maxes out at 5000 RPM but will continue to rev to the 6400 limiter, so it's not floating the valves. Quite a bit lower power/torque than we anticipated. Still a hoot to drive but I'll work on finding that locked out power. I am thinking that the intakes might not have enough cross-section when comparing to some Empi IDF manifolds I was looking at the other day.

Edit - I feel like I need to prioritize the crankcase breather issue then tackle the down on power issue.

[richparker]

Based on my experience with Dynos, your numbers seem spot on. 90 HP at the wheels is good, why tweak it to run on the ragged edge?
_________________
__________
’71 Westy build
Adventure thread
’65 Deluxe Build
’71 Double Cab

[Alstrup]

[Rob Combs]

Thanks Torben

That’s an additional 20-30 ish percent gain to be unlocked. I get what you’re saying about the heads being a wildcard and it is possible I’ve shot myself in the foot there. Not ruling anything out at this point.

That said, I’ve got a line on some reasonably priced nice, long new IDF intakes here in town that I’m going to grab in the morning, just in case I need them. If a switch to IDFs becomes a rational step forward I’ll at least be ready and willing. If not needed someone else will be able to make use of them.

I’m also going to play around with the DCNFs a bit although I’m not sure that’s where my issue is. Got tons of parts and supplies already, so a little time and no additional spending required to ascertain a few things. More on that later.

First thing i’ll do though is focus on the oil smoke and the oil pushing out the dipstick tube at high RPM. I need to prioritize and focus.

[Brian_e]

The heads should be plenty for what you are doing, and I agree with Torben on the numbers.

Even IDF manifolds are going to need some work to play nicely with those heads. I have seen BIG BIG losses when adding just "match ported" manifolds. The real problem in most manifolds is about 2" up the runner, and there just isn't enough material up there to get the cross section right. You can get it WAY closer, but welding might be needed on the outsides of the manifolds. Most all manifolds are still just stock 1600 diameter right at the important spots.

A good test is to take an exhaust valve and use that for sizing. Stick it in the port, and see how well it fits. Cross sectional area wise.......an exhaust valve should just fit all the way through the intake port. That doesn't mean the shape will let it fit, but the area should be right for it to fit.

Remember the funnel. Consistent taper from the carb to the valve seat will get you real close.

I would double check the accuracy of your dipstick. It sounds like maybe you are running to much oil and pushing it out??

Brian
_________________
So more or less the lazier and stupider you want to be, the nicer quality parts you need to buy.
-Modok

Narrowed beams, Drop adjustable spring plates, Bus disk brake and IRS kits.
www.type-emotorsports.com

Type E Engine Parts and Supplies
https://type-emotorsports.com/collections/engine-parts

[Rob Combs]

[Rob Combs]

So, I went and got another Universal to T1 dipstick adapter yesterday. I'd love to have gotten a CSP (49 Euro) but it would cost about $130 or so to get one into the US, IF it didn't get stopped at customs for additional taxation.

So that will have to wait for more accommodating times...or when I'm not chasing other issues.

Got the Empi version for around $16. If you look at where the tube enters the case flange, you can actually see daylight between them, so there's no way in hell it'll seal oil. I broke the tube out of the flange (intentionally) and will make an attempt to thread the base flange, then make up a threaded tube to insert the dipstick into. If that goes well I can re-incorporate my over-temp warning dipstick. That ought to get me back to normal on oil level; I marked the temp warning stick in the 1600 so I have a reference to where the oil level ought to be.

Now to carbs - Brian, after getting those Empi IDF manifolds in hand, checking with a spare exhaust valve, I can see clearly what you mean.

Also remembered this morning I have another set of DCNF manifolds, old Race Trim, which had been welded and oval-ported pretty seriously by someone in the parts' past. I bought them because at the time I needed a set, Berg was out of stock without a restock date. They had re-stocked them by the time I was ready to pull the trigger on the carb install, so while I had "un-ported" the manifolds with epoxy (JB Steel Stik) for use on the regular 1600 heads, I never got around to using them.

Fast forward ~ 3 years, and I have a set of ported manifolds that, while a little rough, can be used to test out the cross-sectional area questions I have about the work I did on my Berg manifolds to get them on this engine. All without changing carbs.

I ground out most of the epoxy this morning, except what was necessary to convert from oval port to D-port, matching my heads. That 32mm exhaust hits the pinch point right at 2" up from the flange - a little tilt and it drops right through. It's about as ported as it can get without welding the outsides as Brian mentioned; I wouldn't want them any thinner than they are now.

Dumb luck that I had them lying around.

Anyone have any experience with JB Steel Stik on an intake, or other fuel contact surface? How long can I expect it to hold up?

If they work great I might grind the remaining epoxy out of them and have the ports welded back to round then re-match to my heads, epoxy-free.

In the coming days I'll get those put on and report back. Will probably test out the pcv system first. Hopefully I'll have some feedback soon.