Winter 2176cc Prerunner-Style Engine Build

[Chickensoup]

[jimmyhoffa]

This little guy is still going strong. I forgot to follow up, but I got the A-1 exhaust and fitted that up, and I have about 5,000 miles on the engine so far. Much off-road service, an off-road track event, two drag race days and some commuting. I have the car down for bodywork so I pulled the engine to give it the once-over and add some HD cylinder tin from Awesome Powdercoat, as well as a shroud brace and other miscellaneous dress-up parts. I also think I may lock out the distributor and try my CB Black Box on this engine.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[Brian_e]

Those super rough intake ports will never work..... Pure junk...

Shoulda just used some of the shelf heads.



Brian
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www.type-emotorsports.com

[jimmyhoffa]

Haha well, Brian when I need heads again I'm gonna have to call and talk real sweet to ya, so you get your head porting tools back out.

In other Samba Vendor news, I got fixed/California cooling flaps from Clark Callis / Awesome Powdercoat. I was also the first ever customer for his HD cylinder tins on my EFI 1835, and I enjoyed them so much I ordered a second set for this here lil' stroker engine. I mentioned that, but here they are all done up and fitted. They drop on to a stock engine, but there's a bunch of little nuances with the aluminum case, AA heads, bigger cylinders, IDF manifolds, etc. Nothing a little dead-blow hammer rage and some buzzin' with a right angle die grinder can't sort in under half an hour.

I used a combination of VHT "roll cage" paint to do his HD tins, and red DupliColor Caliper paint (my favorite shade of red) for the shroud. Then I rattle-canned my custom shroud brace with bronze wheel paint. Good enough for the dudes I go out with. That header is aging like a fine wine, that's EXACTLY what I was hoping it would tarnish to, a "weathered gold" color.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[jimmyhoffa]

I did a big mistake on this engine here. So, I had just changed the oil, and I put on the K&N 3001. Much like the one before it, this one was also defective and the media collapsed, causing intermittent strange oil pressure problems that presented like perhaps some pretty wild main or rod bearing wear. (My last K&N 3001 had mis-formed threads, so they sent me a replacement which immediately collapsed and starved my engine of oil on acceleration.) Turns out it was the filter's fault- I swapped to a Napa Gold 1515 just to test, and everything went back to normal. SO, that issue was settled.

Then I was revving it out on some pretty rough backroads, and right as I went to grab 4th from 3rd, a nasty jump-bump blasted my hand into 2nd gear. I was getting on it pretty hot, so I was already sorta letting the clutch out. It spun up to well past 7500, probably creeping on 9k maybe. I heard WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHWOOOOSSHH Ckchckchckchkkchckhckchckchch. Whoops. It launched a pushrod out of an intake rocker cup somehow, sheared the head off of one of the rocker shaft end cap bolts, and the rockers munched on whatever shims fell off. It tried to punch something through the valve cover, but didn't succeed. Two of the pushrods were pretty bent. I found all the puzzle pieces inside the rocker box in the head on the 1-2 side. The 3-4 held together. Honestly not a bad showing for a Web 218 and 1.25 rockers with moderate beehives, not heavy duals.

I straightened the pushrods in a bench vise, hammered some shims flat, slapped it back together, adjusted the valves and drove it to work. I used the borescope here and nothing touched the piston tops, unless the carbon from the trip here was enough to hide minor evidence. Seems the bottom end is fine, great oil pressure, quiet engine still besides the Mangum straight cuts.

Moral of the story is K&N oil filters screwed me twice, and also in unrelated advice don't money shift your VW. Obviously for reasons well within my control, this engine is probably not long for this world but I'm having fun.
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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[modok]

Yikes!
But bravo getting it right back together.

I quit using K&n oil filters a long time ago, switched to mobil one.
But still sad to hear they are now down to fram territory.

[chrisflstf]

Maybe you need a rev limiter. Nice lookin motor

[scrivyscriv]

A great looking build, and I love the mandrel bends and v band clamp on the muffler!
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[jimmyhoffa]

Thanks fellas! I am going to add the Black Box to this build and lock the Magnaspark distributor. That will give me both a rev limiter and a "launch control" which I like since I also drag race the car at WorldWide Technology Raceway for funsies.

Now, on to pistons. I cannot, for the life of me, get these Mahle PowerPak piston nitrited rings to seat. They sort of leveled off and always consume oil and puff smoke when I shift. Blowby is... okay but not great. I am considering switching pistons to either the new ICONs from UEM/VWporscheGT3/Trevor, or going with these AA Hypereutectic slipper skirt 94's that originally had a sour reputation, but I am becoming increasingly convinced it was due to inadequate wall clearance. That is something I can easily measure, remedy, and not worry about. https://aapistons.com/products/94x82mm-2276cc I'm not trying to "cheap out" but I have 5.5" rods, only a 78.4mm crank, the engine stops making power at 5700, and my rods are notched to throw oil at the bottom of the piston crown. I feel like (money shifts aside ) that if they're targeted at a certain engine configuration and will live, it's probably on my sort of setup.

I also designed a longer center throttle pull arm for my Redline linkage which I am not in love with per se, but it keeps working okay. I just have to make a crappy 7/16 broach out of a chunk of hex stock to "finish" that hex bore after I rough it in on the CNC with rounded corners. This is specifically designed to use a 10-32 heim joint like I do on the end of my Morse throttle cable. All of them are 5/16" wide across the "ball flats" on the spherical insert.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[jimmyhoffa]

Interesting cold diagnosis here. Every cylinder looks identical and amazing on the leakdown, and all make killer compression within 2 PSI of eachother. Analyzed by someone cold, they'd be inclined to think this engine is a great tight build, just like it presented during the check-up right after I broke it in. In practice, it smokes, has blowby and consumes a decent amount of oil. I'm thinking there's some dynamic piston articulation or ring fluttering/pumping thing going on that doesn't show its face with simpler checks like compression and leakdown. I'm wondering if my relatively high skirt clearance is causing some effects that may disappear if I get the pistons really hot. I'll try that tomorrow morning. That clearance is there so things run well when the engine is loaded severely, so... maybe the fix is to always be loading it severely.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[jimmyhoffa]

I fed this engine about a pound of sand at an average RPM of 5200 and a steady 240F oil temp and things didn't end great.

So, this thing is coming apart for at least pistons and cylinders and probably a valve job touch up. I am also thinking about cam options that still utilize stock style rockers mandated by most desert race organizations (if I were ever to enter the car) that would give me a few more HP than the Web 218 and move the powerband up a touch. The Web 110, the Web 163, and the Engle 120 come to mind. I don't want to go full top-end screamer but I find I drive the car at or near redline off-road, and want as much as I can get there. Honestly the car is torquey enough that it's sorta annoying to drive most of the time except rock climbing.

It is also getting a full UMP intake with a centrally-mounted UMP drum Superfilter.
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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[Dan Ruddock]

I like the versatility of the 163. Run stock rockers for running in class and run some 1.3 rockers for everything else. IMO running an Engle W series is pushing too hard with 1.3 rockers. What cleaners were you running?

[jimmyhoffa]

I just had the CB gauze filters covered by oiled UNI wraps. I'm pretty much coming to the conclusion that in genuine silt, there is no filter technology that will not either load up immediately, or save me. Seems like you either get one or the other. Further digging reveals guys racing in Mexico silt with my filter setup posting up regularly on the desert race sites talking of filter loading and engine silting. The only real solution is to pipe the source of the intake air away from the dust storm at the expense of a few HP.

(This event report is a bit delayed, I silted it a while ago and have been dragging it through its life, but it's showing signs of tiredness)

For my purposes I have the "luxury" of running some less conservative valvetrain arrangements, since my engine is almost certain to be detonated in some other way before guide wear or cam wear would cause me to tear down. I have really enjoyed a lot about my Web 218 with 1.25s, but I figure I may try something else. I am quite curious how the cam looks on teardown, as I have ~ 8,000 miles on this combo before I exploded it with sand, running the 1.25s on the 218 the whole time. I did lots of 3500rpm highway commutes to work in there too, on top of the off-road adventures.
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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[jimmyhoffa]

I'll tell ya what, we had fun though.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[Brian_e]

I always consider the 163 the next step up from a 218.

I did a 78x92 with my heads real close to yours, and a 163 with bolt on 1.25's, and it rocked.

I think the 163 is your next logical step. The web 110, might be a good choice also, but the 163 is a great cam.

Brian
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www.type-emotorsports.com

[Alstrup]

The 218 w. 1,25´s is hard to beat, for a dual purpose vehicle like that.
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https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=435993

[modok]

That's terrible.
You really should get some real filters, maybe IDA size with R2C elements.
I googled for you

https://www.kartek.com/parts-categories/dellorto-and-weber-oval.html

[sled]

it seems to me (as you somewhat mentioned) you need to build an airbox that has an intake up and out of the way of all the dust near the tires...like those baja beetle air intake scoops that are up on the roof. Ugly yes, but serve a purpose extending engine life.
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drive your split.

[jimmyhoffa]

The credit card is still steaming from the asteroid impact, but before I got off the phone with Cliff @ Unique Metal Products today I got tracking numbers for my goodies.

I had some of the stuff like some vintage IDF airboxes from UMP, but I needed a nice Tee piece to go from my 4" tubing filter drum out to 3" at the airboxes. So I'll have a UMP / Donaldson filter drum basically up between my seats under the harness bar, piped up to a metal T that splits out to the airboxes.

Cliff was pretty stoked about my car and my old school UMP hardware, so he's got a big sticker pack headed my way to doctor up those old parts. He said "Oh man those belong in a museum or something." I owe him pics of my setup when I'm done. I just finished designing O-ring baseplates for my UMP boxes to seal to. They just used either a hand cut gasket or a smear of silicone before, but I'm chasing an upgrade. This will take a few weeks.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[modok]

AWESOME