Sunday, May 19, 2013

December 2012

Well, winter is upon us, which makes my garage very cold and my ambition wane a little bit because I'm busy with X-mas stuff and shoveling snow.

That being said I was able to get my heads cleaned and rebuilt.  Glen at Competition Engine did the work and they came out great.  Glen was very nice to talk to because he is the of the old school variety so he knew a lot about these engines and asked me some great questions I hadn't previously thought about.

I've decided that I'm going to try and get a 1385cc big bore kit for my 1200cc, it'll give me a little extra oomph with no mods necessary to the block or fuel system.

I also got a great magazine from my wifes Uncle, it is an issue of Volkwagen Classics from 1981 and it has a wealth of information in it to cheaply and safely modify a stock engine to get a little extra push.

Hope everyone a safe and happy x-mas season.

jd

May 2013

It's been a while...winter is cruel.  Too cold to work on Beetle in the winter.

Anyway I have made some progress, as I was gifted some Christmas money which I've tried to stretch out a long way...but on paper looks like nothing.

I've decided to go with a little hotter 40hp 1200cc engine, it'll be a sleeper of sorts.  Anyway I searched high and low to finally find 1385cc (83mm) jugs and pistons.  I bought it from the good people at eVW Parts.

I'm going to go for a performance cam (probably Engle) as the cam that came out had some wear on the gear and a new stock is almost the same price as an after market Engle.  With all that and a bigger carb then the 28PICT that I currently have I should be able to get a reliable 65hp, which is still 15 more hp then the 1600cc.

I got my crank polished at Competition Engine in Winnipeg, Glen is the owner and I've bounced some ideas off of him and he has been great to work with.  He has an automated parts cleaner so I sent over my block for a cleaning too.  Both pieces came back great.  The block after being washed is for sure magnesium and is showing it's age.  I will need to put some elbow grease into getting some crud out of certain areas.

So to reiterate I have everything completely torn down, I now need the following before I can start the rebuild:

1) Distributor gear set (mounts on crank)
2) Crank bearing (STD)
3) Cam bearings (STD)
4) Cam (over course)

I have a b-day coming up so I'm hoping for a good haul that I can get the above.

jd