KS's hillclimbing odyssey

[KS]

Have had two in Beetles in the past, including Quaife's prototype swing-axle VW unit, which my great friend, the late Mark Herbert, tried his utmost to destroy in his 11-second VW Beetle. If you need proof of the strength of a Quaife ATB, watch this - but I suggest you scoot through to 20 seconds to miss the cheesy American editing...

https://youtu.be/YyKbywmc9Y4

[BILLY BEAN]

Which, the ATB diff or the quick rack conversion? Hopefully both will help in my quest…

Keith, I have the Quaife ATB diff in my ST replica. Wondered about the quick rack.

[KS]

Keith, I have the Quaife ATB diff in my ST replica. Wondered about the quick rack.

Ah, OK. The feedback I've had from a couple of people (Yellow491, Paul Howells, for one) has been good, so I'll wait and see how I get on. Most of the time it's not a problem but the Esses and hairpins at Wiscombe have resulted in too much arm twisting!

[rhd racer]

That beetle looks a scream to drive!

[KS]

Tomorrow the next stage of the odyssey begins: heading over to Rawspeed to remove the engine and transmission ahead of tearing the motor down to see what we've got that can be reused (hopefully case, cam, lifters, rods, pistons and cylinders) and then having the Quaife ATB installed, assuming there's nothing nasty in the gearbox oil...

Let the fun begin.

[Gary71]

Exciting times

[Bruce M]

An engine build thread would be nice to read.

[Bootsy]

Might be worth reading this book - the author knows a thing or too about building performance engines apparently

https://www.waterstones.com/book/vw-bee ... 0760304693

[KS]

Nah, I heard he's past it these days...

[Bootsy]

Nah, I heard he's past it these days...

I was talking about engine building not his bedroom prowess

[KS]

[911hillclimber]

That looks very innocent!

Bet you get your built, in, and running before I get mine ready to race....

[914-6]

Nah, I heard he's past it these days...

Way past it I Believe.

[KS]

[KS]

A quick post-Christmas update...

Well, quite a bit's been happening since the last report, including discovering that we'd dodged a bullet. But first things first. I spent an afternoon (or was it morning?) beginning the strip down of the engine on the floor in Graham Rawlings' Rawspeed workshop while his engine room was occupied with engine builds for customers (until recently, Graham built all the engines for Chesil who, incidentally, are now owned by Westfield). Everything looked great at the top end – heads all cleaned up fine and are now sold (as are the carburettors and crankshaft). I couldn't go any further until the engine room was free and we could get the engine on a stand to tear it down, so I headed home.

A couple of days later, Graham told me he'd split the bottom end and sent me some photos. Eek! The barrels and pistons, cam, lifters (followers), case, flywheel and crankshaft all looked good, as were all the rods. But the surprise was the state of number three rod bearing. It was completely donald ducked (I don't think Bootsy's inbuilt censor would allow me to write f****d). I mean really done for. There was absolutely no sign of any heat build up, and the crank was totally unhurt (after measuring, I had it checked by a machine shop and the journals polished just in case). There was no evidence of oil starvation anywhere (the #3 rod bearing is the last to get its oil, after the rear main bearing) and we have a suspicion that the bearing failure may have occurred early in the engine's life, possibly due to the bearing shell not having been seated properly – or was simply faulty, with good oil pressure and quality oil keeping things going. We'll never know, but what I do know is that a couple of weeks before the final event at Wiscombe, the engine's traditional cold-start piston-slap-induced knock did appear to be accompanied by a different sound which went away almost immediately once the engine fired. Maybe it was the rod bearing making its presence felt, but who knows. The main thing is that the crank journal is perfect and it all held together for the season...

It's not a pretty sight.



So, as we stand, the case is all cleaned and ready to go, the new crank is sitting there waiting its turn, as are the rods, cam-train and new heads. The latter will get the full works from Graham. I wanted to lose a few pounds off the flywheel, and have handed it over to my friend Chris Rudling (Carbon 12 Racing) to lighten on his mighty CNC lathe equipment. Any excuse to go and see Chris as not only does he have the most incredible machine shop you've ever seen, but he's also building from scratch his own road-going interpretation of a Group C-inspired road car, powered by a Jenvey-fed Chevy LS motor hooked up to a six-speed Audi transmission. It is breathtaking in every respect and makes me feel very inadequate when it comes to machining and welding. As soon as the flywheel is done, we'll get the rotating assembly balanced and can then start assembling the bottom end.

Oh, and as Chris couldn't find any suitable wheels, he made his own...



As for the gearbox, I'd bought a Quaife ATB diff and decided the best course of action would be to send it up to a certain Mr Mike Bainbridge so he could install it for me. In the course of conversation with Mike, I expressed my frustration with the gearing, particularly at Wiscombe, where I was running out of revs in second gear just short of the first hairpin, but the drop in rpm as I shifted into third gear was too great and the engine tended to drop right off the cam, which was compounded by the fuel surge problems I'd experienced. While swapping to ITB fuelling should cure the latter, it was obvious that only a change of ratios would really sort things out. Mike suggested we fit a taller second gear, and a shorter fourth, while retaining the stock third so that I'd end up with three close-ratio gears on the hills, and a stock first (which is only used to get the car off the line) and fifth so that the car wouldn't be revving its nuts off on the motorway. At Wiscombe, I certainly wouldn't need anything other than second and third, but the shorter fourth may well prove useful on other longer hills.

I also bought another steering rack off Andy Palmer so that I can rebuild that with the Quaife 'quick-rack' conversion and then do a straight swap at a later date when the car is mobile once again.



And that, rear reader, is the current state of play, summed up thus: the engine's in bits, the gearbox is at the other end of the country and fingers are crossed that it all works again one day.