Dirty Dori - A Rallycross build

[TouringBubble]

I've dubbed (pun intended) her "Dirty Dori." Here you can follow the build of my rally car, a '73 VW Type 1 standard.

Dori was my first car ... I got her when I was 14. One of my FB friends had a photo from back in HS that I'm trying to find again ...

I got a new car when I left for college, so she was parked. I brought her to Atlanta with me a few years later as a project. I pulled the motor and stripped the interior, but didn't get much farther. This is where she ended up for about 6 years ... behind my brother's house in rural GA.



While it was there, he helped himself to pretty much the rest of her parts, short shifter, transaxle, etc., for his buggy ... so he owes me some stuff. lol

I restarted the build a few months back. She will be a dedicated Rallycross car.

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First things first ... let's get her to a place where work can begin ...





And here is where she sits currently, outside my dad's shop in GA.



Meanwhile, in Alabama, I'm working on some "standard" upgrades ...

Megasquirt 2 ECU running MSExtra ...



Subaru 2.5RS fuel setup ... 280cc side feeds, stock FPR ...



And I was bored and they didn't polish out like I wanted, so ...

[TouringBubble]

Looks like I'm going to have a territory fight before getting too far in to the build ...



Luckily, the squirrel/rat that made home here departed before work began.

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Cleaned up the seats for the Beetle this weekend. Had to fix one large tear and a few smaller places to prevent them from getting worse. Not bad for $140 though. Just hope they fit.



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Worked on the Beetle while I was in GA over the holiday. Got some stuff done.

Took the nose cone off my original trans to diagnose a shifting issue. Found a damaged bushing that is likely the cause.



I don't know which trans to use though. I have 2 at the shop and am picking up another that I'm hoping is the LSD version. We will see. If it is, that one is definitely going in the car.

Also grabbed my donor motor and toer it down to the bare case to bring back to B'Ham.







There was notable blowby on all 4 pistons. The cam gear was missing 5 or 6 teeth and the center main bearing was heavily worn. Chances are it was over heated and over revved a few times. The stock cranks are not counterweighted so the flex at RPM above about 4800, hence the wear on the bearing. Hopefully the case is solid though .... there was no obvious damage on first inspection.

The case is at the house here in B'Ham now waiting to find a machine shop. I might use someone local or I might use a guy over in Atlanta that was recommended. Not sure.

Either way, it's progress on a drivetrain.

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I just bought this small piece for part of the sweetest cooling setup you'll ever see ...

[TouringBubble]

Was working on getting something down on "paper" for the cooling this morning ...


Heat exchanger should be approx 10"x12"x2" from what I've found ... maybe slightly smaller. There will be a temp activated electric pull fan to move air when stationary. Obviously, the bends in the cooling duct hoses will not be as drastic as in the diagram.

Heavily considering a dual 3" molded brake duct as an outlet for the duct work. This will aid in mounting the hoses securely and help disperse the airflow evenly as it leaves the hoses.

Additional Info ...

Just replied to a post on FB with some technical data about the motor, as many are not familiar.

The car is air/oil cooled only, so this will be secondary cooling.

Basically, the engine has a few different "levels" of cooling. When cold, the oil flows only to key areas in the case. When pressure increases, a valve opens and it begins to flow to the rest of the case to moderate temps. When pressure is at operating levels, a second valve opens and sends oil to the cooler, which will be replaced by this system.

At the same time, there is a thermostat on the motor that operates flappers on the cooling tins. When warm, these flappers open and allow the engine mounted fan to flow air over the heads. This is the main cooling of the motor, along with natural airflow when the car is in motion.

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Preliminary sketch ...



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Time for an update ...

On Friday, Nick and I headed to GA to work on the Beetle.

We rolled it in the shop and began disassembly at around 3:30.

http://youtu.be/-5-GB7nsTzU

http://youtu.be/g4cYuxNZFB0

At around 6:00 we ended up here ...



At around 10:30 on Saturday we started the final work to remove the shell and repair the damaged floor pans. As soon as we got stuff outside it started to pour down rain. Kinda put a damper on the work for a few minutes.

http://youtu.be/6TtEoBgQlwo

A quick break for lunch and we got the chassis back inside for floor pan replacement. This includes cutting out the original pans and welding in the new panels. By the end of the evening we go both sides fitted and the top sides mostly welded in place.

http://youtu.be/SAGuR6s4n_M

New pan compared to old ...





On Sunday, we finished the welding on the pans and worked on some small cleanup work on the rest of the chassis/body.

http://youtu.be/8_AIFUBDN3M

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Plans for the braking system ...



Also, my brother did some magic on the damaged rear right fender. It had a 3/4" deep crease in it.



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In case anyone was confused by the cooling diagram posted earlier ...



Should have the case back tonight. Waiting on my cousin to get back over here. i have the plugs waiting for a drill/tap of the oil galleys. There is most likely 40 year old crud in there.

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Case machine work ...





New oil relief valves and arbitrary case studs ...



Plan to pull the oil galley plugs tonight and clean/drill/tap/plug them.

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Just tossed this together ...



I've got an engineer friend that's going to do some Solid Works development on it for me to tweak the design. This is just a really rough preliminary based on the dimensions I know. the height may change to get the resonance in the correct range and the volume is likely off. Not sure if it might have a slant or something to it as well rather than the flat top. Just have to see how the flow characteristics look.

Picked up throttle bodies on Saturday. Man it was cold. Found matching Ford V8 TBs, and even got versions without the linear helper spring for ease of implementation. Now to disassemble and figure out how to build the linkage for them.

[TouringBubble]

Some more updates: Removing oil galley plugs is a pain. I finally got all of the ones I plan to replace out and got the holes tapped and ready to plug after cleaning. I have 2 more to tap ... need a bigger drill bit for those.

[Welacey]

Very enjoyable reading. Keep posting.

[nicktcr]

I felt this was appropriate for this thread:

http://jalopnik.com/5886108/how-to-draw-a-volkswagen-beetle-with-just-two-ovals

[TouringBubble]

Ordered heads today. CB Performance Mini Wedge Ports. New 044 castings which have tons of area around the intake ports. 42mm intake valves, 37.5mm exhaust. LS1 high lift valve springs. Bored for 94mm jugs. Flycut to 55cc. CNC ported. Also got CNC port matched manifolds to go with the heads.

http://www.cbperformance.com/catalog.asp?ProductID=1704

Should be a nice setup.

Image from the website ...

[TouringBubble]

A pic my friend had of the car back when I drove it daily ... probably circa '97 ...

[TouringBubble]

Some more updates ...

Got a classic tag to run ...



This plug covers the hole where the distributor drive was located ...



Small diameter pulley (to keep fan speeds down at high RPM) with sand seal. This is the reluctor wheel overlayed as it will be mounted.



I had some concern for the machining of the case where the barrels seat. Took it back to GA and had a little more work done on it.



Oil cooler that will be mounted in the package shelf area ...



Residual pressure valves and proportioning valve for brakes ...

[nicktcr]

I am very excite!

[TouringBubble]

Another big update ...

got down to GA again this weekend and worked on everything a bit more. The tarp that was on it proved to be less than effective, so we spent a bit of time repairing the damage caused by water over the last several weeks.



My brother worked a lot on the body ... cleaning up rust, filling holes, prepping for paint.





Nick spent most of the time joyriding ...



Not really ... he and I were on fabrication duty most of the weekend. We built the rear suspension support, AKA "Kafer" bar ...

[TouringBubble]

Katie was also working on some fabrication, building the brackets to mount the seats.





We were able to roughly test fit the seat, but only enough for width fitment. We ran out of time and the tap set I have is apparently useless, so the brackets were not finished.



We were able to cut the stock dash to allow for the new aluminum dash and gauges as well.





We took delivery on the new tires, but that's another thing we didn't have time for. One of the problems with working in a small town ... nothing is open on the weekends. Even if we could have made time to clean up the wheels, no one would have been open to mount/balance the tires.

[nicktcr]

Fun weekend.

[Cholewa]

So uh.. hows the website coming?