My jelly level is off the roof. He drove a redbull car and a helicopter? >:(

3:30 at Sebring? Lol
You must think these things are really slow. Its probably more like 2:30

Hm, that's comperable to what an FF runs (~2:35). Might have to look into these FVs a bit more....

Was that a zero-roll rear suspension? Those things freak me out. I understand how they work, but they just don't seem like they should work.



This actually can be a variable.

If you're experienced with the T1 platform, and good at scrounging parts, then yes, you can keep a crappy old VW motor running for very little money.

And re-manufactured crate engines aren't all that pricey either. You can get a rebuilt stock longblock from someplace like GEX for $1,100.

Making serious power with the T1 engine, on the other hand, gets surprisingly expensive in a hurry. You can easily spend $5,000 for a "hot" turnkey engine from MoFoCo, and that's still with carbs and a distributor.


Man, I want one now...

I want to meet someone with an FV or an FF so I can take more lengthy spin in one. I autox'd a newer Swift F2000 and that was a ton o fun, but now that I'm seriously looking at these I'd like to have a bit more seat time.

I know virtually nothing about motors or rebuilding them, but I do love me some learnin ;) Again, the case for an L15A is pretty strong because at least I understand that motor. Air cooling and carbs confuse my young mind.

It took me a long time to really get it, and its still pretty strange.
Basically it has suspension in compression but has zero resistance to roll.

I guess they're so prone to oversteer and so light that you don't want any form of sway bar in the rear, and even the wheel rate of normal springs is too much.

There is a bit of tweaking in the front end. You replace one of the torsion bars,which are made of several flat prices with a solid square one.

If you're serious about learning the engine, you need two books.

One is obviously the Robert Bentley service manual: VW - Volkswagen Repair Manual: Beetle and Karmann Ghia Type 1: 1966-1969 --- Bentley Publishers - Repair Manuals and Automotive Books

The other is a book which was written 43 years ago by an aging hippie named John Muir and illustrated by his LSD-freak of a friend:


This book, commonly referred to by air-heads as "The Idiot Guide" is now in something like the nine-hundreth printing and has sold ten times more copies than the total number of humans who have ever existed in the entire history of the earth. It's not highly scientific, and in places it is, in fact, dangerously inaccurate. But you need it.


On the minus side, the VW engine was a really strange beast, even by the standards of the 1950s. I learned how to turn a wrench on my old '71 VW, and after I "graduated" to the inline, water-cooled world, it took me a while to come up to speed. "What do you mean you can change the camshaft without splitting the block? And why the hell can't I get the cylinders to come out of the engine- they're stuck!"


On the plus side, working on them is actually pretty easy. The dwell setting is whatever the thickness of a business card is. You can set the ignition timing without even starting the engine, and it's possible (though unsafe) to change the fan belt without stopping the engine. The only Special Service Tools called for in the manual are a set of feeler gauges and a rock.

Yeah, like I said. I understand it, and yet it freaks me out to just see the spring floating there in space, totally uncoupled from the chassis.


The goal being to increase the effective springrate on the front?

I'll echo that. 10k for a rabby engine for the green thing.


They are pretty easy to work on and get running, but getting ti running well is another challenge. and EGT's and head temps are very sensitive to timing and fueling. Get them wrong and things melt. Or at least I'm told... mine has not melted yet.

back to the thread:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350508201
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350508201
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350508201
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350508201
https://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/1...zRePCleMw2.png

Oh hell yes. Jake Raby has an EXTREMELY high opinion of his motors. To be fair, I have heart that his farts do in fact smell like roses, and his DTM shroud is extremely cool (pun intended), but this kind of pricing is typical of what you can expect to pay any experienced engine builder for any decent engine build for any kind of car.

The difference is that ACVWs require this kind of special love and attention to make 150-200 HP reliably, whereas something like a Honda B-series engine or a Mazda BP requires nothing more than a few PSI of boost. Remember, the 50HP 1600 cc VW engine is already a massive overbore of the original 1200cc engine, which was rated at 25 HP.

In a late-model Miata, 250 HP is a little more than double the original factory spec. In a Beetle 250 HP is TEN TIMES the original factory spec.


Of course, some of the stuff is REALLY out there. Raby has a line of custom cylinders called Nickies. They cost $2,400 a set, and that's just for the bare cylinders. The custom pistons to fit into them are an additional $830.

And Pauter? Holy hell, don't get me started on Pauter. Those guys charge $2,700 for an engine case, $3,000 for a crankshaft, $3,500 for a pair of heads... Hell, $10k wouldn't even cover the parts cost for one of their engines. A turn-key Pauter engine can easily exceed $20,000. You can buy a used 996-series Porsche 911 engine for less than that, and it comes in a shipping crate which also functions as a car!




Honestly, I knew jack shit about how to work on / tune engines when I got into VWs. A few years into it, I bought a second one (a cabrio Superbeetle) with a dead engine. I bought a 1776cc longblock from Fisher Buggies, slapped a progressive 2 barrel weber carb and a mechanical-advance-only distributor onto it, set the timing with an ohmmeter, and that was that. Never even looked at the carb jets or played with the timing, and the bloody thing just ran.

Of course, now that I'm older and I know how much I didn't know then, I'd probably destroy the engine just by looking at it.

New shoes in the mail today. Yay.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350515665

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350518980

Aww yiss.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IDwxDnNTzvQ/0.jpg

Interestingly, this popped up on Apexspeed today:

1985 Van Diemen RF85 FF1600(CM) - ApexSpeed


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350527177

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/273...c3c2bf_landing

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/a3d...8ce7a2_landing

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/67e...dfbee6_landing

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/...-photos-31.jpg

http://library.duke.edu/digitalcolle...C0016-med.jpeg

Horray track workers. Start at 2:10.