John Troxell's
motor specs and build process.
With a little Miscellaneous thrown in.
Dyno'd at JayCee Ent. at 247hp at 7500rpm.
Size 2332cc
Case New VW type 1
Crank 84cc Bugpack Flanged
Rods Scat 5.5" h-beam
Cam Engle fk-89
Rockers, Scat 1.4 witch came out to be a 1.51 ratio.
Pump Mellings 30mm.
Pistons Weisco 94mm
Cyl. Century
Heads CNC'd CB Per. Comp. Elim. 48x38
Compression 13.4:1
Intake New 48 IDA's massaged by JayCee (51.5's)
Al's header 2"
Below were taken from page updates.
5-3-04
Race car central.
Troxell's car has now made it to my garage. He was having some small issues
with his shifter at Phoenix. The original shifter box was a little flimsy
and he wanted to change it. He asked me to help, and I thought, easy, he
already has a mig welder at his house, we pick up a box and knock it out.
What I didnt realize was what kind of box we would be using, that would instigate
some fabrication more then I would have thought. We found out that my trans
guy Kevin Pirtle at Trans West has been making an
ocasional shifter box for his off road buddies. So it was off to pick one
up from him. And that is where the suprise came in. He is use to having some
off angle shifting linkage (witch by the way is what we were dealing with
any ways) So his box has a different support system in it.
Instead of the standard
plastic bushing, this thing has two pressed in bronze bushings where my fingers
are. We used a piece of 7/8 od DOM seamless tubing that fits perfectly into
the bronze bushings. I cut the old cup off the other shift rod and welded
it to this. Notice this shifter is not on top of the tunnel but on the
side.
Then to take care of the
angle, John picked up a small u-joint from a steering lingake that is splined
on each end so we have plently of rotational adjustments as well. Weld the
splines into the tubing and wha la.
When I first picked up the
box, I thought, I needed a head start and had John bring his car over a few
weeks earlier then I had planned so I can look at it and figure it out. Come
to find out, it was a lot easier then I thought it would be, and we knocked
it out in one evening. His shifter is now nice and positve and finding every
gear real easy. And what use to be a multi bend, once piece, wrap
around the seat belt mount and some times rub it, has now become a two piece,
very positive, don't interfere on any thing shifting linkage. hopfully, its
not so positive that we start bending things in the gear box.
3-8-04
The recent motor I built
for John Troxell, finially got a decent work out over the weekend. After
one attempt to go out a few weeks back, and running into some new car blues,
We put 8 passes on it over the weekend.
We didnt change a thing all day, and just worked on bringing the driver up to speed. He started out doing a slower shake down pass with a mid 8 second 1/8th mile pass, and slowly but surely picked up the pace quite nicely. closing in on the end of the day, I was put in the car to see what can happen. I ended up putting on up a 7.18 at 95mph. A little massaging to tire pressure, and the last pass of the day John put up a cool 7.20 at 94 and some change. So he is defintily right where he needs to be.
Now, John will need to bring up the shift rpm, and find the sweet spot. then start working on suspension tuning and carb tuning a touch more, and I definitly can forsee some 7.00's, maybe some 6.90's. (low 11's, high 10's in the 1/4 mile) Right off the bat, had my pass got the 60ft time he did on his last pass, I would have been in the 7.0X's my self. but it does help, that I am probably about 40-50 lbs lighter then John.
I think if John can get the shift rpm up in the mid to high 7000 rpm range, he might just be puttin up some 7.00's at drag day in a few weeks.
1-7-2004
Un-believable. Happy New Year.
I dont know abou the rest of you, but time seems to fly by faster and faster every day. Just not enough time in the day to get every thing done.
John's motor is done. Cam
is broken in and ready for pick up. As we brought this thing off brake in
rpm, I gave the throttle a quick rap, and John's eyes just open wide as this
thing rocked my car in place. Shortly after brake in was done and a nice
idle was established, the motor was pulled and the inner valve springs were
installed. John has also ordered a larger pulley for the alternator
to slow the rpm's down out there.
I even whipped up the muffler
for him. Its nice to have a welder. John stopped by on the 1st to collect
his new toy. And when I talked to him last, he was finishing up some wiring
on his car and this thing should be going down the track shortly.
12-23-03
Merry Christmas.
"IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!"
Saturday morning. I am
caught on cam, under the car bolting the motor into my car for
cam brake in. What better platform then an actual car that has ignition,
fuel, breather, and stable mounting.
And there it is. This picture above is after the first fire up. Had to move some things to make this work, but not that big a deal. Since this motor has an MSD distributor, I had to run a second pair of wire off my ignition box to fire up. Simple stuff to deal with. In the end, I will spend assorted 5 minute run sessions to insure the cam brake in. As of this picture, I have kept track of time invested in this motor, and I have cleared more then 90 hours. And by the time, this motor is picked up, I should be just under 100 hours. OUCH!!!! Yea this stuff takes a long time. So when you go to a shop and ask for a REAL performance motor, and they quote you a price that gives you sticker shock, all you have to do is think about how many hours can go into a motor, and their labor cost. Just think, if I charged something like $25-$45 an hour, (I dont, but would give a left you know what if i can get away with it) and did it on a time and material basis, This is well over a $10,000 motor. And its just a freggen VW motor. (ok, we all know better then that, LOL)
$25-$45 and hour is a guestimate that I make with the assumption that a shop will have to pay the skilled builder, pay for small supplies, etc. get their overhead cost covered, (utilities, insurance, taxes, bla, bla, bla) make money for the shop it self to stay in business etc.
I think I heard my car calling out, "I miss the IDA's"
12-19-03
The alternator bracket.
On the motor.The biggest
question will be, will this thing get spun too fast. If so, the plan will
have to change to use a bigger pulley on the alternator or somethign smaller
and stacked on the crank pulley.
The adjustable slotted
bracket came off of a mid 80's rabbit.
I cut the pivot rod just
a touch short so we can slip washers in either side for belt alignment as
well.
12-18-03
Its last friday night. Pictures come slow some times.
John wants to use this
alternator on his motor. He catches me in this picture with that look
of, what the $%#& am I going to do with this?
Just maybe, we can
hang it right here, just like we have seen in other pictures recently. At
the time of this writing, I already have the hinge point made and top adjuster
in the works. by tonight, the adjuster will be on.
On Saturday, I was greeted
with a suprise B-day party. Dom the burn out king and buddy Rob orginized
with my wife and picked up this cake. Ever wonder why mufflers slow cars
down? full of this breaded stuff and pudding junk.
Needless to say, the
party turned into some bench racing.
Johns big 2" header
on display.
And of course, we had to
brake in John's motor in properly when we bench race. So on go the beer cans.
"Custon velocity stack extenstions" Get yours today.
This motor will be fired by the weekend.
12-15-03
John's motor is coming along nicely.
John's box of goodies, expensive
goodies.
Flywheel and rods
are hung.
At first the plan was to
use some wide mouth windage type stock looking pushrod tubes. but then John
saw my JayCee tubes that I have been holding for next season. Needless to
say, like the rest of us, we drool when we see the good stuff. So now,
after a quick check on replacement price, I am doing the assembly of
the tubes for John's motor. It sure is easy spending other peoples money.
One head is on, and my kid
is already loosening the engine stand to rotate the motor over
to get the other side done.
The Little Things.
A stock disk will clear
every thing as is out of the box just fine. but when you get into
some of the other more exotic disks, the center plates are thicker, the rivits
are bigger and start to interfere with things. Fortunately, John has already
chosen a clutch disk so it was easy to make the decission to do some clearancing.
The countersink holes in the flywheel were cut down to about .260" thick,
and I took the bolts into work with me, so I could do a lunch time G-Job
and took .030" off the top of the bolt head on the lathe.
Another lunch time G-Job.
With the Comp Eliminator heads, the valve spacing is much farther
apart then the stock configuration. Actually about .150" wider. So instead
of stacking a boat load of shims, I made up some spacers out of a pices of
Schedual 80, 3/4" pipe. It was close in size, and was some what easy to make.
chuck up this piece of pipe on the lathe, bore out the inside just a touch
to fit over the Scat rocker shaft, do a light cut on the outside of the pipe
so it looks clean, then take a parting tool and start cutting off .150"
slices.
The outside end of the shaft
just happen to work out good for this. all that was needed was a quick flip
of the aluminum end cap to allow the rocker to come all the way out to the
edge of the shaft.
12-8-03
I cant believe it, Christmas is almost here. And at this rate, John should have a nice x-mas, but I dont think his girl friend will like having a motor under the tree.
What happens when you let
John loose with a box of die grinder bits. You get Carburators by John.
He went in and modified the wall oposite the accelerator pump to increase
the float bowl capacity. A simple mod that can make a world of difference
if you find the need for fuel.
We made the trip to
EMS (Engine Machine Service) to pick up the newly custom notched pistons,
all the rotating parts that were balanced and started cleaning every thing.
We jumped ahead a few steps,
and didnt clean every thing at one, we cleaned as we went. So the case
is now going together. With the flanged crank, I put the case sealer around
the flange end seal and drop that in at the same time as the crank. This
way I know that the green seal compound on the outside of the seal will not
get scraped off during a push in style install like one would do on a stock
seal.
Proud papa . Ready to go
fast.
12-1-03
Happy Turkey Day.
Don,t know about you, but I sure did over eat. Twice. Once with the Family. A day to recover, and then off to a good friends for another turkey, but this time fried. mmmmmmmmm good stuff.
Slowly but surely we continue.
By this time, we have a good 50 hours into this motor so far. (spread over a month)
Time to start cutting on parts. Piston notching. No I dont actually do the cutting.But by this time, the short block is mocked up, the cylinders pistons, heads have been bolted on and off a dozen times. And now that the valve train geometry has been established, its time to see if the pistons hit. We already know they will, its just a matter of how much.
Off the bat, the intake
hits. So to get a real reading of how much, I added in a cylinder
spacer to bring the deck up that much higher. Then used the clay method.
Using a sharp razor
blade with oil on it,(wd-40) I sectioned the clay and did a careful
measurement of how far the valve was from the piston, then did the math taking
away the cylinder spacer, and wha-la, valve to piston interferance was
established. Oh yea, the chamber and valves need oil as well so they dont
stick to the clay. The clay I used, I got at an arts and craft store. (Michael's
here in the L.A. area) just modling clay that comes in different colors.
I chose orange for ease of visual.
Now that I have my
depth established, I need to establishe location of the valves
on the piston. So out comes the old valve stem that has been cut with a point
machined on to it.
Bring piston to top dead center, install cut
valve, and give it a light tap. doesnt need much to mark the piston.
Hammers and motors typically dont do well together, but in this case, it
works nice.
I had to sharpen this picture up so it can be
seen, but if you look in the middle of the port, you can see where I marked
the piston. Then its off to EMS to have the pistons notched. With known depth
and known position of the valve, all that EMS has to do is line up with the
center point, and cut to needed depth and nothing more then necessary. Once
notches are in, we will probably loose close to 5cc's worth of crush. This
should put us right about that 13:1 area. Our original thought was a .045
deck and 40cc in chamber to accomplish that. but with the unknown of the
notches, we opted for the 35cc chamber knowning we would loose 3-5cc.
If things continue to go smooth, I cant see why this motor will not be done before x-mas. for sure early January. Really, the major part to be done still with be to do a proper shimming on the rocker arm side clearance, fit the rings to cylinders, verify clearance of valves after the return of all the parts being notched and balanced, a good cleaning of all the parts and a final assembly. Then its off to brake in the cam, and put on the second valve springs back in.
tonights job will be the rocker adjustment with pictures to come. valve ring fit, then its wait for part to come back from EMS. probably by the weekend, we will be moving on with this project.
11-17-03
The motor build continues. A couple of minor problems found on the VW case. Oil pick up tube a little on the loose side going into the case. Had to add sealer. Oil pressure relief piston port had a taper at the bottom, so the piston would wedge it self in. Had to borrow a tool to clean this up.
My son, checking over
my work as I check end play on the flanged crank. Upon initial check, with
crank in case half, end play would have been ok. But once the case is closed,
end play disappeared. come to find out that the bearings were two different
thicknesses on the thrust surfaces. So the 600 grit wet/dry sand paper came
out and it was an hour of massaging the bearings to match each other.
Then it was on to
dial in the cam. So I added cam and lifters to the case, install a push rod
inbetween the lifter and dial indicator. This will show the actual lift at
cam only. Then I can rotate the crank and verify and adjust if necessary
in comparison to the cam card info. Basically, set up at top dead center,
set indicator to zero, roll crank until I see .050" lift, then check degree
of crank and compare against card. Do this on the closing side as well and
see how close it really is. Set Zero at top dead center is sort of important.
as this is not the lowest part of the cam. If you roll the cam to the very
back of the lobe, you will see it drop off some more.
Then its time to check out
deck height on the Century cylinders and Weisco pistons. I might be picky,
but what I did first was take only one rod, piston and cylinder, go all the
way around with that set to check initial deck. This will show me if there
is any inconsistancies with the case or crank with out having the variable
of a different rod, piston, cylinder. and sure enough, I found a journal
that was just slightly longer stroke. It was very minor, but when one wants
perfection, we will deliver. And in the end, once I had hung all the rods
and pistons, I had to sand down .003" off one piston to match the rest.
And since then, I took the heads down to EMS to have them fly cut to achieve a 35cc chamber to couple that with a .045" deck height and guesstamating on the notch of the pistons should end up right around 13:1 maybe a touch more. So next up will be checking for valve notching.
11-6-03
Whats going on, on these cold nights in So California. LOL. well cold to me. I'm sure it would feel like summer to some.
My gear box came out over the weekend. It was opened up on Monday. But to my supprise, it didn't look like any thing was wrong upon initial inspection. The stuck in first looks to be the cause of my U-turn shifting from first to third and the shift fork just got caught up inbetween the selector. (how? i dont know) The miss shift???? maybe with the heavy disk, I am actually not shifting fast enough??? if you can believe that. The box will be gone over with a fine tooth comb again, and we will see if we can find any thing. So my next move my be to try a ligher disk. My reasoning for this? Well, its been working great since the new pro ring, but at drag day, I had the boost up and maybe i'm just winging that clutch too much. (my right foot never leaves the floor) Either way, its the off season and now I have time to breath and think about things.
So what I am doing in the off season? Building motors.
On the hot plate, John Troxell's new set up.
He was a runner up of Top Eliminator at the early Drag Day. Now that was a hook, line, and sinker. He is now addicted. And what do us guys want to do after they get the itch? GO FASTER.
And after a whole boat load
of money, its time to build that 2332cc, with comp eliminator heads, with
some real man's compression (somewhere in the 13:1 area.)
Arg, arg, arg,. The
Engle FK-89. No whimpy cam here.
And a Bugpack Flanged
crank.
After doing the usual check
of the case and case clearance, its off to see if we can fit ths cam in.
84 crank with a 3/8 bolt Scat rod, doesnt like sharing its room. So its time
to do some cutting on the cam.
I used a good sharp carbide
rotory file to do the notching. you will want to use something like this
so it cuts instead of grinds. (at least that is my theory, as I feel grinding
is too much friction, but then again, i havent tried it the other way yet)
This way, there is no heat put into the cam. I just took a little off at
a time, put my finger on the cut to make sure I am not creating any heat,
check, take a little more off, until I am happy.
And in the end, it should
look somethign like this. We could have went with the option of just having
the cam turned down, but with the big springs that will be on it, I wanted
to see as much material left in place on the cam. It probably took me a good
3 hours just going back and forth with cutting, and fitting.