Previous updates for the 2001 season

   2000 updates  1999 updates      1998 updates

11-30-2001

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR all.

New MM t-shirts below.

It's been a while since I had a chance to update any thing. Been just a bit busy, but I finally got a chance to get out in the garage again. So this is what I have been up to. Back in September or so, Sixto got his case back and now we had something to work with again. (new case had a bad bore job in the center main section) I now had a chance to get some work done on it. If you don't remember this in the past, this is an 84x94 that will have his turbo put on and most likely push around Sixto's already fast Notch back.

I bolted on  the Dyna-gear strait cut cam gear to the cam to check back lash, fit, etc.  Also had to massage the cam thrust bearing to get the proper end play.

The cam of choice was an Engle FK-10. Sixto's other motor had what was very similar to a FK-8 so he wanted to try something just a little bit bigger since this was going to be a bigger motor then his last. ARG, ARG, ARG.

Some of the typical things to look for are oil pump to cam bolt clearance. This is a Mellings 30mm pump and has just enough clearance to the bolt. and the bolt is not tight yet. So we are good and clear at this point.

Another point to look at was how much the oil pump shaft engages the cam. The shafts are press fit into the gear and can be moved. Here I started out with around .100" of engagement. I felt this was not enough so I pressed the shaft down into the gear farther and ended up with about .275" engagement. Now I know that the cam will not round off the end of the pump shaft.

Another place that needed attention. Rod and crank to cam clearance. The Eagle rods had plenty of clearance and I will not have to massage the cam to make it work. If you were to look at my motor set up when I was running the Pauter steel rods. they are much bigger and with the same stroke as this, my cam was turned down to 3/4" od to clear.

don't forget cam to lifter clearance.  Have plenty here.

Then it was time to dial in the cam. I installed  a few lifters so I could check all the cam lobes and then took some measurements using a push rod and a dial indicator on the end of the push rod. This will give me a real measurement just like they show on the cam card that comes with the cam. What I ended up finding was the cam was slightly off from what the cam card read. The lobe size and placement were correct but the timing from cam to crank were slightly off. I then changed the washers that come with the cam gear to advance the cam about 1 degree. This brought the cam in to where the cam manufacturer had it designed. Although, since this is going to be a turbo motor, who knows if it was right to correct it or if it would have been better to leave it. This becomes a trial and error once the motor is working.

11-7-2001

I am happy to introduce "Methanol" Matt. Left hand is already reaching for the steering wheel.

In other news. I got some shirts made up. For more details, just email me at Mufflerm@aol.com

The art work was drawn and designed by Ron Petro.

Ron does many of the posters you may have seen. Such as all the VW Classic posters and shirts like the bugs in a gum ball machine to name a few.

Nice and simple on the front. All printed on Hanes Beefy-T's.

10-16-2001

It's a Boy

An incredible few weeks. On September 28th, my wife Amanda and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary /16 years together anniversary. And then on Wednesday Oct. 3rd, Matthew was born. 6 lb-9oz. I must say, I have to rank that at the top of the list of best events of my life. Even over doing my first BIG wheelie. We brought "Methanol" Matt home from the hospital on Friday night and my Mother in Law and wife talked it over and told me to go racing. At first, I thought, "your kidding right?" but sure enough, come Saturday morning, Amanda practically kicked me out of the bed and said, "GO!" And as dense as I can be some times, I knew not to ask twice and I was in the pits by that afternoon. Now I must say, how many wives would let you get away with that? Now I know I have the best of every thing. Just when I thought every thing race wise was going to work, on the third pass of Saturday night testing, something happen in the transmission. Normally, you can hear a ring and pinion slowly get louder and louder when you coast the car indicating the roll over and cracking of the teeth. I have been very diligent into listening to what goes on in the box and it was doing perfect, and not a sound or even a light howl. But that 3rd pass, went from perfect to I can hear it howl and grind in 4th gear under power over the sound of the motor. OH CRAP. And then as I coasted back to the pits, I could not believe what I was hearing and how loud it was. On Sunday, race day, I did every thing I could to baby it. 26lbs of tire pressure lower rpm chip etc. And it actually lasted through qualifying and onto the semi finals in Super Gas before it all let go. Now since it became loud instantly, I don't think it was just the standard R&P failure, my theory is maybe the pinion bearing or carrier bearing just collaped, and then separates the r&p and then causes that to fail. So basically a fluke. So this is all my bad luck I never got over 10 years, crammed into one bad year. It could be possible I just found the end of the type 1 box with weight to hp ratio. I have people swearing up and down that I must switch to a bus box to make it work. I have a hard time believing that but maybe that's what might have to happen. Or maybe a Mendeola trans and NEVER think about it again.

9-27-2001

Well there it is, my new paper weight.

A closer look at the missing threads and broken pins.

Maybe I can use this flywheel to hold down my canapy at the races when it gets windy.

The good news, at  the beginning of this week, I had the case back together with a loaner swiss cheesed lighten flywheel and 84 crank and new Berg gland nut torqued all the way down to max torque.

And the 5.7" long Eagle rods on loan from Sixto. I needed these rods because this crank has Chevy rod journals and my rods are VW size.  By Tuesday night, the motor was back in the car and running again. at this point I am almost packed up and ready to go for the Oct. 7th race in Vegas. BUT the reason why I am packed up and ready early is my wife just might deliver our baby ("Methanol" Matt) at any time now. So this can take up any more time I have to get ready. I figure if Matt comes by this Sunday, I should be Ok to go. But any time after that, I will most likely miss my first PRA race since 1996, but I will definitly make the PRA picnic to show off Matt.

On my next update, I really hope I can introduce you to Matt and have some results to share from the Vegas race.

9-5-2001

If you have been trying to email me for what ever reason using the email link above, it has come to my attention that it wasn't working. OOPPs I had the link wrong. My mistake. It is now correct.

Sacramento Bug-0-Rama 48

The car bucked me right out of the saddle again.

Some of the reason may have stemmed from lack of maintenance and check out time. I spent most of the week in the hospital with my wife as she battled kidney stones with the pregnancy. And at one point I was not going to Sacramento at all. But on Friday afternoon, we were out of the hospital and with some encouragement from my wife and her parents telling me that they would stay with her all weekend, I crammed all my stuff on trailer as fast as I could and didn't do any checking like I had planned. After the Denver race, I figured I had all the gremlins out so I would not be braking any more gear boxes. I went through my notes and put all the settings back to what I did at the first Sac race of the year where I was so close to being number 1 qualifier. Went out first pass and had the tire pressure way up and clicked off a 12.17. I was very happy with that as I am now in the ball park and not searching. I thought, a little tweak here and there and should be good for a tenth of a second faster. And if that worked, by the time actual qualifying came around, I would make a minor tweak again and be in the low 11.90's and get a good qualifying number. And some much needed points. On the second pass, sure enough, ripped off a 12.09, witch is exactly what I wanted and could have really made the exact adjustments to run real close to the index. BUT, on that second pass, as I push the clutch in at the stripe, I heard a shutter. "ooohhhhhhhh that didn't sound good" I said to my self. Shut the motor off, coasted on and round the return road. Hit the starter and heard another shutter. Picked up that 12.09 time slip and was happy about that, but things were not looking up. Pulled into the pits, put on my leather gloves, pull the deck lid off, and notice I was missing the fan belt, grabbed the pulley and yanked. It went clunk. Pushed on it and it went clunk again. I walked to a place where no one could see me and threw a temper tantrum. Regained my composure and thought, "maybe if the flywheel just came loose and it's not bad, I could just tighten it and maybe limp through the rest of the race." So I pulled the motor ASAP only to find that all the dowel pins have broken, the gland nut was loose and the end of the crank was completely beat to hell. I then grabbed a favorite refreshment of mine and unwound around the bbq, contemplating my problem. As I think about how this could happen, a few things come to mind. This may actually started happening when I broke the first two gear boxes. It just started to oval ever thing. I am really leaning toward this theory as I was able to cut just as good or better light (get the vehicle to react) just as fast as lets say a superstreet or even prostock car that weights some 300-500 lbs lighter then my car. I know it wasn't just raw hp, as once the car left the lights, it would not get any kind of 60ft time that even resembled the ET's I was getting. When I shocked the piss out of the first two gear boxes, all this was transferring right to the flywheel and crank. The next theory was , did I tighten the gland nut enough this last time. The third was did the gland nut stretch or crack after its 9 or 10 years of use. (needless to say here, I would now recommend changing these every few years) OR the crank I have been using for soooo many years was missing the first 1/3-1/2 of the threads that the gland nut screwed into. Possibly the rest of the thread on the gland nut just finally gave out and couldn't hold on any more as when I pulled off the gland nut, the threads were rolled over at that end. Did it roll when I installed it or did it roll when it got beat on when every thing was loose? And if your asking, was it wedgemated? NO. Should I have done that? Probably. But this is all racing.

Now I have another decision to make. Will I try to make the last race of the year in VEGAS? My crank is now a paperweight. Time is now a factor. With a baby on the way and will probably be here a little early (before the race) I still need to get the baby room done and I should be here at least for the first week of the new born. The other problem is going out and buying a new crank that I would want. This is out of the question for now as this year has not been good to me and my race budget is tapped. Ideally, the next crank I get will be either wedgemated (takes time to have done) or a flanged crank. (takes time to set up and cost more) but even if I could afford it now, I don't think I would have time to get it running by Vegas. (oct 7th) BUT since I have good friend in the right places, I have access to a spare crank and flywheel. Now all I have to do is tare down my motor and make sure I didn't damage any thing else like the case, and it is possible I can make the Vegas race. And then I can plan for next years new parts. So if I can make it, this message goes out to the top 3 points leaders in Supergas class as I am now out of contention for their position. Greg, John and Don, I BLOCK FOR BEER. Some where I have to find the humor in all of this.

Hopefully next week or so, I will have pictures of the dead crank and flywheel.

8-16-2001

Veteran PRA racer, Super Street and Pro Stock Champion, Andy Costello lost his battle with cancer on August 13th 2001. (shown on the cover of a recent VW Trends) I think I can speak for most of the other racers on the circuit, he will be missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Costello family.

Back in the saddle again.

Ok, the Denver race was a blast. Chihro Abe and the EMS crew took another most important win in the Super Street category and collected some very valuable points and now enjoys a small cushion ahead of Doug Wagner.

As for me, I have exceeded the goals I wanted to accomplish up on the mountain. I went up early to do some extra testing on Saturday to figure out a few changes and dial in the motor. What I found was a few way out in left field runs that were to slow or too fast. First two passes went from a 13.20someodd and with a turn of the boost knob, it up and went a 12.26. Now I have to say, how many aspirated motors can you just turn a knob and pick up a second. This is fun.

The corrected altitude index up in Denver was set at a 12.65 and not the normal 11.90 we would run at a normal elevation track. Denver being known as the mile high track, pretty much has the feeling of no air up there. This is why cars typically run much slower.

Sunday rolled around and it was do or die time. I went out for my three qualifying passes in the morning. In the Super Gas class, we must actually qualify as close to the index as possible but not go faster then. Well some how, I managed to get the closest number to that 12.65 index to snag the number one qualifying spot and get those oh so valuable points. And normally they limit the field to 8 cars but we did not fill the field this time. So as number 1 qualifier, I would have normally run the number 8 person but since there was no number 8 man, I got a bye run into the second round. In the second round, I raced Don Brown. This was the second time we have gone heads up in competition, once back in the Pro Eliminator class were we were dialed in the same and had such a great time doing that because it was sooooo close then. So here we are again. I was fortunate enough to cut a little better light then him and take the win in that round, but we were both pushing it and both broke out. I happen to be the lesser of two evils.

Then in the final round, I met up with Greg Decker from Tx. He has been the class of the field in the reaction time department through the year and was no different on this day. I thought to my self, "wow, I made it to the final in my first full race in the Super Gas class, I could go home right now and be happy" But you know I didn't. But I did realize that my reaction times were just not up to Greg's par and I was going to have to reach real deep to make it happen. It was now time, we both did our own routine and staged the cars. To my surprise, I did cut the better light with a .466 to his .470 on the pro light. But this was only a 4 thousands of a second advantage. We raced hard all the way to the end. And in the end, Greg put up a outstanding 12.653 on that 12.65 index. That only left me with a 7 thousands of a second (.007) margin to cross the line first. But after the math was done, I crossed the line 17 thousands ahead witch was about a half a fender and not a half a head light ring that I needed with an et of 12.640. But all in all, a very close race. With Greg pulling away in the points championship, I would need all the luck in the world to catch him now. But you never know what could happen. At this race, John Schueger, the defending points champion ran into some transmission and tuning problems and went out first round. I my self had two failures in a row before this race. With that in mind, I will do my best to make a run at it. The ultimate goal for now is to get into the top 3 for my first year in the Super Gas class.

The rest of the PRA race results are already posted at www.PRA2000.com

In Preperation for Denver, I made some changes again. I took out the tall snubbers from the rear and went back to my old set up to soften the suspension.

I also made up this mount to give the front of the trans a chance to twist right along with the bell housing if any thing in the back flexed to take care of any possible chances that the case can twist and separate the ring and pinion.

So I welded in some tabs, added a cross section with a half inch bolt that rides in the bronze bushing that is pressed into the aluminum mount, and secured it with a nylock nut that was not completely tighten. The one theory that came up was did I hit the wheelie bars harder on one side and it wanted to twist the case? With the other mount I had, the front half of the case was NOT going to move.

The next item I added was this shock on the clutch. Basicly the same thing the Bergs sell as the Washington Anti-Shocker. A thanks goes out to Jim Lutz at Strictly German Autoworks for the trial of this unit to see if it helps.

The other item i added in was a different shape scatter shield to accomodate the  clutch shock and at the same time, tie in the last 6 inches of the frame horns after the tie in of the cage to the firewall. This was to attempt the last 6" from flexing when the wheelie bars hit and possibly folding the trans case and separating the r&p. YES, these all probably sound like an over kill, but when we cant explain the last R&P failure, I had to throw every thing at it I could to make sure it will not happen again. I look at it as a combo of way to stiff a suspension and maybe the full load of it just as the case was put under a strain. You may be saying "builder", and I say no way. just look at the back ground picture of many of those wheelies on a little 4.37 and yet it was a big 3.88 that failed last time. It could have been just a fluke too. But we may never know.

I also whipped up this little trans rack for the front of my trailer. I didn't want to drive 1100 miles only to brake a trans and go home early again. So an extra trans went for the trip and was never moved. The theory here is, Bring it and it will not brake. I now have an order for another one of these racks for a fellow racer who was tired of watching his spare trans roll around his trailer.

On a completely separate note. Occasionally I get asked, "where can I get a roll bar or cage?" well for those of you in So. California, have I found a deal for you. Ron Lummus Racing has developed a bolt in 5 point roll bar perfect for the weekend warrior up to a 10.99 et NHRA legal. But here is the kick, If you buy it from John at Aircooled.net, you can save by not having to pay for California sales tax but then you say, what about shipping? not to worry, just go down to RLR and pick it up. no tax or shipping cost. (pictures can be seen at Callook.org or RLR web site) Even if you are not interested, go take a look, they might have something else you want. By supporting my sponsors, you are supporting me, and my sponsors help me stay on the track so I can entertain you. So the next time you are thinking, "I need this part, I need a trans, some machinging, fabricating" or what ever, think of my sponosrs first. These are the people I use, and I base a LOT of my success on them.

7-16-2001

Since the last update, I have been pretty busy, but not exactly on my car. I set a few ideas in motion and fabricated up a new mount for the trans which I should be able to show in the next update, but it has now turned to doing my best to remodel the front bedroom and turn it into the computer/guest room, so we can make the existing computer room into the new baby's room. This is tough work. My wife did most of our interior, from stripping walls, stripping hard wood floors, refinishing, trimming, framing, and painting everything. But since she is now just starting her third trimester, I am having to stop her from working and trying to do it my self.

Now on to the good stuff, a lot of pictures. a few weeks back, I stopped by EMS for my usual visit and this time I took my camera. Low and behold, Hobi Osequera's car was on the rack. In the shop talk forums, there was some discussion about putting automatics into a vw drag car, so I thought I would show some pictures of Hobi's setup. The pictures did not come out as clear as I would have liked, so you need to use your imagination to place your self under the car and then you will see what I see.

Jimmy Larsen of JCL does some awesome work as usual.

The rear view. Notice the offset of the motor to the frame horns. this is because of the differential in this Vanagan automatic transmission is offset. So the transmission is move to one side to make the axles equal lenth.

This view is the drivers side.looking back.

Drivers side again showing the HAL shocks and Folts u-joint, swing axle conversion.

A view of the passenger side looking forward.

Looking up from the drivers side at the pan. The transmission has been raised some 4ish inches so the pan almost clears the frame horns. There is a notch in the passenger side to clear this.

another look at the drivers side

This is the new Pauter block Hobi is running this year with a new Bugpack flanged crank. This block was ordered quite a while ago and was originally set up to run a roller cam. But in the quest to find the right combo of cam vs. trans stall converters, it would have cost a fortune to make up multiple different roller cams. So what was done to get around this part was to use a standard solid Chevy lifter because the lifter bores in the case was set up to take the Chevy size roller lifters, and then have Engle grind some chevy profiles onto a VW cam. Currently, there is a cam similar to a K-8 in it. Last years motor still had a vw case with a slightly smaller crank and with a K-8 cam and a little over 12:1 cr, they put 225 hp to the automatic already. This motor should put out a little more hp. And once they get the stall converter up where things really start to work, the motor will get a bigger cam and really start to pump out some HP's.

One of the beauties of the Pauter block is these all aluminum rods that can be run because of the large amount of room. Pop the top off the case and check the rod bearings with out tearing down the whole motor. These rods are out becasue aparently when you run new aluminum rods like this, they will change size initially and need to be checked and possible resized on the big end. But once they have been done once and the aluminum has settled, they are good to go for a long time.

Hobi's Steel chamber superflo's, with an extra custom added valve cover rail to create extra depth.

On to the EMS shop tour. This is Chiro Abe's motor just freshened up with new cylinders and transmission to the right.

After many years of abuse, the cylinders needed to be changed out. These are a Porsche 98mm cylinder. But the new thing for this year is the addition of the cooling fins all the way to the case. Dick Nuss took an old set and made them into an extension to add on to the bottom of the new cylinders. And if you are asking why the head looks funny, the eniter combustion area or basicly, half the head is actually carved out of a chunk of steel.

An entire table of valves and springs. There are a lot of head in this place.

Some of the odd ball work they do. I think this is out of a Packard.

One of there boring machines.

I know the purple heads in the middle came off a boat that has a BIG block that's pretty much a supercomp or similar motor. Big power.

Here is something you don't see every day. An inline 8 cylinder million pound block. I think you call these flat head motors.

OK a vw head. this is an angle flow head that blew a hole in the top and right out the cooling fins. At this point, things have been welded up and flycut back to original depth. Almost ready for some chamber reshaping. It is amazine to see the different things that come through there shop from late model v12 viper motors (I had the oportunity to see a few sets of these v12 heads Dick Nuss ported, wow there are a lot of ports.) to so some early 20's and 30's stuff. So if you are looking for 25 years of VW head porting experience along with the ability to run them on a Super Flow 600 flow bench, OR just any thing in general, then maybe it is time to give EMS a call.

And what do the guys at EMS do on there brake time?? this cart came off one of there friend wall and was almost thrown out, so Dick Nuss brought it in. It ran like crap the first time, but after some big mods to the steering and extensions of the front end, the head was milled for more compression, a couple of different exhaust pipes were tried and now this thing goes way to fast for the parking lot that we ride it in.

Bruce Fordyce making a pass.

Dick Nuss about to brake the sound barrier

Me, diving into the corner at 4 g's hehehehe

Jim Hagethorn just nicking a cone as he dives in for the next cone.

One of the crazy masterminds behind this cart. This is the shop friend Richard Iggy welding up a speed jack for the cart.

Richard getting a new greased back hair style.

After a few bigger jet changes the cart is now way to fast for what it is and the size of this lot, here is Richard on the last pass of the night getting on two wheels as he heads around the corner. He had it on two wheels for some 10-15 feet.

Shop therapy.

6-14-2001

A special thanks goes out to the guys at Cal-Look.com for stepping up and helping out with some extra support for the Sacramento race and Tracy at TG Fab for dropping ever thing else he was doing and making the stuff below, before the sac race.

picture update time.

Well after the one and only partial Phoenix pass that sent the front end in the sky. (i figured no more suspension travel meant no more wheelies. Boy was I wrong.) I got on the phone with Tracy at TG Fabrication and said "I give in, I need some wheelie bars" And he told me way ahead of time, "your going to need them."

So I sent off my trans mount to him and he added the mounting part for the new bars.

In the same process of installing the new mount, I decided to retire my old trusty trans strap that has held this car up in the air more times then I can shake a stick at.

In its place went a new Berg intermediate mount with some aluminum blocks to replace the rubber.

Fortunate for me, I finally acquired this ole big 300 amp beast of a tig welder. it was the right price (and i'm sure you know what that price was) so the size doesn't bother me. Now it is no problems to add in some brackets such as for the Berg mount.

The wheelie bars.

These bars are a work of art. I wish I had a better camera that would show the detail on these.

these ones tuck in just inside the J-tubes instead of outside of them.

So it is almost time to test before the sacramento race and I wanted to get some what close on the wheelie bar settings. In probably not such a smart fashion, I was doing light launches in the garage and video taping it so I could get an idea of how close things were.

If you look close, you will notice the wheelie bars are now almost touching the ground and there is just a bit of light under the right front tire. (this picture is the car in motion)

By this picture, it is the weekend before the VW Classic, my buddy Dominic stopped by and installed a new line lock so he could go out and have some fun. (in the event there were to be some burn out contests at knolwoods)

But instead of fighting with hard lines, we went around the corner to Earls Performance Products and picked up some -3 braided line and the necessary fitting and had this done in just a few hours. Now Dom is ready to do some big smoky burn outs. Oh yea, I think he did one at the DKP cruise night at Dairy Queen. it is now fully tested. :)

In other news, John Plow from Cal-look.com flew out to California to attend the Classic weekend. He stopped by on Friday and we sat down and did a little video interview. So look for that in the near future. Plus if you missed the weekend all together, there are already pictures going up from the day of the event and still being added. I got to meet some new friends all the way from Florida named Lester, John, and Mike. They took in the entire weekend and was updating there web page each night. Go take a look at www.Locashracing.org and tell them I said hi. Plus Cal-look.com is adding new pics from the even as well. Look under Events and the list is in the upper right side.

6-5-2001

My apologies for not updating in a while. And for the loss on the web page recently. I have been very busy setting up new things here and there on the car and taking care of my wife.

Taking care of the wife you say? Yes, she is pregnant and we are expecting a "Methanol Matt"

It's going to be a BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get to make me a Jr. Dragster now.

I have a few pictures to put up but I am lacking some time at the moment so they will be up soon. But what has been going on was the preparation for the Sacramento Bug-o-Rama over Memorial day weekend. With an all new gear box, all new ratios in it and a tall 3.88 r&p, I fitted up some new TG Fabrication wheelie bars (pictures coming soon) and went out to Carlsbad for some test and tune. And as you know, I am going after the 11.90 index Super Gas class. Right off the trailer, it ran 11.94 @ 118.9, "Oh this is going to be a good day". My sort of home brew throttle stop worked like a charm to slow the cars ET down but keep the mph up. Making a change here and there, the next two passes were way off pace, but gave me some more info. Making another change and this should be an 11.80's pass and then the waist gate malfunctioned and dumped all the boost. Needless to say, upon closer inspection at home, I believe the waist gate was binding up internally and actually held the boost a little higher then it should be. So if this was true, I am back to square one on my way to Sacramento.

I arrived in Sacramento on Friday afternoon for some extra testing. (very much needed.) With the waist gate now working properly, the boost was now way low. Not to mention that I installed a new pressure plate and this threw my shifting timing way off because of the much shorter engagement. After scrambling to fix the throw on the clutch pedal, I was sneaking up on the boost and by nights end, I had a 12.001 in the bag.

It's now Saturday afternoon and time to make things happen. Racing started at 5 pm and our first round of qualifying was at 6:30 pm. So I went for one more practice run before qualifying with a very small change on the boost and yeee haaaa 11.95. So here I go, don't touch a thing and lets try and duplicate that to qualify with. But in first round, I had a little extra tire spin that I wasn't expecting and had to live with a 12.02 for first round of qualifying. Sunday morning and it is time to make the second round, I made a small tweak and went just a little too fast with an 11.88. At this time, I'm thinking, "ooohhh I got this covered now." Another small tweak, and "oh oh" it 60ft .02 better then the last pass and still ran too quick with an 11.89, oooh that's so close. But the good news was the 12.02 from the night before was good enough to keep me in the number 4 qualifying spot of only 8 available. And I think there were either 3 or 4 cars that were bumped (did not qualify)

Up to this point, I have made a lot of changes to the car over the last few month to speed up the cars reaction time because I am now running on a 4 tenths pro light. (3 yellows flash on at once and 4 tenths of a second later, the green comes on.) When running cars this slow on a light that fast, it is typically, the moment you see the yellows coming on, react as fast as you can, and you might get a good light. So with that in mind, a very tight and wound up suspension, the couple of times I really tried to cut a light, I produced a .427 and .435. Basically what this told me is I had the field covered in the reaction time department. Because if you were cutting .470's you were doing good.

But with nearly running on the dial in and having some good reaction times, this was going to be my day and make up for the Phoenix event. But as I staged in first round of eliminations, the complete unthinkable happened. The big 3.88 ring and pinion let go. I was completely shocked and standing besides my self, trying to figure out how I just broke something like that. But I kept telling my self, "this is racing, some times the unexplained will happen or sh_t happens" needless to say, the first few minutes afterwards was not a time to talk to me. So I went and kicked back and watched some racing for the rest of the day. Which actually turned out to really boost me up. I got to see some good friends win with Troy Smith taking the Pro Eliminator class and Chihiro Abe and EMS taking the Super Street win. It's kind of a funny thing, even though I did not do well, to watch my friends do well is almost as good.

But as far as the gearbox goes, we are now looking into the possible cause of this failure. My first thought was with the new suspension set up and the new weight of 1900 lbs. with me in the car, I am just hitting this box way too hard. I have also done a solid mount on the front of the box as well. Because we are just scratching our heads on how I could have made a bumper dragging 4.37 last a decade but cant make a 3.88 last much past one race. So our theories are flying. This was a different case from what I use to use because we found a crack in my old one. So does this case have a flaw in it and allowing the r&p to move around? (Currently under investigation) Now that I have the front end mounted solid, when I hit the wheelie bars, am I trying to buckle the case and causing it to flex that way? Or am I hitting the wheelie bars on one side and causing it to twist, which will definitely pull the gears apart. (wheelie bars are mounted to the rear trans saddle, the roll cages is attached half way out on the frame horns and that last 6 inches or so left of the frame horn may be bending as I hit the wheelie bars and trying to mash the trans case into the front mount. And yes, these sound a little out there, but this might be what it takes to figure it out.) Did the new clutch package I switched to hit it to hard? (by the seat of the pants feel, It sounded like the clutch was doing a good job of slipping off the line) One change I will make is taking the car back off the snubbers like I had it set up and step up to some big torsion bars and adjustable shocks in the rear. This should soften up the hit on the box and hope it doesn't reduce my reaction time too much. I might have to cut the front end loose again as I have it strapped up to reduce the travel and try some different shocks up front too. In the past, it was not an issue with vehicle reaction, because I could compensate for that as the 3 ambers slowly came down. And then with very little practice time on the new class, I have made so many changes to make it happen now, instead of sneaking up on it like I should have. So instead of finding out what works, I now have to find out what doesn't work.

There are a few details I am leaving out but if I try to list and discuss every thing that is going through my mind, this would be twice as long. And I'm sure by now, you're bored of reading.

Next up, the Classic in Irvine ca.

4-30-2001

The other day, I got this package in the mail. It was a cartoon type caricature of my car. Darren Gibson from Car-icature in the UK sent this to me. Check it out and let him know what you think. The Drawing. Darrin can be reached at mr_vwman@hotmail.com if you would like to comment, a copy of, a custom drawing of your own car or one of many other ones he  has done like the Bergs car or the old Empi car and a host of others. And I believe he has a web page coming soon at www.car-icature.co.uk

4-13-2001

What a hectic month.

Since the last update, I have been what seem to be extremely busy. I dropped off the transmission for a ring and pinion change to slow the car down to run Super Gas 11.90 index class. The transmission was a quick turn over with some new parts including a gusseted rhino case because my old one of 7 or so years finally developed a crack at the bottom. At this time, when the gear box returned for the final test session before the Phoenix Bug-O-Rama 27, I made up a scatter shield for the flywheel area. Under normal NHRA rules, the VW is typically exempt from this rule because of the forged steel flywheel and the fact that it encapsulates the clutch. But the rules also state if you are supercharged or turbo charged and running 11.99 and faster, you need one of these. Never the less, I got it installed and went out to Carlsbad for one more test and tune to get it dialed in for the 11.90 index. What ended up happening was promising but I still ran out of test time. I had one run that produced an 11.92 at 115mph. But that was with a slight bogging out of the hole that I was very leery of being able to duplicate ever time. So I made some changes and OH NO!!!! It went way to fast, even faster then the first test session with an 11.47 at 118. A few more changes later and I slowed things down to 11.69, but by then, it got dark and the track was closing. So it was off to Phoenix the next weekend, with some crossed fingers. The race was on a Saturday and I decided to do some early testing on Friday night out there. On the first pass of Friday night, it launched like I expected, I got it into 3rd gear and yeeehaaa turbo power kicked in and got all out of shape and had to shut down. (Earlier rains and cold track conditions were the cause.) I waited a little while for a few cars to go down the track in hopes for improving track conditions. So on pass number 2 of the night, I had all my ducks in a row and alllll my years of luck finally ran out and broke the superbeetle main shaft on the line and I was done for the weekend. This is what you call Stuff Happens. (Fill in the "stuff" with your favorite descriptive word) I think with the added HP's and my decision to try and continue to run this type of main shaft was probably the wrong one. This week, a new FTC or ERCO main shaft has been ordered. ($$$ OUCH $$$) And with this, I will be moving even farther up with the Ring and Pinion to the 3.88 (3.875) and I will hit Sacramento with every thing I have. Below are some pictures of the new trans case and the new scatter shield.

The scatter shield that I made was bent into this shape from a piece of 1/4" x 3" mild steel flat bar.

A few clamps to hold it in place while I check for fit.

A little cut and grind here and there to make it fit with the motor in place. Notched for the clutch adjustment and clearanced for the No. 3 piston.

NHRA rules also state all bolts holding on or holding together the scatter shield, must be grade 8 bolts with marking clearly visable. No allen head cap screws allowed.

I also made this up. An old VW tool of the trade. I found a locking caster wheel and welded it to a piece of angle iron and wha-la, I can move my car all around with out the gear box in it.

3-19-2001

A chance to breath for a moment. I have been thrashing to make sure things get running and tested.

One of the side shots of the TG Fabrication header before it went in the car. This is some octopus. There are more pictures on TGFab.com under the "in the shop" section, so go check it out.

this is what it looks like hanging out the back, under the deck lid. ok, maybe not under. Ole smokey ready to puff.

 I searched high and low to find an air cleaner that would be small enough to fit, but big enough to flow with out thinking about it.

What I found was this monstrosity from K&N. I is there new Series 66 Oval. It measures in at 8 3/8" x 11 3/4" by 4 inch element.

The new Erco rims mounted on the car. Over the weekend, on Saturday, I took a trip down to Carlsbad for some preliminary testing. the first two runs were ment as just to get a feel for fuel mixture and boost setting. But both really sucked. The first with no real take off was a 13.74, the second with trying a hard take off was a 12.57. What seem to sound like a miss in the ignition had me wondering. But on the last two passes, my o2 sensor was reading rich. So after scratching my head, I did what you shouldn't do, but I was running out of time to get things right because the season opener race is on April 7th at Phoenix. I ended up making a lot of changes all at once, so I really don't know what fixed my problem. I ended up leaning out the jets in the carb. I switched back to an old distributor rotor that I used last year and had a new one in for this day. I checked all my wires to make sure they didn't cross any plug wires. I pulled all the plugs to make sure they were still there and gave them a quick file job. I even addes 2 deg to full advance. I crossed my fingers and went back out for another pass. YeeHaaa, I must have done something right. It went 11.56 at 115.6mph on the street tires. So I put on the slicks to see what it would do, and did another big wheelie like this back ground, and ran a 11.57 at 115.9 and a little bit of short shifting. That was good enough for me and I put it on the trailer. Now I have an idea what I want to do for a gear ratio change. Today I took out the gear box and dropped it off at Trans West for a ring and pinion change. I will up it to a 4.12 for now and see what happens. I am hopeing this slows the car down a couple of tenths and then I can do a few little things that will slow the car down  a few more tenths and then I should be ready to run the 11.90 index Super Gas class this year.

3-11-2001

Just a quick glimps. I got the rest of the turbo stuff this weekend and for the last two days have been thashing doing mock up on the bench with hoses, fittings etc. And this evening it runs. WHeeeww. still have some small adjustments to make here and there. but im sure i will be testing next weekend.

3-7-2001

Jim's Car has been sold. :( But it went into good hands. It was sold over the weekend and the new owner already reported that on the way home from work on Monday, he thoroughly put a spanking on a Mustang.

So what have I been up to? Well I went as far as turning my front brake drums to swiss cheese to match up with the new light weight rims. Drilled  3/4" holes between the studs and removed the outer rim.

Here is the Holley 650 and most of the turbo (to4b), that will be used this year on my car. Tomorrow, the UPS guy should have the rest of the stuff like header, center section, exhaust housing and any other necessary things needed to make this run this weekend. Can't wait.

Something new I will be trying. I picked up this can of VP fuels, Motorsports 103. This is an unleaded fuel that I will run around the block to initially dial in carb jetting using the O2 sensor. (leaded fuels will clog up the sensor) Once I am sure its close, then I will switch to a leaded fuel and start running it hard. Below that is an $80+ dollar case of Torco 5w-50 synthetic oil. But so far well worth it for racing.

2-6-2001

Due to some unfortunate details, Jim's car was not sold like anticipated. It is still on the market on the forsale page with new price

1-30-2001

Muffler Mike Racing is please to announce that Blitzlkrieg Racing / Old-Volks-Home has come aboard as a Sponsor for the 2001 race season.

 New toys to play with. I purchased a new set of Erco front rims. They are a 3.5" wide with 3.5" back spacing. Who needs a narrowed beam. These rims are Incredibly light. My Centerlines are 3.5" with 3" back spacing.

 I also purchased some new front runners. These are M&H 3.5-22-15" considerable smaller in diameter then my 135 radials. Why get these you ask? To speed up the cars reaction time. smaller diameter = quicker role out.

 Got my heads back from EMS and there little check out they do. It is always nice to pick up my heads and they are as clean as the day they were new. Basically there was nothing done. The valves were lapped in just to check how they were seating and every thing was perfect. these seats are now 2 years old and don't need a thing done to them. They don't move around at all. This is a little better look at the siamese seat job that EMS does. One of the things I paid attention to this year because I installed a new cam was the lack of adjusting the valves for the 2000 season. I adjusted them, broke in the cam, checked them with no adjustment necessary, went racing, checked again, went racing a few more times, checked again and didn't even need to open the valve cover. They were not touched until I took the motor apart. I like it hat way.

Just a look at how strait the port is on a Super Flo 2 .

A quick picture of Dick Nuss's  (EMS) handy work with the installation of VW valve cover rails put on these heads. This was done back in 1984-85ish.

1-11-2001

What I have been up to.

Over the weekend I pulled my motor out for its annual check up. I need to clean up the garage a little.

Might be the last time I run these for a while. Turbo soon to be here. And no, I am not selling them. these might as well be gold.

My old faithful pressure plate

Look at the date. January 1990. If I remember correctly, I got this a few months after it was manufactured.

Another old faithful. a stock disk. I have ran this disk since 1994 and has all but 2 of my wins on it.

don't think you can see this clearly but you can see small heat marks where the clutch slips a little. this is one of the reasons my gear boxes live. pressure plate looks worse.

Then I did some checking of the bearing saddles. I took this picture to show the tool I use to measure this. There was some normal pounding of the center main as usual, but this time it didn't ware through to the copper. Maybe because of the use of Torco Synthetic oil. Shortly after this, I took my heads, and my case down to to EMS to have my springs checked, condition of valve seats, and have the case put through there jet washer, and double check my check. the one thing I forgot to take down is my crank to have it mag particle check for cracks. (it does flex a lot.) Maybe ill do that tomorrow or monday. 

Sixto's motor.

I was working on Sixto’s new motor, and doing a few checks. I dropped a strait edge across the main bearing saddles. Hmmm it slightly rocks on the center on both halves. I torqued the case together, measured the bore and it was ok. I stuffed the bearings in it, torqued it down again, measured, OK hmmmm dropped the crank in and as I snugged down the case, the crank got stiffer as I snugged it. Damn, what the F__k. This time as I pulled the crank back out I noticed a spot on the edge of the center main toward the pulley side that was a little Shinier then normal for a new bearing. AAHH Haaaaa! Pull the crank out, torque the case down again. Measured the center main again where I did last time and it was ok. Measured the front edge of the center main bearing and LOOK AT THAT. .004” smaller. NO SH__ Sorry I was using a lot of vulgar language by this time. Pull the bearings out, torque the case again. And did a close measurement across the whole saddle surface. Most of it was ok, but the last 1/8” toward the pulley had a taper of almost .010”. This was kind of the abbreviated version, but in all, an hour and a half spent looking at this problem.

The moral of this story, don’t always trust new parts, and check things like this first before spending time on other things like finishing the clearance, tap holes etc. now I have wasted all this other time only to have to most likely return the case