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Little Horus VWDRC build

37K views 108 replies 23 participants last post by  leec 
#1 · (Edited)
This is my race car little Horus...

11140251_10153668393324846_2809060291597971482_n by John Mills, on Flickr

I had the car since 2008 and have been racing her (well him) for the past few years doing RWYB at various events at Santa pod, York and Avon park raceway. I Joined the VWDRC in 2014 and started to race with them in 2015 (I had to wait to get a cage fitted into the car first)

I Have few old build photos of the car from 2008 to present so here a quick history of the car and a select few (of which there are many) jobs I done on the car

Here is how the car looked when it arrived from USA in late November 2008

34 - Copy by John Mills, on Flickr

The car running really badly when it arrived, and I soon found out it was only running on 3 cylinders! There was a host of other problems also wrong with the car which I had to sort.

One of the first big jobs I did when I got the car was to fit a new gearbox (as the boy racer in me blow the last one up racing a Honda civic R type from the lights Summer of 2009 I think).

PICT2363 by John Mills, on Flickr

I fitted a traction bar set on the car the year after from Bugpack, along with external oil cooler which gave me no end of problems for the first year as I just couldn't get the oil from leaking from various parts of the engine. and I ended up solving it by changing the pump for a smaller one, I also had to re drill the case and put studs instead of the bolts as I couldn't get the oil pump to seal. To this day am still not 100% happy with the setup, its mainly the oil lines, which I will look into in the future.

oil by John Mills, on Flickr

PICT2371 by John Mills, on Flickr

PICT2395 by John Mills, on Flickr

I was having problem getting the power down in the first few years of doing RWYB so I made some home made bump stops

DSC00096 by John Mills, on Flickr

DSC00095 by John Mills, on Flickr

DSC00144 by John Mills, on Flickr

165599_10150119560226294_1516658_n - Copy by John Mills, on Flickr

The oil cooler, I made a bracket so it could fit next to the gearbox on the nearside.

Other jobs Iv done on the car (of which there are 100's!) include replacing the rear shocks to Spax collovers, rebuilding the engine (several times) new 2" narrow front beam, Empi wide 5 front disc conversion kit, New front shocks and steering damper, complete rewire, battery box, new electric fuel pump, 5 point harness, twin circuit brake upgrade, complete rear brake re build, rear suspension tweaks (lots of times) Harden Short shafts, new pro street gearbox, Oil cooleer setup, Tacho & temp gauges and a loads of other stuff I forgotten about.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Made 150 on the rollers

521582_10150742042481294_876792098_n_zps46046e3c - Copy by John Mills, on Flickr

At cal look (the stinger is a new addition and got me into the 12's just)

P1020285_zpsa425779a by John Mills, on Flickr

And the car today (well last week)

10635883_10152610304666294_3409596990643629520_n_zps6be7f5bb - Copy by John Mills, on Flickr

Best time to date

10346461_10152435735151294_3772276272919564297_n_zpsaa28f719 - Copy by John Mills, on Flickr

Best time over the years

2009 14.99 @ 88MPH
2010 13.87 @ 94.5MPH
2011 16.30 @ 80 MPH (Slipping clutch)
2012 -Broken-
2013 13.27 @ 100.61 MPH
2014 12.87 @ 103.24 MPH

So that's the past here the future, over the winter am going to be taking the engine out and getting a cage fitted and tied into the frame horns, I may up the cc from 2180cc to 2276cc but will have to wait and see
 
#3 · (Edited)
Engine spec

82mm Bugpack Crank (very long story behind this as I paid the engine builder for a Scat one at a cost of around £600 when the engine broke after 500 miles and had to be split again I took it to another engine builder when we opened the case it had a bugpack crank into! not happy to say the least)
92mm Pistons (nothing fancy just GSF ones)
fk89 cam with scat straight cut gears
scat 1.4 rockers with Scat cut to length push rods and tubes
Arao stage 3 heads (US heads from ARAO engineering 42 x 37.5 valves) Ported to match the manifolds with 48 IDA

Had all the bottom end balanced
and running with a Rancho Pro street box with hardened shafts, Bugpack gearbox mounts, and mid mount with traction bar.

To race with the VWDRC I need to make the car full MSA complaint so its a engine out job and is going to Cotwelds racing for a cage fitting on 14th December, Going to fit a line lock on her over the winter and may have a play (again) with the rear suspension. They few other thing I have to do for the MSA, like fitting a window net & changing the fuel lines to steel.

20150330_210141_zpsbwtseeku by John Mills, on Flickr
 
#5 ·
The blanket on the garage wall is so I dont bang the door when I get out of the car :eek: :lol:

Rear suspension changes by the day on this car! The new roll cage will tie in with the frame horns so will make the whole car really stiff! It all reay has mid mounts and traction bars, a home made bump stop system and spaxs. The next I will be changing is the spax as I got them second hand and there a little short for the car.

I did mention that I may up the CC from 2180 to 2276 but I decided against this for now, next time I blow the engine up I will upgrade :eek:
 
#10 · (Edited)
A little update

So I got the car back from cotwelds racing who fitted the cage, and what a fantastic job they did!

IMG_20171202_115025 by John Mills, on Flickr

I been building the car up slowly over the last month. I re fitted all the external oil cooler and pipe work, and re fitted the engine which felt great as it seemed a lift time ago since I took it out. I was thinking it would be a bitch to start but first turn of the key and he fired up!

A few jobs I have to do on the car to make it MSA complaint including changing all the fuel line to steel braided. Which was a hugely important job as when I removed the pipe that went from the tank to the fuel pump it had a hole in it!! Iv also added a fuel pump cut off switch, Fuel tank vent valve breather, roll cage fitted, securing the fuel regulator and line lock (because race car!)

Jobs left to do is torquing up the rear hub nuts (iv re done the seals over winter as I had a small leak) add the split pins and re fit the wheels, fit of the drivers seat and the making of the head rest, fit the harness and safety net, I also need to secure the battery box add some race stickers and he ready to go!

20150330_214315_zpsezorenjg by John Mills, on Flickr

20150330_212039_zpsdprmmzs6 by John Mills, on Flickr

IMG_20160211_200813_zpsmf2xryiu by John Mills, on Flickr

I had to add a head rest to the original seat, for the MSA I did this by cutting a peace of wood to size and covering it in form and fabric.
 
#11 · (Edited)
So I ended up braking first gear at big bang I needed to get the box out and repair resulting in me miss volkslife : ( John rag top 63 repaired the gear for me and gave it an overall at a cost of £270 which I thought was a great price! Iv now got the box back and been building it back up again. This is actually only the second time I have fitted a swing axle box in all my years of messing with beetles. I totally forgot about the paper shims you have to fit on the axles and after spending a good few hours building the box up I realised that it was complete lock up! So Iv now had to dismantle the box again and order the paper shims from Machine7. Hopefully I will have the box rebuild (again) for Monday fitted Wednesday and Engine back in for weekend.

20150603_201755_zpsgm7loewi by John Mills, on Flickr

Hoping to get the car tuned and set up before bugjam 2015.
 
#12 · (Edited)
A friend of mine once told me that -

'Once you start, you'll spent the rest of your life chasing number'

I laugh at this statement and told him - It would never happen to me, am more then happy with my 13 second street car!!

He was off course completely correct!

So 2015 season is over bring on 2016 and the search for 12 and pro! (maybe)

My plan over the winter is to change from my old style 009 distributor to a new MSD electric ignition system, Fit a larger bore exhurst (currently running small flange 1 Inch) So going large flange and 1 5/8. and I'll see if I can put the car on a diet to lose a few grams which may include ditching the battery and going for a lightweight red top race battery but will see how all that turns out.

Best time of the season 13.15 @ 101 MPH

I have to post this picture up from Nation finals :D

21783383695_29cb9ac3dd_b_zpsi2x5xf9a by John Mills, on Flickr

Heres my winter upgrade to the car, Its out with the points and condensor and in with a MSD full set up

IMG_20151103_210541_zpswwwrzmeq by John Mills, on Flickr

IMG_20151103_205417_zpsmfx6hwx7 by John Mills, on Flickr

This bad boy look pretty tricky to setup and install but will give me more control. I can setup a launch control so in theory should get more consistent time as I will always be leaving the line at the same RPM. Will also produce and more more powerful spark and and again in theory should increase power. The amount of wiring that's in the box is very scary tho I can see this thing coursing me a few headaches and maybe the odd swear word in the install!
 
#13 · (Edited)
IMG_20151028_132131 1_zpsfajqdtjk by John Mills, on Flickr

Iv had a good look at the wiring and at first it seemed like a real nightmare combined with the instruction book for the control box being 30 pages thick and the instruction book for the Dizzy being another 20 pages thick I thought this is not going to end well :lol:

But I got it all out last night and did a kind of mock up on the floor, and after reading the instructions it actually seem straight (ish) forward.

The quality of the products is very good, I was really impressed the plugs leads on there own are a work of art. You even get a small device in the box that helps you trim and cut the leads down if there to long.

It will be a few weeks before I get round to installing this lot. Anyone any idea about setting up the dizzy? They have a mechanical advance system inside which is set up springs which you can change, for now I think I'll leave it as factory until I get more advance on to set it up. Also need to work out ware to put the 2 stage rev limiter switch for when I lurnch, I may put it on the handbrake but not sure yet.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Cheers dude! Started the MSD install this weekend

IMG_20151213_143900_zpsqkf47isb by John Mills, on Flickr

This control box (when working :eek: ) Should give me a 2 stage set with launch control, Going to put the switch on my handbrake and am thinking of setting it at 3600RPM for the launch, Can't wait to get this up and running and back on the strip!
 
#21 · (Edited)
Its what Iv been launching at for the past few seasons, its somewhere between 3500 & 4000, Last time I launched higher I killed the box.

Here's a little up date of what Iv been up to over the winter, Iv didn't planned on doing any upgrades to the car for the new season as I finished 2015 and the car was running perfect, how ever I went a little mad lol

So MSD is now full installed! And the cars running well and sounds like a beast! At best guess am hoping for a boast in horse power by fitting this kit (maybe between 5 & 10) As the multi spark system fires a lot stronger then the standard one, and it will give me launch control. So this will be a fun thing to try out in the 2016 season

IMG_20160211_200604_zpsvehktsor by John Mills, on Flickr

Second upgrade (A unplanned one) Is the exhaust, this popped up at the right price on a facebook group so I snap it up! A gene berg exhaust, it's 1 3/4 which is a lot bigger then my standard vw heritage 1 1/4 exhaust. Again am hoping for a boast in HP by adding this. It was a major pain in the arse to fit because of the size difference, It much bigger! It means if I want to fit the muffler I now need to remove the rear support bar. This is anit such a problem as it's only a 10 minute job to do just means I have to spend a little more transferring the car for road going to strip.

IMG_20160214_105701_zpscqzoanxa by John Mills, on Flickr

Third upgrade (no picture sorry) I changed my extended oil sump for a smaller one, Not sure if this was wise? I had a empi 3.5 ltr one fitted which I have changed to a 1.5 ltr one. My thinking behind this is that am pretty sure that there is no need to carry so much extra oil in the car and I feeling the 3.5 ltr one was just overkill. It will also save some weight as am now 2 ltr of oil less, This may bite me in the arse but will see.

Fourth upgrade, Drip tray! I have a small leak on my case (another reason why I change the oil sump as I was hoping it was that and not the case) turns out the leak is coming from the case which I can't fix without replacing it. The leak is very small but I thought I fit a drip tray just in case

IMG_20160214_133335_zpsa9wapewt by John Mills, on Flickr

I picked this from DTH Scotland, I also picked up (again unplanned) a rear seat blank and a set of rear door cards all made from alloy not sure when I'll get round to fitting them?

IMG_20160214_105642_zpsjfdse7de by John Mills, on Flickr
 
#17 ·
Tend to agree with Lee's thoughts here. You'll need more launch RPM's you might get away with 4500-5000 rpm to start with, should be ok on DOT's but expect bogging on slicks. If your running slicks assume your box is " built " strongly enough to cope with the shock loading of launching at higher RPM's. Like Jamie said good to see your continual development of the Oval's performance.

Shane.
 
#22 · (Edited)
I think am going to remove the rear red carpet and clean all the luggage area up by removing the soundproofing and spray the area black to match the rest of the car, The seat blank (which as present is just a peace of timber under the carpet) will be replaced with the alloy one made by DTH
 
#27 · (Edited)
update of my 2016 VWDRC

My first event of the year was at bigbang (seems a very long time ago now!) After several disappointing runs at bigbang (best being a 13.6) and one 15.00 in Saturdays qualifying I arrived back at the pits to discover a small engine rattle after a little investigation with help for Rob Judd we fired up the engine again which then seized on the spot :(

I also had to send the MSD box back as it turns out it was faulty as the 2 stage launch control didn't work all in all not a great weekend :(

I got the engine out a few weeks later and we split the case to find that one of the bolts on a con rod had snapped leaving the con rod free to wreck havoc inside the case. The result is we need a new engine case, barrel and pistons and con rods, everything else was savable.

As a new case was needed I decided to up the CC from 2180 to 2276 (going from 92mm to 94mm)

By the time the next event had arrived we have all the parts and are ready to put the engine back together, but unfortunately the guy who is machining the heads for me (from 92mm to 94mm) has let us down so the engine wasn't ready for the next event at the Summer nationals :(

However I did manage to borrow a 1300cc (don't snigger) off Phil Unsworth for the next event so I fitting it for Summer nationals and ran some very slow 22 second runs. I did dial in at 22 and ran a 22.02 which put me in number 1 qualifier.

IMG_20160615_173741_zpsdsoyhvwc by John Mills, on Flickr

IMG_20160615_173659_zpsd0er1fyh by John Mills, on Flickr

I was hoping that I could race at Bugjam (but the heads still didn't arrive) I was then hoping to race at Avon Park (still no heads) and I was hoping to race at the last event of the year the National finals (but you'v guessed it still no heads!)

Turns out that the first head fell off a pallet and it damaged the cooling fins. Was told he would replace it ASAP. The second one was then machine incorrectly and it now scrap! So they said they will pay for and replace the heads less the cost of what he was charging me for the machine work which was £150.00, which I thought was fair but iv been waiting now since may for the new heads to turn up. So that one break down at bigbang really ended my season.

So in the mean time the only job I done on the car is a bit of interior tinkering, I got some alloy door cards made by DHT in Scotland. Iv also replace the carpet area that covered the battery with another alloy panel again made by DHT. (oh and Iv replaced the fault MSD with a one one)

IMG_20160908_175041_zpskeda6r80 by John Mills, on Flickr

IMG_20160908_175058_zpsublu5jiz by John Mills, on Flickr
 
#29 · (Edited)
Just got engine back (finally) from the engine builders. So it's now all systems go to get the engine fitted over Christmas and run in over the new year and January. Iv made some upgrades to the engine from last years spec, in 2016 at Bigbang I had already upgraded the exhaust system and fitted an MSD so was hoping for better times but they never came and the engine let go on the 3rd run of the day. Now Iv increased from 2180cc to 2276cc and have upgraded the cylinder heads to Scat pro street (full spec below)

So am hoping to smash my PB in 2017, my best run today (before the roll cage was fitted was 12.87 @ 103, after the cage fitment (this of course added more weight to the car) my best time has been 13.15. With the new larger captaincy engine better heads, larger bore exhaust and MSD am expecting the car make easy 12's to mid 12's maybe even low 12's but from my experiences of racing air-cooled engines the latter will probably not happen and we will break down at the first race meeting!

IMG_20161214_182845_zpsvub3eb0x by John Mills, on Flickr

AutoLinea ASC Race case
94mm AA Barrel and pistons
Bugpack 82mm Crank
FK89 cam with scat straight cut gears
Scat Pro wedge ported Cylinder heads 44x37
Scat 1.4 Rockers
1.5Ltr extended sump
Gene Burg 4 into 1 header 1 3/4 exhaust
Full MSD set up
Kennedy stage 2 clutch plate
 
#35 ·
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