After noticing a small crack between the valve seats in every combustion chamber I decided to see what could be done to help the poor old air cooled heads deal with the prolonged heat of circuit racing.
Hi-Octane Racing in Rydalmere suggested ceramic coating the combustion chambers, exhaust port and valve faces. I also had the piston top ceramic coated and a lube film applied to the piston skirt.
The ceramic coating insulates the head and the piston from the hot gases created by combustion. This has a few benefits.
Firstly, it keeps the head cooler because more heat goes out with the gases through the exhaust. Hopefully this will reduce if not stop the cracking. Heads are a substantial investment.
Secondly, keeping the heat in the combustion chamber helps the gas expand which is what pushes the piston down creating power and torque.
Thirdly, hot gas moves faster. So it'll flow out of the ceramic exhaust port and through the ceramic headers faster creating more scavanging.
ITs a great idea, I got my engine done and it keeps the temps low even with a 11.5: CR. I also got the outside of the barrels done with a heat dissapating coating.
I have no sympathy for my car, only the wallet that pays for it!
Go hard or go home!!!!
Me too. I found my engine could definately support higher cr with the coatings, and love the improved longevity of all parts, especially with the friction coatings (way better than the Mahle stuff), in the tranny too,cooler running, quicker shifts, ......more power.
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
Craig Torrens6 times Australian, 7 times State Hillclimb Class Champion
BiX wrote:ITs a great idea, I got my engine done and it keeps the temps low even with a 11.5: CR. I also got the outside of the barrels done with a heat dissapating coating.
Hi Bix, what fuel do you use to run the comp ratio that high ?
Thanks for your comments guys. I'm glad I'm not pioneering the ceramic coating. Heaps of people have mentioned whit a great idea it is.
Hey Matt, the outside of my cylinders has a special coating that helps reduce the weight of the non-rotating mass as time goes by. Can you guess what it's called? You can get it just about anywhere.
I found a receipt over the weekend. My pistons and cylinders were purchased new in 1994. I've got no idea how many kilometers they've done because I bought the engine secondhand.
I've spoken to a few people this week about the random engine parts I've purchased which somehow go together. They've all been very helpful.
Mike K put me onto some shorter valve springs with thicker wire which look like they'll do the job without me having to get the spring seats sunk deeper into the heads, or the inlet port as the case may have been.
Thanks to the Jak Rizzo cheer squad I ended up with an Eagle 2288 cam which is a stunt double for the Engle K8.
I've borrowed some rocker 1.4 assemblies and some advice from Keith "soon to be known as captain nitrous" Hausler.
John Ladamatos has been my second set of eyes. He checked out all the bearings and case halves for signs of wear. I think his response was that I've "Almost run it in this time." C'mon John. Read any VW engine manual and it says when you need to replace a pushrod tube you also need to change the cam, the lifters, the pushrods, valve springs and rocker assembly. Oh, and ceramic coat everything that can be ceramic coated.
Sounds like you got it all covered CT, even the cylinders, hopefully the internals aren't covered with the same 'special' coatings, we have plenty of that stuff up here. Some new oxidation process I believe.👍
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
The holden springs I'm planning to use are shorter, left than the springs that came with the DRD heads are in the middle. On the right I think it's an old Bugpak spring.
Here are the spirngs compressed to about 27mm. The Holden will wear it a lot easier.
The shorter outer Holden springs are made from wire about 4.25mm think whereas the other springs are 4mm.
Hopefully I'll get the seat pressure and the pressure at 13.5mm lift measured in the next few days.
The Holden springs are slightly larger in diameter but they still fit in the head and the inner spring as the same ID so it's working out well. Thumbs up to Mike Kristen for the recommendation.
The cam timing has worked out with zero degree washers.
CT
esratrams
Craig Torrens6 times Australian, 7 times State Hillclimb Class Champion
What a rush it was to get the engine build for the VW Nationals supersprint.
On Thursday night, 2 days before racing, I had one head bolted on and I was about to bolt the other head on for the final time. I blew some dust out of the combustion chambers and noticed the valves were mixed up. The number 1 inlet was in the number 4 chamber. So I had to dismantle the heads again. By midnight I had a long block bolted to the work bench.
I decided to run the engine in with the 1.1 rockers and pushrods I used with the engle 130. If all went well I'd swap to the 1.4s can chromoly pushrods at Wakefield park on Saturday. As it turns out I was sick of working on the car and decided to leave the 1.4s for another day.
I started work on the engine at 7am. 24 hours before scrutineering in Goulburn.
After copping crap from Mat Berry about my daggy engine bay I got Hi Octane to hit the engine tin with some candy apple pearl paint when they did the ceramic coating to the heads and exhaust. The exhaust is a nice thick wall 1 5/8 berg pheonix item and I want to preserve it. The old ceramic coating was about 4 years old so Hi Ocatne redid it and it looks and seals as good as new.
Jak came over about lunch time and I had my uncle lending a hand too. We didn't get the engine in the car until about 5pm. Then the bloody thing wouldn't start. I could not for the life of me find a signal from the pertronix or the MSD on which to statically time the engine. Fortunately I marked the position with nail polish (Jak's) before I pulled the engine apart so at least the timing was close.
The fix was to go downstairs and drink a beer. When we tried the engine again it came to life first time. Perhaps it flooded while cranking up the oil pressure.
We started the engine and drove to Kmart about 20 minutes away to buy a timing light. They didn't have one.
The engine was runing quite well so we simply packed the car and drove to Goulburn in the rain. We got there at midnight.
hellbugged wrote:well done CT........how did it feel for power this time?
The 2500 rpm stumble is gone. This was something the 130 always had due to reverberation causing fuel standoff and richness. It couldn't be jetted out. This stumble may have made the engine feel like the cam was coming on. The old engine felt strongest at 4200 rpm and revved happily to 7000 without running out of breath.
The K8 with 1.1s feels a lot less agressive and the power delivery is smoother and earlier. It revs well initally but on the track at Wakefield I was getting impatient with it. It stopped pulling around about 6000 rpm and I was getting frustrated and changing into 4th where I'd normally rev the thing right out. On a quick lap I'd hold the thing in 3rd up and down the hill, but in the current spec it seemed slow.
I can't wait to bolt the 1.4 rockers on and see what this cam is all about.
What a run in for the engine though, drive to Goulburn, do 20 or so laps of Wakefield and drive home.
If the 1.4 installation is successful I'll put the thing on the dyno and try and beat 99.9 HP. Then I'll get Westi to weld me up a new exhaust from the flange. The one I made up is way to daggy now.
Amazing effort to get to the track Daimo. It's a shame about the problems, but that's racing as they say.
I forgot to mention that I had an engine bay full of oil after my second run. The oil breather overflowed big-time because two of the hoses were fitted incorrectly. My engine was so clean too. Bugger!
What a rush it was to get the engine build for the VW Nationals supersprint.
On Thursday night, 2 days before racing, I had one head bolted on and I was about to bolt the other head on for the final time. I blew some dust out of the combustion chambers and noticed the valves were mixed up. The number 1 inlet was in the number 4 chamber. So I had to dismantle the heads again. By midnight I had a long block bolted to the work bench.
I decided to run the engine in with the 1.1 rockers and pushrods I used with the engle 130. If all went well I'd swap to the 1.4s can chromoly pushrods at Wakefield park on Saturday. As it turns out I was sick of working on the car and decided to leave the 1.4s for another day.
I started work on the engine at 7am. 24 hours before scrutineering in Goulburn.
After copping crap from Mat Berry about my daggy engine bay I got Hi Octane to hit the engine tin with some candy apple pearl paint when they did the ceramic coating to the heads and exhaust. The exhaust is a nice thick wall 1 5/8 berg pheonix item and I want to preserve it. The old ceramic coating was about 4 years old so Hi Ocatne redid it and it looks and seals as good as new.
Jak came over about lunch time and I had my uncle lending a hand too. We didn't get the engine in the car until about 5pm. Then the bloody thing wouldn't start. I could not for the life of me find a signal from the pertronix or the MSD on which to statically time the engine. Fortunately I marked the position with nail polish (Jak's) before I pulled the engine apart so at least the timing was close.
The fix was to go downstairs and drink a beer. When we tried the engine again it came to life first time. Perhaps it flooded while cranking up the oil pressure.
We started the engine and drove to Kmart about 20 minutes away to buy a timing light. They didn't have one.
The engine was runing quite well so we simply packed the car and drove to Goulburn in the rain. We got there at midnight.
Jeez CT, shame to get all that candy oil stained.....on a serious note.....well done for getting the new combo to Wakefield, keen to hear how the 1.4's liven things up.
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
Having never used ratio rockers or chomoly pushrods before I carefully set them up with advice from John Latomatos and Keith "Larry" Hausler. Thanks guys.
I've swapped the Engle W130 with 1.1s for a CB Performance Eagle K8 equivalent with 1.4s. That means more lift and less duration. Hopefully I'll have the same power but more mid range and drivability.
I set them up when the engine on the bench but ran in the new cam and lifters using alloy pushrods and the 1.1 rockers. The run in was the VW nationals supersprint where I noticed the engine wouldn't pull above 6 grand around the track in third. As a result I was about 1.6 seconds off my best even with the new ADVAN A050 rubber. I think the engine was down about 30HP. So I hoped like hell that the 1.4s liven things up a bit.
I took the car gently around the block the other night with the 1.4s and chomoly pushrods. I was really disappointed because the car seems to have lost its agro. It idles like a stocker and runs super smoothly. It was late at night and cold so I didn't rev the car past 5000 on the 2 minute run.
So today I decided to drive the car to work an hour away.
Having less duration has its advantages on the street. The car pulls up hills in 4th that would've been 3rd with the old cam. The 2500 rpm hesitation has gone. The car seems to rev more cleanly to 4000 rpm. BORING.
After about 45 minutes of driving I got some clear air. Well enough clear road to hit the 7000rpm MSD limiter in first and second gear af few times. I really needed to check it out in a higher gear. I got it to 6300 in 3rd in (In the Northern Territory of course) and backed off. Well it revs quickly and cleanly. It goes hard. As hard as before? Well it's hard to tell. I think the old cam gave the impression it went harder because it was so rich in the lower rev range. It was a bit dull around the 2500 where there's fuel standoff and then it would clear and hit the sweet spot at about 4200 and then rev well to 7000.
The K8 seems linear in the way it pulls from idle.
But I'm happy with the performance. It sounds crisper. It buzzes and puts a smile on my dial.
The SAS dyno is 3 doors up and I've had the car checked there after each engine build. I wouldn't be surprised if it made less than the W130's 99.9 HP but I think it will make more horsepower up to 6000 rpm.
The Warwick drags will be another test. So will Eastern Creek. This cam has the potential to pull out of the low RPM turn 2 a lot quicker which will help the turn 3 exit speed and the speed down the hill into 4. It should also pull harder out of corporate hill so the sub 2.00 lap time dream could be a reality.
Check out the engine tin coating by Hi Octane.
The engine temps have been icy like the weather. Is that because of the ceramic coating? Time will tell.
Your motor looks beautiful now. One thing spoils it, the taped up heater tube holes, you can either find a welsh plug the correct size to fit inside get some pressure pack lids and clamp them on.
I had a great time driving the car home on Friday night.
It's so easy to drive with the K8. You don't have to compensate for soggy spots, you can take off from the lights at idle and it pulls hard to 7000 in third easily.
With the sedate safe suspension setup and a user-friendly engine the car is idiot proof. The perfect car for me really.
I am going to do a bit of fiddling. I want to pop off the rocker covers with the engine at 80 degree oil temp to check the tappet clearence. I'm going to try a few different jets and vary the timing a little.
I'd love to have a good play with a twin plug setup to see what jets and timing it could get away with. Greg Ward has explained the principles to me and enough manufacturers have done it.
All in all it seems like another small step forward.
