I have just finished building and fitting my new race engine to Bruce Cornish's drag bug. (Rod Penroses old car) It is a 2175cc with re worked street eliminators 44x38 valves, Berg 316 cam w/ straight cut gears, 10.9 to 1 comp, 48 IDA's etc etc, I have no idea what it's going to do over the 1/4, what do you think?

We will be running on the weekend at Heathcoat, near Bendigo next Friday and Saturday, so will some other NSW Beetle racers, Rod Penrose, Mike Kristen, Dave Stoaker and maybe more. Is any one going from Melbourne?

I am not knowledgable enough with drag racing to make an accurate 1/4 time estimate, but if you post the question on cal-look.com forum, there are many guys who would have good idea. I guess things like weight of the car, gear ratios, slicks (I see from the pic they are fitted) or not will all play a part. A few variables to consider.

Cheers, sounds like fun though!
Alan

Somewhere in the 12's shouldn't be too hard. Maybe high 11's if the car, driver and engine are set-up well.

It's like guessing how many jelly beans in the jar.

Yes thats what I ment, have a guess!,

My guess is 12.85 @102 mph.

I'll let you know the results after next weekend. and we will see who wins the glass of jelly beans!!

My Guess is 12.6 @ 112mph

Better give a more accurate guess.

12.4s @ 106 MPH. :bounce

Sorry, misunderstood!!

My guess is 13.1 @ 106

I'll be the optimist 11.4@118mph after a first pass of 14.8 @ 110 hehe...hey what do we win..a ride :bounce?

Beck

Adjust the rear end so yr getting full tyre grip then it will be doing 11s ???

IDA's sure look sweet!

I will go for 12 and a 1/2 and 110

barry

My guess is 0.00 0.00MPH and 1 broken axle. ( only joking, I hope that doesn't happen! ) I think I'll come up and watch though, it might inspire me to finish mine

what gearbox is in it? How long are you expecting the box to last? I'm just wondering how far from stock L bug the box has to be to cope with 11 second passes....

Is it the same box rod had in when the car ran 9's?
How come your using a vacume advance distributor?

The gearbox is a beetle IRS box 4.375 R&P close 3rd & 4th with porsche cv's and axels solid mounted.

The vac advance dizzy was just used to run the engine after fitting it in the car, I fryed the compufire by putting the wires around the wrong way! I know, You idiot.

[Edited on 11-11-2002 by Dave Becker]

I know that the potential is far greater but my guess for first time out is 13.1 @ 110.
Wish I could get to see it.
Please give us a full update.

Back from the drags and the winner is...........well there is sort of 2 winners! No slow 63, and me!

Friday was test and tune day, we got down there at around 12.30 after leaving Bruce's place in Canberra at 4am, (long drive!). Unpacked the car and did a few minor adjustments and it was ready to run.

Bruce drove the first one, after a bad bog on the line and a mid track back off because of a bad vibration it went through the lights at 78 mph and no time.
Back at the pits and a check of tyre pressures, one slick was under 10 psi and the other was 15, (they had gone down overnight) we pumped them up to 22 psi because the track was very grippy and went out again.
I drove this time, bit of a burnout in the water, lined up, fairly easy start, heaps of tyre spin and it heads for the wall, 2 gear off for the wall again, 3rd more wheel spin and what a hand full, something is wrong! 4th, more wheel spin and it keeps turning right, back to the pits and a quick check reveals a broken axel, this box was ment to be unbrakeable! Porsche cvs and drive flanges and 2 ltr Kombi axels.

We decided to pull it apart to see if we could do anything to fix it, out came the diff, it was a welded locker and the RH axel had snapped off, after a lot of looking and thought we decided to do a bodgey repair and see if we could run it on Saturday. We borrowed an angle grinder and ground the side of the diff housing away down to the axel, ground a big vee into the axel and welded it all together, Here is a pic of what we did. bodgey!!

After puting it all back in, Bruce went out and tried again, this time no burn out and a very easy start 1st gear, short shift to 2nd and into 3rd at 6000 rpm, and into 4th at 7000, it looked good, and beat the V8 powered Torana he was running, the time came up, 12.87 @97mph.
Bruce said it pulled very hard in 3rd and 4th gear and caught the other car he was running (which was on street tyres) thats how slow the take off was!
Bruce had the next run and broke the axel again, so we put it on the trailer and went home.

We left before Rod Penrose and Mike Kristen had finished, Rod had run 9.4 @ 152mph, Mike ran 10.5 @ 135mph that was his best, not bad for a 1776! and Dave Stoaker with Mike Waldren driving did a personal best of 10.4 @ 130ish mph and put a hole in a piston and came home early with us.

Its a great track and the event was run very well with as many runs as you want, We'll be back with a stronger gearbox. I think it should do 11's

Awesome! thats some good times! I dont know how you will get a stronger box without going porsche/renault etc. Cant wait to see it all sorted! Well done!

Congrats - with a 12 on a start like that you should be in the 11s no worries with grip and a gearbox.

Was wondering why you had to open the box to fix a broken axle, but it was actually the diff carrier that broke ? (I'm no gearbox expert )

Ever thought of a built T4 gearbox ? (just curious is all)

[Edited on 17-11-2002 by Doug Sweetman]

What do I win !!!, What do I win !!!.
Actually I was wondering why I didn't get to see that car run.
Were you one of the guys that I was talking to that was telling me how much of a "nice guy" Dave Birchal is?

Yes thats me MR NICE guy
it musta been Beck :puke

No it was Stoker n Waldron the Buggers. in the ORANGE car.

[Edited on 18-11-2002 by vw54]

My old scout leader used to say,

"It's not an adventure unless somthing goes wrong."

Pretty scary stuff when your one of his scouts. Anyhow, some of the best weekends I have ever had have been the ones when the sky seems like it falling in on your plans. Glad to hear you were able to salvage some if it.

Motor - Well done Dave. Shame about the diff.
Mike ended up running 10.44 @ 129 mph.
this equates (with wieght and times ) to close to 300 HP from a 1776 cc.
He had Rod pegged untill 1000 foot mark on one run.
Rod was nursing his gearbox on start line but still managed to get 9.4 sec and into the Fast Eight shootout.
Hope I can scam a pic to show Mikes monster wheelstand - later...

Is that Mike from VVDS? If so I lent him a incar video setup that I use on the aerobatic plane so he should have some good video footage. I'll load some up on my website when I get a chance.