Here is a con rod from my 1641cc race motor

As you can see the standard rods don’t like 7000 rpm’s:puke

Hi Darth, I've got those CB Performance chromoly h-beam race rods, they have been pretty good so far after 1 season of racing, hope this helps.
regards
Jak
http://www.cbperformance.com/catalog.asp?ProductID=152 

Aftermaket rods would be great but the 1641 race formula only allow us to use standard rods and crank
What I did was use a too bigger cam (W-130) which moved the rev range up, strange thing tho was the case, heads, p&c and cam are ok just the crank and rods are stuffed!!

In the next few weeks I hope to have the motor back before the first round of races, this time with a different cam (C35)


Darth

What else are u limited to? can u use ratio rockers? what heads , head work carby compression etc can u do??
regards
Jak

Try this, should give you all the info on the beetle formula


http://www.vwclub.com.au/club/motorsport/pdfs/BeetleClass2004.pdf 

Darth

Darthbug
What kind of raceing do you do with it?

I race with the Volkswagen Club of Victoria who set this formula up
We mainly race at Avalon on dirt, motorkhanas and sprints. Group 5 at Caldar park race way, winton and the island( havent race there yet)
The club also did sprints on the thunderdome once and we've had a couple of good turn outs at the drags

16.9 sec 1/4 in the 1641!! I think this is were I bent the rod!!


Darth

Cool, What kind of set up have you got running on the 1641?
I have a 1641 aswell and 7000rpm sounds like fun shame about the conrods tho

Twin kadrons, 009 dizzy, w-130 cam, lighten flywheel and standard rockers but with solid shafts, the rest is all standard stuff. I'll post some photos soon of the cars
Check the club web site above for the formula.

Darth

can you modify your rods? yours look fairly stock to me that can be part of your problem...

Some VW rods are stronger (and heavier) than others!

Got to know which ones to get hold of.

that sounds like a good fun and fairly cheap class to race in.

Chrio (sorry, don't know the rest of the spelling) freezing seems to be the way to go in regard to making stock parts last.
Could there be any future possibilities of having c/weighted standard cranks and stronger rods incorporated into the rules? 16sec 1/4's are damn fast for any 1600cc new car let alone a 30 year old pushrod motor. Plus I think it could save costs to the owners in the long run.

there are more than one or two motors out there turning up to 8000 on stock rods... some with good competition history.

The problem with my motor was I had too bigger cam so the torque was too far up the rev range. Between 5500-6000 it would take off like a rocket. On the straight at Calder Park in top gear I didn’t have the torque to push it past 5000 rpm. On the dirt at Avalon I would have to keep the revs up, hard to do when you have lots of turns on a short track.
I am going with a different cam so the torque is lower down in the rev range, maybe the motor will last a bit longer.
This class of racing has been run by the club for 2 years so improvement in the formula at the moment are on going, we may see cw cranks in it later if its needed but that’s up to the organizers.
The idea was to make it a cheap way of getting into racing for most people.

Darth

Darth,

Is that what happened to your rod at the last drag night back in September?
That really suprises me that is bent so bad.

Hope this doesn't scare you off the next drag day/night.

Cheers,

James C.

I think it happened at the last Avalon sprint day, started to run bad on the way home.

Me? Scared?................naaarrrr


Darth

Good to hear.

Any Idea when the next drag day is on? I'm looking forward to trying to race in daylight this year.

James C.

I don't know yet but I do know that we might be going to Heathcote drag strip!
Will post the dates when I find out

Heathcote drag strip is better than Calder, from what I hear you get more runs in for your money