hey all,

I went down to the creek last night and pulled a disapointing 16.2 in my 1916cc 625kg buggy. i was expecting a bit better. I am thinking of throwing on a turbo or something now, any ideas on how much this will cost me and who can do it?

what do you guys think, would you be satisfied with 16.2 which is 1 sec faster then my previous time when i had the 1800cc (3k later) ?

(loving it off the mark, took everyone until atleast 60' mark, included a new evo, only if i could keep it up)

Sez

A one second improvement is a huge improvement.
Dont go for the turbo yet....
You know that the best place to find HP is in the cylinder heads
and intake system, so what do you have now? Stock?
What was your terminal speed, before and after?
I would guess that your cylinder heads are the same
as on you old engine, or you carb and manifold combo is.
What ever money you spend next (hopefully on intake and heads) have the jetting set on a dyno with A/F ratio.
In a 625kg car you should be able to run in the 13's N/A before you put on a turbo.
Headwork and intake system..........

Sorry to hijack here, but Dave do you know anywhere in Brisbane/Gold Coast that can do the dyno tuning with carbs to sort out jetting?

Once again, sorry for butting in Sez.

Thanks dangerous, My heads are still stock, and I am running twin 40mm kadron’s which have been re-jetted for the 1916 on the dyno. So you say if I spend another $1500 which I have been quoted to machine out my current heads, that I should run atleast another 2 sec’s faster?

ive only a 1776 but i have ported heads and i get many comments form otherr 1776 owners in beetles, about he pace of my spllitty.

you will imporve and it does make a big dif, but you porbably wont get two seconds.

Would take not just porting but larger valves, combustion chamber work, ratio rockers etc to get 2 seconds.

If you do get the porting make sure you also get the manifolds match ported and flowing better.

Also is your 1916 a street engine or one built for racing? An engine built for longevity and tune for drivability, idling and "normal" revs isn't exactly a racing engine.

What exhaust are you using? What ignition? Are you internal components crank, cam etc the right choice for a 13 second car?




[ Edited on 22-12-2005 by HotRodMatt ]

Debiasi's have a buggy running a 1916 in Adelaide and it has been doing consistant 14.3's. It is not turboed, but running N/A.
Keep working at it.

Yep, u will get there.

My brother baja ran a 17.3 with a 2nd hand 1835 and kadrons - it would weigh at least 850kgs + driver.

Just concentrate on getting the engine breathing

i would agree with the the above coments, go for agood set of 044 big valve heads. also chuck away the kadrons and go for some webbers

I disagree (with the webbers comment).

Have a look at http://www.lowbugget.com  for what you can achieve with kadrons (AJ's car runs in the 11's I think). You can get larger throttle bodies, jets etc for them if you get that far. Sure, Webers will alway eventually flow more than kadrons but do you really want to spend that $800 - $1200 on webers when you can spend another $300 - $400 and make your kadrons better ?

Still its personal choice in the end - I have kadrons, many other people have webers and swear by them.

If your just looking for ideas on where to go next, post all the details of your current engine, like what cam, comp, heads, crank etc etc, and some people here might have a few suggestions on what to keep and what to change.

Heres an idea, keep your current motor for a reliable daily driver and build up something really wild to swap in when you want to go racing, being a buggy im guessing you can change motors real quick?

Hi HEL-70Y

I was at WSID and Wednesday and saw you run. Off the mark your car looked pretty quick and the burnout looked pretty cool. At first I over heard some of the crowd guessing as to what was powering your buggy.

What type of gearbox are you running? I sounded like there was a fair bit of RPM drop between shifts, but then again I am comparing that to the 12sec cars that were there.

Cheers Paul.

Well-built Kadron-fed 1916cc pull mid-high 15s in full-weight Beetles with standard gearing - so your buggy should be faster, assuming, of course, you have a 'decent' cam and not some Engleberg Humpadick lumpy bumpy. I reckon I know what is holding your car back. PM me for details

I had a (well built) 1916 Kadron Fed engine in an L Bug with standard gearing and there was no way that puppy was going to pull off a mid 15 second pass. I then had an engine with a 108 Dynoed RWHP and that pulled consistant 15.7's in exactly that same car.
I guess an L Bug is a bit of a pig compared to early model beetles or buggies though.

What exhaust??? A merged header will make heaps of difference...If you have Thunderbirds or similar, throw it away.

You can do a lowbudget set up for about $1000 if you are reasonably handy..thats not including selling the kadrons which you will no longer need. U2u me if you want to know how.

Your intentions for the car and amount of driving should influence the performance mods made.... not a 1/4 mile figure you want to do once.
Matt

could u post up some deatails bout the merged header setup? i will be running an injected 2276 next year, but have not decided what exhaust setup i will go with

The Debiasi buggy runs Street Eliminators. 42x37.5.
She doesn't seem to have any overheating problems and drives it quite a bit in the summer.
And she would drive the pants off most of us here.
Keep it up Michaela!
T54

Matt, my 1916 is a street engine which I would like to use for everything. I have a road registered buggy so I would like to take advantage of it by driving it every day if I wanted, taking it offroad and putting it on the track.

Thanks doug for clearing up the kadron/webber issue, my bank account is not unlimited and I would like to save where I can. I paid almost $1k for them and I don’t want to see it go to waste, if I get a decent offer for them I will sell them and switch to the Webbers which I havnt found a good pair of new Webbers for under $2k

Shifty I am not keen on the two engine idea. (to answer your Q a mate and I can switch engines within 30mins without rushing it), but keep the ideas coming

Paul I didn’t have a drop in RPM until 3rd – 4th gear, some runs I would decide last sec weather it was worth changing or not

Every ones engine spec questions,

I have a reground camshaft running a engle cam (mild performance cam, I am not sure of the specs but I will look into it). 94mm Mahle pistons, standard ignition, twin 40 kadron’s. and a twin cannon exhaust setup (already had a discussion about these http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=39012  ) how much more did I miss?

I will be happy running 14’s... for a while. Looks like head work is next then, if i dont change my mind ill try get it done before the vw nats which will be my next run

Hi

Its hard to have an all-round car, one modification takes away something from another, a good performing car on a drag strip is not going to be very good off road for example.

The thing that worries me about Kadrons is the throttle shaft play and the linkage adjustment, if these issues aren’t corrected, loss of horsepower will result from the carbs being out of sync.

Steve

Steve, I realise that its hard, but still possible, it is the reason why i bought a buggy so it is capable of doing everything i want and i am doing that. i cruise with mates to through the city, i run on special events and i have the odd beach/ dirt run every now and then.

i havn't had any problems with the kadrons,their still new and they were properly tuned and re-jetted on the dyno, If they ever start playing up i think thats when i will switch to webbers

I'm not after that great of a performance on the strip, i will settle for 14secs which i dont beleive is asking too much for the weight of my car

* its hard to get things that i want out of my head

I think that a good start would be to do some of your own porting and combustion chamber work, then cut down your deck height to get the compression that you want.
Don't buy heads on price, buy them on performance, (or do it yourself).
For $1500 you might like to get some equipment and a set of new castings and start playing.....one piece of advice: leave the port holes sizes at the flange standard until you are confident...Oh, and ear muffs and saftey specs.
Have fun!

Thanks for all your help guys, If anyone else throws upa post i wont be able to reply until >9th jan, as i am on holi's 2moro (surfers paradise here i come). Have a Merry X-mas and a great new yrs, as with the buggy, she sleeps till i return, then till deicide what to do with her

HEL-70Y
The old adage in drag racing....a lot of racing actually.

"Speed costs money.......how fast do you want to go"!!!

Best of luck with your toy!
L8tr
E

Well...This might give a little of an idea...
My old 1776 (thats currently in my Ragtop) makes unknown Hp/Nm, but its done a best of 14.8 in a standard weight 63 bug and loads of low 15's... At the time I was running a standard ratio (TIII ratio) transaxle and 205/65-15's on the rear....
40mm DRLA Dells, Shimo built Semi-hemi'd 044 (40x37.5 I think) with a 60cc chamber. Comp was around 7.5-1 from memory. CW 69mm crank with a 9lbs FW and one of Dave Stokers Equaliser pullys. ENGLE 120 Cam with home made bolt together rocker gear. Ofcourse the whole lot was balanced from the clutch to the pully and piston to piston. The extractor is 1"5/8 Phoenix with a 2" home made mandrel bent exhaust through a 2" hituck resonator muffler box. The ignition I run is an old ALISON electronic job (similar to the CRANE XR700) with a BOSCH Red Coil and stock leads and standard longreach BOSCH sparkplugs....

As my car prolly weighed in around 850kg, I think the investment was well worth it. This engine is now 12 years old, has been well used, raced, bashed and driven across Australia 3 times. Its revs to 7000 RPM though I limit it to 6500 as it seems to loose power at around 6200ish...I have never dyno'd this engine, but i know it goes hard for such a little engine, it runs cool enough to drive across Oz, and in traffic, it beats my brothers RS Liberty powered Notch to half track and HSV's are a blast to blow off.....

Spend your bucks on the heads...You can buy new heads these days that out perform my 044's out of the box. A set of CB CNC 044's with a similar valve set to mine and a good cam, would help. Add a proper merged exhaust, light FW (12lbs?) and a CW crank and then give it all a good balance and you will have an engine that should last a good while (Ive done over 200,000kms), give you what you want and can still be had for reasonable bux...

But what is your budget?

This engine will set you back around 3K in parts if you shop around online...But do your homework.... My current engine project will set me back around 5K and it is a 2276 with good heads and all the bits....Including a new Alli case....Im looking 250+hp....

Its taken me 6 years to get these bits together! Do your homework, shop around and take your time....