Hi All Drag Racers,
The VW Club of Victoria just received this invitation for a combined drag race event at Heathcoat Park on Saturday 25th of June.
We have done these days in the past with the VW club of Vic being the main organizers. This time the Audi Club of Victoria has organized the event which we are very grateful for. We have a close link to Audi Club here in Vic and are pleased that they have included us in their event.
We now need some fast VW’s there on the day just to see what we can do against some very fast Audi’s (all of which I will assume will be street registered). It won’t matter if you are not a member of the club and I would hope that some of you may make it from interstate to compete also.
We will be taking two of the Loco Gringo cars there to race both the Beetle Juice and the Grey Ghost. I am hopeful of running a 11 second past in the Grey Ghost this time having run mid 12’s with the old motor and suspension setup at Heathcote in the past. Unfortunately Mike Clark (Senior Gringo) and Mike Cronin (Crew Chief) will be overseas at the Euro Bug-in and will miss this event.
A copy of the invitation from Adrian Taranto from the Audi club follows this explanation.
Cheers
Andrew Ermel
Grey Ghost


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Hi everyone,
The time has come again for Club Audi Victoria to once again grace the quarter mile at Heathcote!
We have organized the track to be open for us, so we would like to extend an open invitation to your members to come down and to give us some support with this event.
There will be some quick Audi’s going down on the day, so it would be great to see some great competition between our marques.
Any questions please shoot me an email or alternatively just give me a call.
Thanks for your time.
Time: 8.30am gates open, Racing from11am - 4pm
Date : Saturday 25th June
Location: Heathcote Park Raceway, Knowsley Barnadown Road Knowsley VIC 3523
Cost: $60 participate, $20 spectate !!!!THERE IS NO EFTPOS FACILITY @ HEATHCOTE RACEWAY, CASH ONLY!!!!
Remember to remove all loose items from the car as the cars will be checked by Heathcote staff before being allowed to race.
Directions from Melbourne:
Heathcote Park Raceway is 135km from the city centre of Melbourne, travel up the Hume Highway and get off onto the Northern Highway at Wallan, that then continues on to become the McIvor Highway which you follow going through Kilmore, Heathcote and Knowsly, there is a Heathcote Park Raceway exit sign 2km after the small town of Knowsley, the exit is a right hand turn into Barnadown Rd and follow 2km to the track on the right.
It will be a relaxed day, so it will be great for some of the members who would like their first dabble in motorsport in a controlled environment.

Regards

Adrian Taranto
Email motorsport@clubaudivic.org
Director
Aquatap Plumbing Pty Ltd
Ph: 0438 004 099

Would be good to come down but car wont be ready to run. If its an anual meet i would be interested in next year!!

Hi Andrew, would normally be there to spectate but unfortunately cannot be there.
Best of luck with the event, cheers Barry

We just spent the long weekend down at Heathcote racing with "Shrapnel". Very relaxed atmoshpere and great people supporting the track. Traction was fantastic with similar 60 foot times to Portland, and it was great to finally run a full 1/4 mile. This was my first 1/4 pass in 6 years since the closure of Adelaide International Raceway! If you get a chance to run make every effort to get down there.

We stayed in Bendigo fo the weekend, what a beautiful town and great for a family to check out! Unfortunately we can't get back so soon Andrew but best of luck in the grey ghost, I look forward to hearing about that 11.

What times and speeds David?!!!!!

Thanks All,
Both our cars have been tuned and are ready to run. We will be loading them Tomorrow night and leaving for Heathcoat early on Saturday morning. So far just three VW, s going, my two cars and the Turbo Golf of Chris Davies. I hope a few more will come as we need to give the Audis a bit of competition. I have heard that there may be one or two R8, s turning up to put down some passes.
Beetle Juice now has the Race pack data recorder working and we hope to record some basic data from the runs in readiness for the methanol motor which will be built when the parts arrive from USA at the end of the month. The suspension set up is working well and with a new transmission and shifter it should be a strong setup. We are still trying to work out gear ratios for the bus transmission, does anyone have any ideas on ratios that may work (as a compromise) for both the 1/8 and ¼ miles?
Thanks for the Track report Dave, how did you go in Shrapnel? Hope to see a you guys at Warwick later in the year.
Cheers
Andrew (hoping to run an 11 second!)

Hi Andrew,
here are my current 1/4 mile and 1/8 trans ratios.
Making a trans to suit both can be a bit of a comprimise, but that is exactly what i plan to do,
since there was less than 1/2 tenth advantage in using the 1/8 mile trans,(although fun!)

1/4:
4.857 diff:
3.333 first
2.167 second
1.500 third
1.091 fourth
8375 rpm at 122mph

1/8:

5.429 diff:
3.30 first
2.06 second
1.58 third
1.22 fourth
8400 at 98.35mph

see 2.13mins in this vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OMxAD8IMtM 

new comprimise:
4.857 diff
2,818 first
1.857 second
1.318 third 8275 rpm at 100mph in the 1/8 mile(or 1.35)
1.04 fourth 8160 at 125mph(or 1.05)


If you would like to PM your car weight with driver and proposed HP,
I can work something out for you even better.
You may like less rpm!
I had between 220 and 225 at the wheels
and 1785lbs(811kg) with driver.

Good luck this week end!

Dave and Andrew,

We had a great weekend, 1st run off the trailer was 11.4369 at 113.67MPH with a sluggish 60 foot of 1.6131. I only did 2 more runs with a best 60 ft of 1.55 (better burnout). Timing lights were a little unreliable, but I did get one 1/8 mile reading of 7.2564 at 93MPH for a final 1/4 time of 11.4731.

Times were fairly consistant, however I'm a little baffled by the MPH. This seems low for an 11.4. I have some in car footage and I'm hitting the shift points OK, so I'm not sure why I'm down about 3-4 MPH on expected. Dave any theories? Gearbox has a 4.12 R+P with a 1.21 4th and 26 inch slick. I suspect that the rev limiter was coming in earlier than actually set on the MSD and holding back the trap speed. I had it dialed in at 8100 and feel it may have actually cut in at around 7500. Have you heard of this happening? I'll post the footage once I work out how?

Hi Dave,
the footage should tell you if you are on the rev limiter,
but off the cuff I doubt it is pulling 7500 in 4th at that speed.(?)
Will do the maths later.
If you are using MSD chips and they have lightly choroded pis the resistace can be higher causing as you describe,
but generally they are trouble free, so that may be a stretch.
It is possible that your float bowls are not staying full, or it is a little lean in 4th gear.(perhaps a smaller air jet?)

Hi Dave, Barry, Dave and Ben
Thanks for the posts and the good luck wishes. We are all ready to run tomorrow with the Audi club guys. About 30 cars will be there on the day to race, sadly only 4 Volkswagens but we still we hope to give the Audis a good run for their money.
It’s rumored that a RS6 Audi street registered with twin turbo and 500hp that can run high 11 will be competing. Also at least two R8’S one of least that has run a low 13, it should be an interesting day. Thanks Dangerous for the transmission data it’s greatly appreciated. I will start working on the Trans next week as the parts are now due to arrive on Tuesday next week from the USA.
Cheers all I will post the times tomorrow night.
Andrew

Goodluck for the weekend guy's

Thanks Matt and thanks Brendan(1st reply)
Cheers
Andrew

Hi All
Just got back from the Audi invitation event at Heathcoat park drags today. It was a fantastic turnout with just on 40 cars and about one third being VW’s. We had four air cooled Beetles and 10 water cooled Golf’s.

Sadly I didn’t make an 11 pass but got close and out of shape quite badly trying. The track was very greasy and my first two passes out of four I had to abort due to bad fuel problems. I had to shut down out of first gear and basically coasted thru the trap on a very soft 14 second passes. The race fuel I’m using continuously corrodes and calcifies in the bowl of the carburetors even after the flushing out of the whole fuel system just 6 weeks ago it was still causing me serious problems. A lesson to be learned is that you need to drain the whole system after using 115 VP supreme and totally drain and flush out the carburetors and reinstall them dry until the next use.

So as usual I spent the whole of the lunch break removing the carbs and cleaning out the partially blocked jets and the needle and seats just like we did early this year at Porland. It’s not an easy ask on the oval as there is not much room in the engine bay and with limited tools was a bit frustrating but we managed to accomplish it the 40 min during the lunch break. The third pass out after lunch was a real wild pass. The track was a little greasy and the cold air didn’t help the tires much but it made for excellent hp in the engine. I came close to hitting the wall and then crossing the centre line but I didn’t back off I just kept pedaling the throttle. I managed a 12.6 at 102mph with a 1.7 60ft and 8.0 flat 1/8. The 1/8 was down about 0.6 but with a tank slapper pass I was still pleased with the time.

We dropped the tire pressure down to 13psi and my last pass saw a 12.2 at 114mph having to short shift due to the wheel spin in second and again the car wandered all over the shop which is not a normal characteristic of my car? The wandering about I put down to the greasy surface as it’s not a good practice to run on a track with lots of water cooled cars dropping their air conditioning moisture and radiator coolant. Fair Dinkum the track organizers had to tell them during the lunch break to switch of their air conditioners.

When were loading car on trailer at the end of the day I noticed that the driver’s side upper link pin had come loose and the front wheel was moving in and out about an inch! We had given the car a full check over on the hoist two nights before but we must have missed this. This may explain the wandering about all over the place and the fact that it took a lot of input from me to keep the car strait. Also I noticed that the prothane bushes in the alloy beam have become quite loose and will I have will strip it down tomorrow to take a closer look. The beam was only installed last year and the car has only done 30 or so passes since. Has anyone else had any problems with the nylothane bushes or the Jamar beams?
Any way it was a very good day in all with lots of passes for everyone and although I didn’t make the 11 second pass I so wanted it was still a fun day and without any mechanical problems the car should comfortably run at least an 11.8 maybe next time.
Cheers Andrew

PS Its got me baffled that the car ran 114mph on a 12.2 the 1/8 was a sluggish 7.9 and it has run 7.4 on the 1/8 in slightly better condidtions?

some pics of the day......

Thanks for the pics Rod they are superb!
Cheers
Andrew

was trying out the new camera for the first time so lots to learn.
but happy with how they came out.. especially the motion ones.

So was there many if any cars quicker than the times you ran?

Track was really slippery as it was around 10 degrees and foggy in the morning.
RS6 did a 12.1
R8 a 12.2
R35 GTR 12.2
S4 12.6
GTI pirelli 12.9
Various MKV GTI's around 14's

Your as fast as a rs6 and r8 but for about a tenth the price but with about 80
Percent more style .......nice

Just beaten by the RS6 V10 Audi which ran a 12.1. Could not get the beetle to hook up over the first 1/8 mile. Only ran an 8.00 second 1/8 mile@91 mph but I was pleased that the car ran the ¼ in 12.2@114mph.
I have to work out how to download the video of the 12.6 pass. I drifted to within a couple of feet from the wall.

Great work Andrew,
114mph is enough to run into the mid elevens with a clean launch,(in the 1.5's sixties).
My guess is this is where you will improve with the right launch, and also track conditions.
The other thing to remember is that you probably travelled a whole lot further than a 1/4 mile
when you were out of shape, which costs you a bit of ET,
and also allows the car to carry a tad more mph at the finish.(1mph?)

Do you know what the car weight with driver, and your launch rpm are?
My guess is that the car weighs similar to mine(811kg), in which case I was running between 11.4 and 11.8 with 114mph.
The 11.4's were only when the sixty foot times were better than 1.55, but even with 1.65 it would run 11.8@114.
Look forward to some video!

P.S.
Gotta get a smaller pulley on the red car!!

Sounds like it was a fun day. Hopefully you get more notice next time they run an event, I'd love to go up against an r8.

Well done.

Here we go some video of the "Good Pass"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbfMaQ1loy0 

Cheers
Andrew

The tank slapper pass!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSmbUacl7o8 

Stripped the front end down last night and have found a very loose link pin bushing in the upper driver’s side torsion arm. I will be replacing all the front end components again before Warwick.
I now realize that I used the front end components from another setup and as my original reconditioned front end with CB drop spindles would not fit the new front brakes so I had to use some standard stub axels. It pays to check all the front end components carefully.
I will also be adding a front hoop and “A” pillar legs to roll cage as well before Warwick. I have done two full roll cages in VW drag cars in the last year but haven’t had the time to get around to updating my own cars original half cage. I have got the hoops and legs on hand that I already bent so there is really no excuse in me not getting them welded in this time. Might need some Tig gas though? Is that a valid excuse?
Dave,
Thanks for the gearbox advise, I will get across to Albins in the next few weeks and buy some gear box parts for the Type 2 transmission in Beetle Juice. I am working on 7900 rpm as a maximum so I think that the top speed say over the 1/8 will be around 96mph so the 4.857 diff will be very close. I also have noticed that the second gear of 1.857 is a standard ratio?
Warwick is getting close so I don’t think I will have time to build the new motor but I will try and work on the transmission before then. The Peloquin diff arrives Friday with the rest of the engine parts and I hope that it’s going to be strong enough for drag racing.

Hi Andrew,
The 1.857 is an Albins ratio.
Stock second gear ratio is the same as most air cooleds, at 2.0588235.
They have 4 "shelf item" gear sets for 1st and 2nd.
2.8182 x 1.857
3.0 x 2.0
3.333 x 2.0769
3.556 x 2.25.
They also do custom order ratios, but can take a while depending on their work load.

Peloquin diff is VERY strong, but also much heavier than an aluminium spool.
It will work well.

Hi Dave,
Thanks its good to hear that the Peloquin should be stong enough. We hope to run some hill climbs in this car thus the need still for a diff. All out speed will be a compromize in our case for some cornering ability.
Cheers
Andrew