Due to arrive soon

[tmsmini]

  Also tested the $20 ebay Chinese vintage/retro stereo on the shop speakers. I was amazed at how good it sounded.  I wasn't expecting much out of the thing and figured if nothing else it would block the stereo hole.

I have been curoius about these as my wife likes to have some tunes around town. We had a Retrosound stereo in one of the cars, but the remote broke and they don't make a replacement.

[94touring]

This is it installed.  I stole a couple shop speakers that have been mounted on the walls I've never used and placed them under the dash.  Just finished wiring it up and it sounds great.  Has a USB plug for charging my phone too. 

[Red Riley]

Is that a slot for an SD card? Never seen that before. You can put a lot of albums on a 256GB SD card.

[94touring]

Yeah it is oddly.  It has Bluetooth which was all I wanted.

[BruceK]

Nice style on that stereo!  Look great for a vintage application.

[94touring]

Nice style on that stereo!  Look great for a vintage application.

Went with a vintage cigarette lighter too!  Seemed silly to put a modern style head unit in the dash.  Those retrosound head units are really nice but I wasn't wanting to spend significant money on anything stereo related.  This was a pretty good solution.  Back to the cigarette lighter... the old one had broken tabs and needed replaced.  Easy fix finding a new one and then the retro lighter.  Granted I wired it wrong initially because black is positive and brown negative on this damn bus!  Blew a few USB plugs as a result.   For more USB charging I found a unit for the lighter which displays voltage and amps.  Ironically it's more accurate than the bosch voltage gauge I installed under the lower dash area when comparing it with my battery charger.  It's a dead match to the charger whereas the bosch always reads about a 0.5 low. Since I want to install a switch for the aux pump I elected to ditch the bosch gauge and put the aux tank switch plate in it's place.  I'm trying to avoid clutter with all these extra gadgets like my wideband and cylinder head temp gauge. When I'm running the power inverter and monitoring voltage drop I can just toss in the voltage display cigarette USB plug.

[MiniDave]

Brown is ground on all German cars!

[94touring]

Brown is ground on all German cars!

I learned the hard way!  The cigarette lighter worked as it should. But kept blowing everything else. Luckily the voltage USB plug has an actual fuse inside.  I ruined two other plugs before understanding what was happening!

[Red Riley]

Yeah it is oddly.  It has Bluetooth which was all I wanted.

You can just dump all of your music onto an SD card and save the phone's battery.

[MiniDave]

Yeah, the wife's "new" Audi had a slot for an SD card, so she loaded one up and that's what she plays - I was hoping that meant she could drop the Sirius monthly cost, but so far she hasn't.

[94touring]

How much is Sirius?  I pay 10 bucks a month for Spotify.  It's free but the subscription let's me download music which is good for when I'm flying. 

[MiniDave]

I think she pays $5/mo.....good for road trips but when's the last time we did that? She likes the music on when she drives - I don't - I prefer the quiet. To me the noise is a distraction and an irritant. If I'm driving late at night by myself I don't mind listening to a good murder mystery radio show thing tho....

You can use the account on your mobile devices too.....I think.

[94touring]

Gauge arrangements!   The A-1 is my wideband, the one that says 71 is the cylinder head temp gauge, and down low to the right the green switch that's aluminated is the aux fuel pump switch turned on.  Off it blacks out. For the CHT gauge I was having a hard time deciding where to place it.  I almost made a plate to afix it within to then mount somewhere. I found the best solution was getting a thin piece of aluminum sheet, cutting a narrow strip, bending it strategically to fit on the dash lip between the gauge cluster and main dash panel.  With the gauge cluster tightened down it secures the tab in place.  Some heavy duty double sided tape holds the gauge to the aluminum strip. 

The tach was something I installed way back in the beginning and I also have the MPH speedo in. 

[BruceK]

The cylinder head temperature is a great thing to know.

What kind of tires does your VW have?  Are you sticking with what it came with from Brazil or equipping it with some type of 'Merican tires?

[94touring]

They had some assortment of tires on it that were all wrong. I put the proper diameter light truck tires on it.  Made a huge difference in how it drove. 

[94touring]

Speaking of engines being shipped.  I finally got my March schedule to have this thing sent my way.

[94touring]

Now that I'm back in town the new engine was shipped out for me to be here to accept.  They were supposed to drop it by today but had some delays locally so tomorrow is the new eta.  In the meantime I've been tearing down the old engine to swap things over that I'll reuse.  One upgrade I did was buy a new later doghouse to go with the later oil cooler.  The old style has a smaller oil cooler and the air goes over the cylinders once it passes the cooler.  The new style with bigger cooler has the hot air vented outside the engine.  The newer fan is also slightly wider.  My goal being keep temps under control for long drives in hot temps and up steep grades/pulling a mini.  With that has been tons of research on how to most effectively cool the engine, both oil and cylinder head temps.  To increase fan speed I went with a Porsche 356 alternator pulley.  The aftermarket crank pulley I bought was also replaced with a true 7 inch pulley to spin the smaller 356 pulley faster and in turn increasing fan speed.  Doing the arithmetical calculations says I went from a stock 1.75 fan ratio to 2.1.  VW says that a stock fan (smaller at that) produces 1250cfm at 4k rpms.  The new gearing will put me about 500 rpms on average lower.  With the increased fan speed I get my 1250-1350 cfms at 500 rpms lower.  But wait there's more!  A company produces what is essentially a ram pipe "velocity ring" for the inlet to the fan.  Lab tested gave 800 more cfm at 4k rpms.  Reading all the forums online where people use it they all say it's a significant increase just by outlet airflow across the ground and the inlet suction noises.  Jet engine like.  Blows leaves under cars like a leaf blower.  So that's part of it.  The rest involves having all the proper engine tins, which I was missing several of.  Another thing I discovered was the doghouse has these heater flaps that basically everyone removes. The problem is the flaps help direct air over the cylinders and heads a certain way.  I bought a cheap used flap to get exact angles and figure out how it directs air exactly.  The plan being weld in my own fixed position flaps that direct air as it's intended but without all the crap that fails.  Last on the to do list is head casting passages.  There's a few aftermarket heads that really have things cleaned up for maximum air flow through the heads.  I will know more once I see mine but I do know they are G03 Brazilian casting style heads which are like the G01's on the engine I have here, but with bigger valves and mild port work.  Downloaded a ton of pictures to figure out what I'm looking at in terms of drilling out passage ways, got a couple long drill bits, and practiced on a head to make sure I'm not going to ruin the new pair.  Took all of about 10 minutes to do one head.  Nothing fancy but this apparently make a big difference.  Last picture is of a fancy head with the passages cleared out to perfection.

[MiniDave]

Just those few small holes, or will you remove more of the web?

[94touring]

It just needs some holes to let air flow through they say.  I could get in there with my dremel and make it look pretty but once it's all buttoned up you'll never see it.  One guy on the samba was having temp problems.  Swapped in a better head that had the passages opened up and his cylinder temp gauge was showing 65f cooler.  The center area is probably most important as that's where the fan is pushing air to the other side, where a piece of tin is placed to disperse airflow to the bottom fins.  The holes around the exhaust ports help keep exhaust heat from soaking through the head they say.  Pic showing the bottom tin that directs air through that center area.  This engine didn't even have that!  There's a plate on the cylinders as well that's required.  This one has a slot for the flap system, mine won't have that slot since I'm not using the entire system.

[94touring]

It's here!  The head has all the castings cleaned out too!

[MiniDave]

Like a Mini motor, once you get all the bits swapped over, you can fire it up right on the floor!  77.gif

[cstudep]

Nice!

[tmsmini]

I got one of those BAT updates a few days ago, it had a 59 window van listed.
I looked at the final price and it was 79K. I am not sure what was special about it, it was Ok but not great.

Hard to beleive they sold for around $1000 50 years ago and in very good shape.
Terry

[94touring]

Yep prices are nuts.  I actually prefer this Brazilian with all the European styling even if they don't sell for 100k.  Specifically like the windows although a split front would be cool.

[94touring]

All put together and not without some fighting.  Now just waiting on the transaxle...