Due to arrive soon

[94touring]

Got the correct hockey stick installed into the nose cone to the transaxle today. I had to fabricate/cobble together one to get me back on the road after the transaxle debacle last year.  1st to 4th shifted great but reverse has always been temperamental.  So detached everything to move the transaxle and motor back 4-6 inches to get the nosecone off to make the swap.  Took all day and wasn't fun.  I flushed the gear oil while I was in there.  End result is 1st to 4th is still great and now I have a reverse that goes in gear and actually stays in gear!  Side by side of what I made compared to what it should have been. I had the profile pretty close.

[94touring]

Updates. Almost time for the yearly Colorado trip.  I've been testing a different fan and fan shroud with mixed results. The bad news was his plastic fan exploded. The good news is his shroud with the metal fan, in conjunction with a custom "velocity stack" I fabricated, works AMAZING!  I reduced head temps about 20 degrees on average in numerous back to back test. So that's super "cool".

The electric ignition unit with 3d programmable map I've been using for the past few years has given me fits. It has always had a level of occasional kickback on startup that drives me crazy. Some of the signal wires are also sensitive to placement and can cause odd spikes or ignition cuts.  Recently the ignition cuts have gotten worse and I simply can't resolve it. So tossing in the towel and bought a 123 Bluetooth programmable distributor.  I opted for the programmable unit as I can create the same curve I've been using, and also set when and how much vacuum advance is applied. This is a very nice feature because vacuum signal on twin idf 40 webers is pretty weak. That was a huge bonus to the other unit.  Till it arrives I tossed in the factory distributor. It pretty much sucks for ignition curve and I can really feel it in the seat. The pleasant part is the bus fires up just looking at the key in the ignition.  I am pretty pumped to have that with the 123 but get my ignition curve back to optimal for my build.  Has a cool interface from my phone too.

[94touring]

On my way to Colorado. Had a windshield blow out. Similar to an airplane in that it sounded like a shotgun.  I eventually took the whole thing out.  Too far into my drive to turn back. Will try to arrange a windshield in Estes. With the windows up it doesn't even blow my hat off!

[MPlayle]

That is how my one Mini windshield went out a few years ago - same style shatter pattern.  It was a single layer "toughened" glass.  I replaced it with a laminated.

Does your Brazilian bus use the same bay window as the German buses?

[94touring]

Yeah same glass.  Company is coming out Tuesday.

[94touring]

All set and back to having a windshield.  In some ways I'm happy it busted.  Two reasons, first I eliminated the safari front glass that leaked. Second, it has a tinted top which will be very nice.

[94touring]

Time for winter maintenance and odds and ends.  After many thousands of hard miles decided to pull the motor to pull heads and do inspections. Wanted to make sure exhaust seats weren't sinking into the heads, as I've had to adjust them a few times which was starting to get concerning. Turns out they're just fine.  Didn't want to be 2000 miles from home and eat a valve. The seats aren't cut the best so after talking with a couple VW gurus I'm sending them off to a guy to get better cuts.  Also I've been curious what they flow since there isn't any numbers provided for these, which are ported.  Another little project I'm doing is adding water injection, simply for head cooling (hopefully, we'll see) when I'm pulling all my gear on the trailer up hills in the summer. Since I'm naturally aspirated and not some 400hp v8, as well as 4 intake runners on twin idf 40 webers, getting the water volume correct is rather tricky.  I don't need much h20 and too much will make  choke and not run well.  So...I got to thinking how to do this. I can get 30cc injectors, run 1 each on each idf, mounted in the center to give 15cc to each runner. If it wants more I can bump it up to 45cc each side, but according to the H20 charts and my power output, 60cc total is all it should want. To get the mist to make it way into each runner I'm switching back to my wide mouth ram pipes.  I will bench test with the shop vac hooked up to see how well that idea works. It should but I also don't want water going down below and into my float bowls. Next tricky part is how to activate the system.  It's easy on a boosted system since it's activated off PSI readings. Naturally aspirated, particularly carbs, gives no real way to activate it.  But, I found an efi conversion kit for IDFs that has a mount for a TPS.  TPS's read between 0.75 and 5 volts typically. An ecu typically controls input voltage to the TPS with a 5v input. In order to get the 5v input I ordered a DC voltage reducer from 12/24v down to 5v.  The one pictured is one with a potimeter variable from 0-5v for testing purposes and also a solution to control the pump manually if I was unable to get a TPS working with the carbs.  So with all that in place the biggest component to control the pump is a voltage controller, which tells the pump when to activate. It has a start and stop point between 2 and 5 volts.  At a start of 2 volts the pump runs at a lower volume and as you increase throttle and the TPS opens to 5 volts, it ramps up to 100% pump and spray volume. Pretty slick.  I can adjust it accordingly and see what the engine likes best for a starting point once I do road testing.  Hopefully I actually see a decrease in head temps lol.

Oh and I decided to ditch the dual valve springs and go with an upgraded single spring.  The duals have a ton of pressure I just don't need for my cam and my engine redline.  Makes it a pain turning the motor over when I'm adjusting valves every oil change too. The duals in there make 340 lbs at full lift and the HD singles I have in the shop are rated at 200 lbs, which with my 1.25 rockers could be pushing it. I got some rated for 230 lbs and the thin spring shims to attain more pressure at my full valve lift, yet not binding the springs.  The 200s were probably fine but at least I'll have peace of mind the 230s with shims will keep valves from floating.

[MiniDave]

Wow, the springs I used on Mini engines were rated at 200, and we rev those a whole lot more than you do a VW motor.....

[94touring]

Yeah I don't know why the VW crowd uses such high spring pressures.  The cam profiles, push rod and valve keeper weights perhaps.  From the vast amount of reading I've done, my cam profile is considered good for single HD springs. But when you add in the 1.25 rockers somw people say go with dual springs.  But others say no issues with single.  So I went with the slightly stiffer singles with the shims. 

Today's work involved making a "drip shield" as I'm calling it for this h20 injection.  If it was a turbo I'd just run 4 nozzles to each barrel on my twin idf40 webbers, but since this is naturally aspirated I can only run the smallest nozzle dead center between the ram pipes on each webber assembly without flooding it out with water given the power output of the motor.  So... since the float bowl is directly below and I don't want water in that, I have this shield in place to collect any droplets and direct them to the ram pipe mouth.  Most of the mist should get sucked in with the engine running anyway.  Did a test on the bench with it spraying a larger nozzle than what I'm using for a full minute and no water drops below.  Everything made it to the intake like it's supposed to. I did need to add a gasket under the ram pipes and a rubber seal on the threaded rods that go through the drip shield to completely keep water from below.

[94touring]

While things are out decided to replace the battery. I miss the days a battery was 60-80 bucks. A couple times this year this battery couldn't get the starter going, it is almost 5 years old now.  Probably doesn't help with higher compression and those 340lb springs!  Old battery is still good enough to keep on a trickle charger in the shop to run my winch and for other various projects that pop up. Have another dead battery out of something taking up space that can be used for the core exchange.  Anyways, going from 590 cold cranking amps to 800 and a much higher 20 hour AH rating. Exciting stuff lol

[MiniDave]

Exciting prices too! Jeez louise...

[94touring]

$213 and that's after $36 in discounts!

[MiniDave]

I'm scared to see what the battery for one of these Allroads will cost - it's freakin huge cause they have the start/stop tech.

Edit: Checking the web, aftermarket suppliers range from $365 - 407. Good news tho, the silver 2018 has a sticker that says it was replaced in Feb 2024!

[cstudep]

Batteries are getting ridiculously expensive for sure, I need to replace the battery on my dump trailer and it's around $400. I will probably just replace it with a much smaller one, I just won't get as many dump cycles out of it before it dies.

[Red Riley]

I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but I've been going to Batteries Plus for a while now. They have lifetime replacement on car batteries. The guy told me just to bring the battery in before the warranty date and they hand me a new one no questions asked. Pretty good deal, I'd say.

[94touring]

I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but I've been going to Batteries Plus for a while now. They have lifetime replacement on car batteries. The guy told me just to bring the battery in before the warranty date and they hand me a new one no questions asked. Pretty good deal, I'd say.

That's where I got this one. Bought the last 2 there.  I need to remember this.

[Mudhen]

We just had the battery replaced in our 2020 Evoque - ouch.  Looking at the entire circuit board sitting on top of it and not having a way to register it I had it done at a local indy shop.  $800.  More than the last r53 we bought!

[94touring]

Hell of a week getting the bus back on the road after winter maintenance and inspections. The flow numbers on my heads came back as really good and I swapped in the 230lb valve springs with shims. Added an upgraded pressure plate to the clutch while it was out and addressed some exhaust heat shielding that needed replaced around where my oil lines go. What I expect to take 2 or 3 days getting  an engine back together with all the tins and various details inevitably takes about 5 days. Did I mention my push-pull webber linkages needed replaced? Had to set those up too.  Got it all buttoned up but from past experience decided to leave the tow hitch and bumper off in the unfortunate event I needed to pull the motor again.  Those are also fiddly because it's such a complex fit with the tow hitch I designed.  Fired it up and adjusted the webber linkages to get idle sorted. Although I was having issues with idle being erratic and trying to die on me.  Figured I'd drive it and adjust it after it was properly warmed up.  Well the first thing I noticed the clutch pedal was rather stiff, bummer, and it engaged high. It was quickly revealed I needed to adjust the clutch cable to the new pressure plate. Anything above half throttle and the clutch slipped.  Doh!  Quick return to the shop and got the pedal back to engaging in a normal range. Also the extra stiff pedal feel went away, thank God.  Next test drive it didn't slip at all. On the drive back to the shop (all of a 2 mile test drive) it felt low on power and started to vibrate a bit.  I assumed a plug wire was loose and I was firing on 3 instead of 4 cylinders.  At least from past experience that's exactly what it felt like. Pulled it into the shop and instead of needing to hit the brakes to stop, it stopped on it's own     The brakes had locked up!  Before I parked it for the winter I installed an electric manual brake sensor off the master arm under the bus to get brake lights to activate quickly instead of the very delayed pressure sensors...cause safety. I adjusted the master arm to take up what I thought was excessive slack.  Turns out it was right on the nats ass edge of engaging the brakes, which it did successfully once things warmed up. They were even smoking in the shop lol. Surprised I didn't get brake fade honestly.  Got that sorted and drove beautifully.  But idle was still being a pain. Kept wanting to bog down and die for seemingly no reason. Sitting back there adjusting things heard a faint tinging sound, which I noticed was coming from the pulley area.  Turns out the one engine tin was ever so slightly rubbing the pulley, which was just enough to cause the engine to bog and idle to be erratic.  Took a punch and hammer and gave the tin a good whack and problem solved. 

[94touring]

But wait there's more!  I have plans to build the ultimate bus engine! Since I'm several years into learning type 1 motors, have gained enough knowledge to know some things to improve upon what I currently have. Mainly these stroked 82mm cranks can break. Stock is 69mm.  The overlap between the main and rod bearings isn't much and when you need to go chevy rod bearings for case clearances loose even more overlap.  The solution is having a custom crank welded up, machined, and going with a type 4 center main. It has 5mm more diameter and gets the overlap  back. Diving down the crank rabbit hole discovered there's an all type 4 main crank rather than just the center main. Even better!  But this requires some thought about case machining for the case to fit the bearings.  However, CB performance has the all mains type 4 cranks AND special bearings that don't require the case to be machined. Except machine work for bearings tangs and a different end seal... easy.  They only offer these cranks in 84 and 86mm.  That's a boat load of stroke.  I was already leaning towards an upgraded case for this build. They have a heavy duty alloy case with shuffle pins and pre clearanced for 86mm strokes.  They're already machined for 94mm barrels too. So in the end I bought one of these fancy cases and an 86mm all type 4 main crank, which also requires it's own specific flywheel.  Next on the list of parts to buy are C pin height forged pistons and 5.7 length chevy rods.  This allows me to retain a stock engine width with all this stroke and a near perfect deck height when it comes time to do final adjustments before heads go on. Going wide on the engine you run into issues fitting tins and also fitting it into the engine bay. In the end I'll have a 2387cc engine.  I've selected other parts for the build to give all the low end torque I want for pulling my gear up mountains. It already hauls pretty good with this 2180 in there, which will end up in my bug or another vw project. 

[MiniDave]

Wow, that bus is going to fly!

[94touring]

It's gone from a stock 1600 which was painfully underpowered, to a 2110 which was better but underwhelming due to the builders lack of detail, to this 2180 I put together which is fantastic.  The final revisions in this 2387 build should be the ticket.

[94touring]

Edit:  forgot I already posted about this, I started it back in January and just now finished! 

One project I've been working on for the bus is a water/methanol setup.  I started to formulate the kit for 2 reasons, mainly head cooling but also with the plan to run higher compression on the 2387cc build. In the summers when I'm doing cross country trips, and I have a 5k mile one this year, hauling the trailer with gear up terrain, into the wind, when it's 100f out, makes for some really hot cylinder heads. I find myself having to back off to keep them safely cool going by the CHT gauge. I couldn't find any naturally aspirated W/M data on the vw forums for head temps but assumed I'd see something of an improvement. 20 degrees would have been great.  The amount of fluid being sprayed is an issue because at 125-150 estimated horsepower, you only want 75-85cc of 50/50 ratio of water methanol. The smallest nozzle is 30cc for injection but I have twin dual webbers, which puts me at 120cc if I were to use a 30cc for each runner.  I decided one nozzle above and dead center of each ram pipe would divide up things well enough to get the optimal amount. Next issue though is what fluid doesn't make it into the intakes will then end up in the float bowl, which isn't good.  I reached out to a guy who does 3d printing and showed him some design ideas I had for a custom 1 piece velocity assembly that would seal off the floats and help guide in fluid by having the bells angled towards the center, and with wider bells. I'd tap and die drain ports for the excess fluid from the filter base plates.  The velocity assemblies would have a "snorkel" for the jet stacks to breath.  I also needed a pump controller to reduce flow from full 200-300psi power down to half or the bare minimum. The higher the pump pressure the more CCs a jet sprays.  Also needed a way to engage the system and send  a signal to said pump controller.  I have tested and tried a number of combinations of pumps and controllers.  Fabricated a brake light switch to my webber arm, which can be adjusted to any throttle position, to send a signal to the pump controller.  A TPS would also work well, but options for a bracket are limited and a 2v-5v signal to ramp controller output is ideal and not ideal at the same time.  I decided to tune with a non ramped 1 flow output. Also as it turns out having the pump run at bare minimum doesn't cause it to heat up, whereas full power after 30 minutes continuous running it's too hot to touch. They are duty limited as it turns out.  I could go on and on about all the technical aspects of this. Results:  back to back to back and more back to back test show as little as 20f cooler head temps pulling a load at minimum flow to 60F lower head temps at full flow.  I have the pump controller flow knob up front to adjust from low to high flow as needed for various loads. Ideally it stays on low but if I find myself needed more I can add more.  Cruising at 70mph in the worst conditions I may see 375f head temps with the trailer, continuously spraying to get them to 355f would be great. Pulling a hill and if they want to creep to 385-390f, I can increase injection instead of backing off the throttle. 400f is considered to be where your valves start dropping. Anyways, back to testing.  I did a series of bench test as well.  Low flow pump spray on an injector pretty much gives the rated nozzle CC output. You can increase a 30cc up to 45cc by going from 150psi to 300psi pump output. After it was said and done I went with two 45cc nozzles and a 200psi pump bumped down to 100psi, or 3 volts in my case. The 30cc nozzles didn't give as good of a spray pattern, tended to clog easier, and after measuring  fluid loss by collecting the loss (20-25%) the 45CC were the best option. I retuned the bus for the injection as well. Methanol is a fuel and increases your air fuel ratios.  I went leaner on the air jets, which is your 4k and up rpm band. This also helped lean out high speed cruise a bit.  With the system engaged I get perfect 12.8 to 13.1 ratios at wide open throttle to my 5k redline.  If the system were to fail I'm limited to 4300 rpms before it gets too lean, which isn't a big deal.  I did attain better gas mileage by being able to go leaner as a result.  For water methanol storage I needed something bigger than 1 gallon.  90cc of spray is 1.42 gallons per hour. On a 13 hour trip, I may need to spray a few hours worth.  This summer it's 24 hours one way, so I need capacity. I was able to fit in a 12 gallon RV plastic water cell under the rear bench seat.  This would give me 8.5 hours of spray time.  I don't want to be searching for methanol in the middle of nowhere, or -20 blue washer fluid that's 30% meth to 70% h20.  The local speed shop sells methanol for $5 a gallon. Pics...

[MiniDave]

This  has been a very involved project, glad to see it's working out so well - now to try it on a super hot day and see how well it works. Sure looks encouraging!

BTW, is there a way to embed the photos in the body of text rather than only at the end of the post?

[94touring]

There is, but you have to upload them to the gallery, then copy the link and use the insert image icon.

[94touring]

Slowly acquiring more parts for the ultimate bus engine build.  Long race rods, double thrust cam bearings, and some  dual race valve springs.  Though I'll only use the outter spring from those. In dual form they make 420lbs of spring pressure at full lift.  I'm shooting for 280-300lbs.  My options are limited at 330+lb dual springs or $250 beehive springs at 280lbs.  I will put these outters on the press with scale and measure what they are with shims till I get what I need at half an inch lift.