Thanks guys!!! I really appreciate the support you've given me all along for this project, as crazy as it is!

Jeff, the problem was that they didn't include a wire with the harness!!! I called them up and he's like "Oh, there's no wire there?" and I'm like "ah, no" and he's says, "Well there's yur prablem!". So, just put a jumper in from IGNSW to INJSW and whamo, she turned over for a bit, I think the computer was doing something and just slowly it started.

This site is acting funny, the answers you guys gave yesterday I just saw today, but I've looked at it a couple times since then.

I'll do the hole in the thermostat if I need to, but it seems to be running OK right now.

What do you guys think the fan turn on temp should be? That sensor is just coming out of the head, so that is water head temp basically. I can adjust the turn on by individual degrees on the software, so really it's wherever we decide to put it.

Jason

That's great news Jason. Man you're gonn'a have one of the baddest Beetles around! Now git that thang on a skid-pad so we can get a full report on all the trick suspension! :D

But seriously, got to be a great feeling to have the car move under it's own power. That's seriously Cool!

Now where ya hid'in the radiator??? Don't see it in any of the car pics.

Sounds like you've gotten the cooling all worked out. I'd get more seat time in it before making any changes. Water temps should be around 190F???

Jeff

I kept trying to cool my Eco down too much. It would see the cool temp and go to closed loop and fatten everything up. better try to stay close to whatever normal temps are for 1.8s. 195-205??

I think it's in Celsius or Farenheit, I can't remember which is the small numbers, but the ECU measures in the small numbers. In the Bentley manual it lists the big and the small numbers in parenthesis, or maybe I just have it set WAY to low. On the ECU program's virtual dashboard it has the small numbers too, and it goes into the yellow zone at like 90 and red at like 100, so I figure it uses the small number system. I feel kinda dumb for not knowing which is which, but growing up in Canada then living in the US my numbers are all mixed up anyway...

Jason

With the thinness of the front plate of the A-arm suspension there is actually space between the front of the frame and the back of the spare tire well, part of the reason I wanted to switch to a different front end setup. If you look back through the pics you'll see where the rad sits. I cut the outer edges out of the body so the rad extends beyond the body slightly, although the plan was to have it all contained, I wasnt' that great with measuring. Air will be forced through it like in the new Corvettes, small opening ducting through a large radiator. Much of the air going under the car will be forced through the radiator by a plastic lower lip that runs the width of the front of the car, and about half of that width will be ducting into the radiator. Think of an air funnel that's not so obvious! I just hope it works....I'm going to leave it as a flat plane for now, and if I need more cooling at speed, I'm going to cut it in 2 places so the plane area in front of the rad area is hinged. I'll then get some small cables attached to the leading edge of that plane, kinda looking like those braces on the front lip of the COT NASCRAP cars. These cables will go through holes drilled into the spare tire well floor. From the floor up these cables will go through springs and finally have stops on them. At city speeds, the springs will keep the cables pulled up, out of the reaches of speed bumps, driveways, and rough roads. As the speeds increase, usually the road smooths out so clearance is less of an issue(in a perfect world), and the hinging plane will drop from air pressure to the stops, creating a larger funnel area, and it will trap and gather more air as it's needed. Think of a poor mans/passive version of those active intakes on the top back sides of the Veyron and Murcielago. If these are even needed, I won't know without testing, but I could also lock them out in the winter when temps are cooler and roads are poorer and then take out the locks for summer use. These are the ramblings of a crazy man, but at least they are well thought out...

Jason

That's pretty innovative tucking the radiator up under the front like that. It should work (in my mind anyway) ALA you've got the front side sealed to the inlet air opening and lower high-pressure creating flap under the car. I gather that's what the flanges around the perimeter of the rad are for. And leave plenty of exhaust room on the backside!

FWIW, *F-*C, generally F is about double the C number: so 100C would be close to 200F (212F). The exact calculation is F = (C x 1.8) +32, or C = 0.56 x (F - 32). That's according to my old physics book.
I've got an old TI-60 calculator that worth it's weight in gold to me - as it has all the english - metric conversions built in at the push of a button!
Jeff

Hi

I use a conversion tool from coade.com or conversion buddy freeware. Celsius and Centigrade are the same, don't know why they use different names.

I find the metric system very sensible i.e. 1 litre of water = 1 kg

Steve

Steve

its called Celcius, after the physics guy and centigrade cos its based on a scale that water freezes at 0 and boils at 100 degrees. centi means 100 in latin

The Farenheit scale's zero is the absolute zero where something else solidifies fully if i remember correctly

Chris

A little video my dad shot for me. I edited it on the windows move editor and it was pretty easy! My first real video.

Shakedown Dec. 22, 2007

Jason

Sounds and stops nice! Good work!
p.s. your dad is a good cameraman!

Coolness! :cool:

nice one! all done then. :lmao: how do the brakes feel? i realise it's not full weight yet but is it locking up the rears?

ah, no worries, just read your brakes thread ;)

Nice...
One thing I've never seen any mention of: are there general guidelines as to what sort of caster to run when moving the struts to the rear?

How fast do you think it is? Looks pretty nippy on the video.. Gone round any bends a bit faster too to see how the front end is?

Yeah, uh, I really don't know. I just kind of set it up arbitrarily, I do have tons of camber adjustment, both at the top of the strut and where the strut meets the bearing carrier, and there is about 1.5" castor adjustment in the strut mount bracket, but I really don't know where it's going to end up. I'm going to take it to some race shop and have them go through it, it might even end up needing a total rear suspension redo. It's definately not ideal right now, but it works, and for around town I suspect it will be just fine, it will be when it's pushed to the limits at speed where the weaknesses will show up. I imagine it handles better then a Chevy Citation right now!

As far as quickness, it's quick! I really havn't even revved it up yet. The tuning is not done on it, so I'm kind of nervous that I'm damaging it if I run it too hard. I don't have seat belts hooked up in it right now, so it's kinda scary how quick it is. Spinning the tires doesn't take any work at all, but that may be a product of poor geometry too. The engine should have around 200hp as it sits right now, and I can't imagine it weighs more than 2000 lbs at this point, so I would imagine around a 5 second 0-60 time shouldn't be a problem. Straight line performance should be pretty crazy, but it's really handling that I'm concerned with in the big picture.

It has not seen a corner at speed, I don't want to fly out the open door!!! I'll get the door on and the seatbelts in before I do any cornering, but I'm not optimistic at this point, aligment and general geometry needs some attention before I get serious about it's cornering ability. It's only run up and down my street here, and the next big trip will be on the back of a trailer to 034 Motorsport to have the engine tuned. Then I can run it without fear of doing any motor damage.

Jason

Man, that's awesome. Well done.

Always cool to see a project coming to life !

Must be a great feeling to drive it after so much work has gone into it !

Rob.

Thanks Rob, still working out the millions of niggles. Today I found out the body moves around alot, enough that a little dent is appearing where the passengers strut mount is banging against the body. Next up it will be making stiffening mounts that tie the body to the rear superstructure.

This is my latest creation, maybe I should be working harder on the bug!

Bad Dub Racing

Jason

Some brackets I made with the help of my Christmas present from my dad, a lathe. The back end of the bug was so wobbly that it was banging on the strut mounts enough to dent the body.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/409317.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/409316.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/409899.jpg


Jason

She's been out for a few runs now. I don't have a water temp guage, and the laptop I use has bad batteries, so I can't use the virtual dash to watch them, but the fans don't come on unless I'm stopped for awhile regardless, so that sounds about right!

It's a little twitchy at at any speed, not unstable, just twitchy. I think it's the almost bald 255/40/18s out back tramlining, so I'll put the new 235/45/17 Pirelli PZeroNero's on and we'll see if that feels better. I don't know how fast I'm going, the speedo get's pegged, but I do know that I'm passing people on the freeway very quickly, I'm thinking 80 at least, maybe faster. It corners great, none of the push it had as a BJ front end. I did have one incident on an inclined cloverleaf off/on ramp as I neared the end of it and was accelerating to merge there was some rough road repair and the front kind of jumped sideways then hooked up again, probably the compression settings on the shocks and maybe even the A-arm bushings are a little tight still. Regardless, it hooks up. I did get the back end sliding out a little on a fast braking then hard hard right turn offramp, but that is to be expected under those conditions with a mid-engine car.

The brakes aren't to my liking yet, too much pedal pressure and not enough bite generally, especially from the front. I think the pads may be part of the problem, but I'm sure one of the master cylinders will have to be replaced to reduce rear braking forces or conversely increase the front braking force, the rears are still the ones that want to lock up first. Hopefully that will give me a little bit more pedal at the same time. I talked to a Wilwood tech, and he gave me suspicious info, first saying one thing then the opposite, I'm really not sure how well the guys understand the fluid physics of what they are "teching" with, but it sounds like I need to get a smaller front MC.

Got the static alignment done, and it came out amazingly well. Apparently my fabrication skills are not terrible, as the specs came out better than new factory alignment. It will need to be looked at from a dynamic geometry standpoint in April at Huffaker Engineering at Infineon, he's going to pull the springs and look at toe changes during travel as well as camber changes. I think it will require a rear suspension redu, but we'll have to wait and see.

Jason

Finally have a dyno appointment at 034 Motorsport on March 17, so I can finally rest easy getting on the gas hard. Spoke with Javad who is the owner at Laguna Seca this last weekend. We were there with the Audi Club and had an amazing time. He thinks things will go smoothly and that we should be done tuning in a couple of hours, but I'll be leaving it there for the week so they can be sure it's cold starting well.

Having a little issue with the battery dying, I have some sort of drain somewhere, but don't know where it is yet. It might be related to the resisitor in the 12-6 Volt adapter for the windshield wipers, I'll have to investigate...

Jason

Cool!

Speaking of Audis, I recently added one to the stable...

http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL267.../306643140.jpg

Jeff-

Oh, perdy Audi. There was one like that for sale here in Michigan with the same wheels and color.

Those BBSs look great Jeff!!! That's your Mini too? Those things track very well, throw some R compounds on there and they are hard to catch. Is that the 180hp or 225hp TT?

The dynoing is done, apparently I've got about 165 at the wheels, so about 190 is what he is telling me, but tons of torque, so that's sounds very good for now. He took longer than expected, so I wasn't able to pick up her up last Friday, will have to pick her up this Friday after work. It's 2.5 hours each way, so that's not really a weekday thing. If I can get her sooner I will.

I'll get a printout from the dyno results that I'll post here, but apparently it runs VERY well, and the compression tests told them the stated 15k miles on the motor was probably correct.

On a sad note, doing one of my pre-dyno trip shakedowns, I took a curb at the wrong angle and totally tweaked my radiator, it's not leaking, but it crushed one of the fans on the back side and it will definately need to be redone down the road. I might go a little wider if I can fit it, with more HP in the future I'll need more cooling.

Jason

That's the wifes mini. Has ridiculous torque just off throttle and goes like stink... but the ride! The ride is the absolute worst bone-jarring thing I've ever ridden in. She wanted one forever and absolutely loves that thing! BTW, you can double the base price with add-ons :bawling: .

It's a 225hp. Bone stock except for the 19" wheels. I don't have a lot of mod plans, chip, exhaust, airbox.

I went to the dyno day down in GA. 165 would have put you well above quite a few "built" type 1s. :cool:

How big of a rad can you fit? I've got a leftover.

Jeff-

Ah, that's why they go so well, race suspension!!!

The TT looks awesome, rear sway bars help a lot in those too.

I can't wait to drive it back up here. The reliability is what I love, apparently it's tuned so I can't do any damage to it!!!

Then new radiator will be the same general shape as the one I have now, I still don't want to cut into the body under the hood, but thank you for the offer. I might have one made that is wider than the one I have now, but the same height.

Jason

Picked her up last night, of course it was the first time in weeks that it rained, so that sucked.

Scary is the world I'd use for it. Not just the power, but the rear suspension too. There is a LOT of torque, I was in second, hit the gas and I was spinning, back end sliding sideways. It was wet, but but I can't even do that in my M3! So tons of torque and power. The engine is sitting right behind me, so even with earplugs in, that turbo was really working. I was going over 100 easily, but it cruised really nicely at 85. At the faster speeds it was scary, the rear suspension is REALLY not working well. I'm going to look at putting some spacers under the steering rack back there to maybe give me some toe in bump over what I'm sure is toe-out bump right now. That's what is scary, you hit a bump in a corner and the whole rear end feels like it shifts sideways. The redline is 7200 rpm, and I didn't even get close to that at 100, so I don't know how fact it goes on the top end. Javad the tuner said he noticed some clutch slippage, but I have to say all I notice was wheel slippage.

The shifter works great, until it doesn't work well. I can't explain it, but it shifts great most of the time, then rarely its a struggle to get in gear. Don't know what's going on with that.

Temp was a steady 85 degrees, even with just the 2 fans running. They had set the thermostat for 80, so first the first leg of my trip the fans came on and stayed on, kinda worried me. The ECU was in demo mode too, and I didn't realize it, so I couldn't figure out why the temps were running 95 and the RPMs were staying constant!!!

I'm going to lay low for awhile now, between the 3 hours of tuning, 1 hour of testing and cleanup, and new coils and firmware for the ECU, it was over $1k, so I need to fill my piggybank up again!

Jason

Exelent to hear your car it's running, I hope you can solve the rear suspension problem.

Do you try with Suspension Analizer software? you have 10 day's trial and for my car it's very helpful. You can calculate the position and length of the arms for best numbers for toe in.

http://www.performancetrends.com/SuspAnzr.htm

Sorry for the OT! I'm in the middle of buying a Mini Cooper S as my new daily, great to have the TLC inclusive servicing for 5 years, hopefully now I'll be able to concentrate on the bug and not get so distracted by kit car daily drivers!
Rich

Hi Jason,

Great project!
It's great to see such an amount of dedication and time put into a car!
Hope you can get all the little kinks worked out soon!

Concerning your rear suspension issues:
Is it only the toe-out on bump that is causing the issues?
Mounting the steering rack a little higher (so the tie-rods point down) might help a little.

Is the virtual hinge-line between the front and rear mounts of the lower A-arm parallel to the car?

What kind of struts do you use in the rear?
Are they actually front struts?
Aren't you running out of droop travel?

Simon

Hi Simon,

If things work out well, I'm hoping to use the front control arm mount as the rear mount, and create a new front mount directly in front of the rear wheels. I might be able to use the alloy casting off the end of a 944 torsion housing, it has a solid rubber mount with a intergral core of aluminum. I might be able to bolt this onto the end of the torsion housing, thread the core, screw in a heim, then attach a custom built arm that connects to a second arm running from the K-member to the lower ball joint of the strut. Essentially a large A-arm with the pivots creating a V towards the back of the car, then adjust the tie-rod length and pivot points accordingly, maybe even swap the struts side to side if it is an advantage for toe changes during travel. I don't have the expertise to do this myself, I wish I did, but I'm planning on using the services of Joe Huffaker to guide me.

Jason

Hi Hugo! Glad to see you are making progress on your ride too!

I think that program might be very helpful, I just don't trust my ability to see the big picture. While that program might tell you it will work, I think more knowledge will give me better results. I should probably trust myself more on these things, but I have very high goals for the way my car will handle when I'm done, and I want to do everything I can to make sure the road from here to there is as short and as straight as possible. I just wish the toll wasn't so expensive!!!

Keep us updated on your progress!

Jason

A friend and I had a little fun last night. He has an '07 Suby STi with total intake and exhaust mods and chip retuning. We did some drag racing, rolling starts, and freeway speed runs. Surprisingly, we were neck and neck! He slowed after we pass 90mph, where I'm sure he would be faster, but in everything else he could not leave me. I left him quickly at 90 and I'm guessing I hit at least 110. The whole reason we got on the freeway is to see how fast I was, but he doesn't like breakin' the law! What surprised me the most was breaking the tires loose after shifting into second. I didnt drop the clutch, already in second, and just the power broke the tires loose! Just goes to show what light weight and power can do...

Jason

Power goooood!

Corruption on the way!

Took a trip over to Huffaker Engineering at Infineon yesterday. Joe Jr. is an amazing guy, I'm looking forward to working with him. He didn't have time to get into specifics, just put the car on the lift and scratched his head a bit and agreed with my diagnosis of off-kilter rear geometry and he agreed that the sensation I feel is probably bump toe-out. To keep me busy he helped me diagnose my brake bias issues, so I've ordered a 1-1/8 in MC to replace the 7/8 rear MC so I decrease the rear brake bias and also increase pedal travel. I'm going to take a picture of the 944T torsion beam cover and send it to him, it may play a usefull roll in the rear suspension redu, but I may end up with a full double-wishbone rear suspension! Motor is still running strong, but I think I hear a little detonation in 5th under full throttle, so I'm not too happy about that, and cold running is still an issue. Some ECU adjustments should take care of those issues.

On my trip I had an "event". The frame horn sits about 2" off the ground, too low, but thats where the springs settled to. It's fine with me in it, but my wife wanted to go too, so it was a little lower. We took the scenic route, big mistake. The road was rough and annoying, but the rear problem developed when I find myself staring down a dead possum in the middle of the road. I don't mean fresh dead either, but not squished low enough to fit under the car... Bam, then the smell of rotting flesh, nasty. The smell subsided replaced with the sweet smell of antifreeze.... After surviving the first hit, the radiator couldn't handle this hit and started to leak. Fortunately I can look in the back seat and see the coolant expansion tank, and I could watch it slowly drain. Got to a gas station, filled it up, and was able to get back home. By the time I arrived, it had somehow stopped leaking, and is still sealed!!! I think the orange antifreeze I have must have some sealing properties...

Still no dyno sheet...:mad:

Jason

I've actually hit the radiator again since the last time, and again it's sealed itself, but I've lifted the car 1/2" and I think I'm going to have to have a slightly shorter rad made and a steel cage to protect it.

It was running a little hot for awhile, just couldn't seem to cool down, fans ran a lot, then I realized I had been bleeding the air from the front off the system wrong. I had been doing it while the car was running and under pressure, but it just mixed the air around. All I had to do is open the bleed valve after the car had set for awhile-gravity did the work and pushed the air out. Haven't had trouble since, but I'm waiting for a hot California day to really feel good about it.

On the bittersweet front, I got a ticket yesterday in her, 86 in a 65, so while I didn't like the ticket, getting one at a speed slower than I had been going makes me proud to have done it in my bug!!! BTW, the freeway was clear, I saw the car from a mile away, just didn't think it was a CHP!!

Jason

hi jason/ jeff.
glad to hear things are going well in your part of the world , i have my beetle on the road at the moment and am fitting the new fuel injection next week , i have had to go to 560cc injectors on boost to stop the detonating and believe me it goes like stink , i am of to bugjam on the 18 july with the bug and ghia so helen is putting the ghia down the track and i am doing the bug :D , we are looking at a new house at the moment so the car spending may come to an abrupt halt in the not to distant future . Hope Pam and Michele are well.
cheers jon

ha ha ha I feel ya on that one bro, been there dont that ALOT!!! :lmao: I bet the cop couldnt beleive the car could do that kind of speed. Oh yeah ya got any new pics of the beast? I cant wait to see it in person. I am almost done with my new rebuild but it isnt even close to the drivetrain you have going on! :o

We DEFINATELY need pics/video of the bug and the ghia at the track!!! Didn't you say you needed to get an HD video camera?;) Helen's a lead foot you know...

Good luck on the injector install, how 'bout some more pic updates? Where is your thread anyway!!!

Jason

...And how about some pics of the other event?!? :cool:


Jeff-

I ordered a new radiator yesterday. The old one had suffered too much at the hands of vicious pavement, and finally the leaking would not self repair. The new one will be 3" wider and about 1" shorter, so I'll gain and inch of clearance. I'll also be fabricating a sort of cage to protect it from future damage and finally get on to making the duct system to feed it air, although so far airflow hasn't seemed to be an issue.

Jason