|
VWDMC I'm in the mood to chat!
I'll throw the idea to the friends bulding the kits, I'm not in the business (was in the 90's)...but TheSamba sounds like a good starting point. What I would like to do is spread the news, the knowledge and help you guys avoid the mistakes we made.
Like I said before, we came a long way. The turbo craze started in Brazil in the 80's, got really serious in the 90's, but we have recently mastered its use. Once you realize the fuel consumption needs, then its the higway to pleasure and free power. If the guy with the MASSIVE 3 liter spanks you with his 280hp screamer when you were running 15psi on that lazy wednesday night, you tell your engine builder, retard timming a little, step up 10 on your mains and simply bump the wind to 30psi and voila, you just made 100 and something free horses.
Do they explode? Yeah they do, but that's up to you (what I mean is that there is no black magic in them). Great part of the blowing up is due to lean conditions, and they are due to improper tuning. I've been doing this for the past 17 years and I threw more valvetrains in normally aspirated engines due to stupid driving tha thrown rods due to weak bottom ends in turbo engines. I've had a lot more demage done due to lean condition, but that is part of the past and in any case, they are usually nothing more than a burnt head gasket (watercooled VWs).
Alcohol is awesome, I urge you guys to switch, whenever you have it readily available. The engine stays much cleaner inside, that alone is a great advantage. It is incredibly cooler, I'm mean my bug runs 13:1 CR without an internal cooler only the 72 pass external with no fan, and the car never sees past 90 degrees. And obviously, more CR means more power.
Brazil went to alcohol in the 70s I think because of the great oil dependency we had, with the crisis and enough land to grow sugar cane, it was an obvious solution I guess. In the biggining the cars sucked, they did not have good cold start systems and the CR wasn't bumped up, so they were extremely hard to start (for a normal driver) and fuel consumption was terrible. Once compression was up and they developed automated cold start systems, the sales took off, to the point that in the late 80s, 98% of the new cars ran on alcohol. For some stupid reason the government abandoned the program in the 90s and we had some shortage then. Later when the market opened up, imported cars were solely gas and the factories stopped developing alcohol engine, so you had a surplus of the fuel, which was great for us. I remmenber having a 400hp daily driven Rabbit that cost half to run than my dad's 115hp Passat. Those days are gone though since recently the manufactures started building the flex fuel cars, which run on either fuel.
Regarding the parts and secrets, I'd be glad to list them here, but I don't want to clog your pages so, if it is of anyones interest, let me know.
Regards to all,
Marcelo
|