Time attack beetle

[Humble]

DORIGTT, I'll stop when I'm bored BTW, next time you hit sunnyvale vw you should tell the guys there about your ride in my bug, especially Samer. He's the one I bought the golf through.

Volkdent, Do you usually instruct with HOD? That's one of the few groups I haven't run with and I was wondering what they're like?

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Now on to the good stuff! I started tearing into the STI motor some more to see what I bought, but the more I looked, the more I liked. I pulled off the crank pulley and timing cover to take a look at the timing belt and crank trigger wheel. The timing belt was in great shape and didn't have any cracking or defects much like the accessory belts I pulled off. The trigger wheel is a 36-2-2-2 setup which will make setting up the megasquirt nice and easy since it's a supported tooth profile.





While I was at it, I pulled the coils and spark plugs, and checked down the bores with a bore-scope. Cylinders and piston tops look great, and the plugs are all iridium tip gapped to .028". Coloration on the plugs was good and there was no debris or flecks that signal detonation. While the plugs were out I put a squirt of oil down the bores and put the motor through a few rotations and everything is smooth.



Got my new (to me) flywheel in this week. It's a gently used Aasco aluminum 11lbs. flywheel that should be perfect for race duty, purchased off one of the nasioc guys. I had to run down to the subaru dealer to grab some flywheel bolts and I'm hoping I can use the vw flywheel tool to help tighten them.





I spent the day Saturday on this little project. On the newer Subarus they have a small half-butterfly in the intake called the tumble generator valve, or TGV, that helps develop turbulence which keeps fuel droplets suspended in the air and improves low speed driveability. Unfortunately, even when they are wide open they block a lot of airflow, about 50%. I've seen TGV delete manifolds for sale but I figured I could do the work myself and it would be a fun project.

First step, pulled the butterflies and shafts from the TGV bodies. I got excited ( a little frustrated ) and had to drill the screws out of the butterflies which seems to be a common problem, but in the effort I forgot to take pics. Here's the TGV body in the vice, and I already removed the divider on the left side with a hacksaw. The TGV only blocks about 65-70% of the opening and you can see the lip the butterfly rests on in the body.



After a little work with a die grinder to smooth the edges here's a nearly finished TGV body, and then both of them together.





Once they're all cleaned up, you put in some plugs where the throttle shafts were and you're done! All in all it took about 3-4 hours to complete and should make a big difference in flow, especially since I took the time to port match the TGV bodies while I was at it.

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But wait, there's more! This is like the never ending update. It was also a race weekend! During the week I had replaced the throttle cable, and tweaked the tune to help the cold start a bit. The bug was running much better, and more than a couple folks had noticed at the autox. The course was very tight and technical, which is kind of a bastard thing to do for the first run of the season while folks are rusty. The last few corners were particularly bad with 150 degree turn backs between short sprints. I managed a 50.117 and beat my nemesis by .040 seconds, so close!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDkgARva40Y