Time attack beetle

[AIRSICK]

Hey, that's great. Always nice to make progress.

[Humble]

It's about time....

I had an epiphany last week regarding timing on the race car and finally had a chance to check it out last night. Sure enough the timing was way, way out. A quick and easy correction, a little tune up, and I hit the road.

http://vimeo.com/14062651

btw, if you can see it, 12 o'clock on the speedo is 80mph and it is calibrated

All I can say is holy sh*t! She's fast and only making about 10psi until I hit detonation from having way too much timing. She's also running pig rich but that's a little less of a problem. Seat of the pants dyno says 275-ish and there's still a lot on tap.

[chug_A_bug]

SWEET Driving Man.. that does look Scary fast lol
can't wait to see it on the track

Chris.

[Jim]

The car looks to handle very well and reving to fast!!!

[aartjan]

Nice video; looks like a lot of fun to drive such a car on that road!

[NO_H2O]

Nice stretch of road. Thanks for the video.

[Humble]

Small update...

Getting ready for the dyno day on wed. by swapping out the plugs for colder ones. While I was doing that I pulled an oil hose loose :P I decided to swap the fitting out to help relieve some stress on the line, went from a -8 straight fitting to a -8 45* which is a bit longer but at least angled in the right direction. While I was at it I did a valve adjustment but most of them didn't need any adjustment.

Getting anxious, will definitely get video

[chug_A_bug]

[Humble]

After a long day the results are in!

Even though the graph says crank hp, there's no correction factor so this is actual wheel horsepower. 240hp/225trq and 21psi @ 7000rpm The turbo comes on a lot like a supercharger very smooth and linear, not at all what I was expecting.


Jei at blacktrax tuned the car in about 2 hours, nearly 2 dozen pulls, head temps never hit 325 and it was over 90 degrees outside. I'd say those are pretty respectable numbers and 240whp is still pretty damn fast in an 1800 lb car.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y-e5y-fAoo

I was really hoping for 300-350hp and I know it's there for sure but I don't think it'll last 5 minutes on the track without over heating, it sure as hell wouldn't last in the desert. I'll feel out the car and dial in the suspension next, but I'll still dream about adding more power

[STIDUB]

nice, curious about that intake pipe though, it doesnt seem to be mounted to anything much, shakes alot in the video roughly 1/2 way thru the pulls

ooh, get some exhaust wrap or something for the piping around it too! - assuming its all steel? (looks like it is)

[jakriz]

Hi ,
DO u have an intercooler on your engine? I can't quite see one unless it's in the rear parcel tray? 21psi of boost without an intercooler is pretty huge! I only run 8psi with a WAIC setup, the other day on the way to pick up the kids from school, I noticed that my air intake temp guage on my dash started rising. Turned out to be nothing more than a bit of faulty wiring on the water pump for the intercooler, BUT, the intake temps rose 15degrees higher than where they normally sit & it's winter over here at the moment! I also kept my foot out of it all the way home, I'm just a bit pedantic. Just something to think about, thinking about 21psi with no intercooler scares me.
If u do have an intercooler, ignore all of the above. LOL
regards
jak

[Humble]

STIDUB: The intake pipe wasn't really secured on the dyno but normally it's tied to the oil filler neck. All the piping (exhaust and intake) has been ceramic coated. It was all wrapped up before but constant oil leaks soaked the wrap in oil causing it to smoke badly so I removed it. I'll probably wrap it again before the rainy season hits.

jakriz: This is no intercooler but I am using 50/50 water/alcohol injection which keeps the intake temps reasonable. The last logs I had said 150F-170F under boost and the motor was poorly tuned. I want to grab new logs to see what kind of temps I'm hitting post dyno. I do know that I have 16* advance/21lbs boost @ 6000 rpm without detonation on a 90F day so it can't be too wild.

[jakriz]

WOW, thats pretty high mate. Are those temps with the water/alcohol injection on? Do u have ceramic coated pistons? how long does the water/alcohol injection last for before u have to fill it up?

Mine only gets up to 113F max on a 95F day on the track 6 laps , roughly 12 minutes flat out. i wouldn't feel comfortable with mine going anymore than 86F above ambient for any length of time.

is there any particular reason u don't have an intercooler? Since your car is so wild looking an air to air unit wouldn't look out of place under the wing maybe?

really interesting thread
regards
jak

[Eatoniashoprat]

Nice numbers! I'm starting to wonder why I went to a subaru! haha.

Just for interests sake in my subaru at 90-95F ambient, anything over 14 psi will give intake temps 150F + (post intercooler) fairly quickly, and anything near 150F it will start to detonate. Although I don't have any injection and my intercooler sucks because of packaging restraints (going to air to water this winter).

I'm with Jak, on your setup it just seems like it would be very easy to mount a huge air/air intercooler that could make big horsepower with a lot less worry?

Sweet ride though, that thing is going to be FUN.

Mike

[Humble]

I was hoping the water/alcohol injection would be enough to keep the air temps down but that may not be the case. I have most of the parts for a very robust air/water setup which may find it's way into the car after the paint is done. I've considered a large air/air like wally has done but the wing scrapes off a lot of the air flow that would make it work effectively. The other option was to use E85 fuel which would cool everything significantly but the mileage is so bad I would drain a 12 gal tank in 20-30min of track time.

I'll do some more logging and fine tuning this weekend to get a better idea of actual temps. The shop that tuned the bug also offered to fab up a water/air core for me so I may take them up on that offer. Once I have some real numbers to work with it might change how soon I get something built.