Oldspeed-Mouse-Motor: 2008

MAHAG German vintage speed exhaust for sale...

We got sent a link to this MAHAG vintage speed exhaust for sale via Pre67vw.com. Turns out its our good friend Thomas from Oldspeed-Register who's selling it. Very nice it is too, if we didn't have the Abarth, we'd be very tempted.

Vintage Glitter

I found these pics on an ad for an original, untouched Porsche 356. I had to share them with you vintage speed heads out there. Nice.

Back in Action

That is a bad joke, as, back with a nice, new MOT, we took to the bug up to VW Action at Santa Pod this weekend. Fresh from it's 500 mile service, the motor performed admirably, and for the first time we could open it up a little (not toooooo much still). It felt like there was lots of power there to be had.

On the way back we hit the mother of all thunderstorms on the M25, with deep water on the roads and monsoon style rain. The 6 volt system did it's bit very well, but we spent Monday drying the car out - some flooded parts of the motorway were deeper in water than the floorpan :-(

The plan now is to put another few hundred miles on the motor, then have it looked over again then dyno'd to make sure the carbs and everything are set-up as good as possible - and to get that all-important BHP figure :-)

One of the Restowagen guys took a couple of sweet pics of the motor, here's one... cheers Tony!

Judson Supercharger for Sale

There is a complete Judson Supercharger for a 25/30 hp engine, rebuilt by George Folchi in the USA for sale on Volkszone in the UK. £1250.

Amayesing

Check out the website of David Mark Mayes, amayesing.com - it's got loads of vintage speed related goodness on it, including his amayesing (geddit?!?!) collection of vintage speed parts - the 1300/1500 okrasa kit above being just one example. Also there's a great story of a 60's drag engine that he found and the previous owners story here.

500 mile service

Yesterday the bug went in for its 500 mile service on the motor. Heads re-torqued, oil change etc. It was given a clean bit of health :-D It's also having some bits'n'pieces done for the MOT. Will report in when we get it back and get that engine fired up again :-) Can't wait to open it up properly.

Intaking the V-dub

We found this cool copy of Hot Rod magazine at the Hot Rod Super Nationals at the weekend. It's from 1968, and it's interesting to see their advice on hopping up the intake side of VW motors. For example, for the 1200 motors, they say that there's only one type of intake manifold available - maybe they hadn't come across the Okrasa or TDE kits?
There's pictures of scat manifolds for single carb set-ups for single and dual port heads, and a nice pair of Weber 48 IDAs.

260 mile round trip!

Last weekend we took the new motor on it's longest trip so far, to Bug Jam at Santa Pod Raceway - a 260 mile round trip in one day. Still running it in, so we varied the speed between 50 and 60 mph and on the way up there stopped a couple of times, just for peace of mind and to check all was well.

It ran really well and sounded fantastic when you tickled the throttle a bit. Here it is in the Restowagen UK line-up in the Show & Shine.

Bug Jam was great and there were plenty of really nice cars on display. Here are a couple of pics for those who missed it:

The rumble

This is the motor in the bug. It was amazing driving it back from Farnborough.
Our first task was to put 500 gentle miles on it to run it in.
We did that already :-)
It's great fun to drive, even though we are holding back on opening it up just yet.
In a couple of weeks, it will be going back in to have the oil changed, and the heads re-torqued. The plan then is to run it a bit more, then have it dyno'd to get the carbs running as sweet as possible (although it feels really sweet already) - and find out how many baby horses this little sucker is making.

Complete!

Ok, so here's a catch-up! The exhaust finally arrived (thanks Mr Wob & Julian at Karman Konnection) and here it is hooked up for the first time for a test fit. Big Smiles all round!!

Meanwhile the donor engine was removed from the bug, the old tatty firewall card was removed and a lovely new one fitted (again thanks to KK).

Then came the fitting of the new engine!! The Carbs and exhaust had to be removed in the process,

then the carbs where put back on and to fit the exhaust, the heat exchangers had to come off. Here it is minus the accelerator linkage:

and finally a brand new 6v battery and the conversion back to 6 volts 8-)

A nice parcel

A nice parcel of goodies arrived from our good oldspeed buddy Thomas of Oldspeed-Register. Thanks a lot Thomas - much appreciated!!!! It will indeed help keep out motor alive :-)

Thomas is selling these awesome ORF filters - they look great, nice job Thomas! Have a look at the ad here (there's not many so you better be quick). He's also doing custom oil lines to suit.

BRAAAAAAAAARP!

Sorry for the lack of updates - we've been out driving! :-) :-)

Exhaust

So this is it. Worth the wait.

Exhaust arrives!

Great news today - our Mr.Wob Abarth exhaust is in the country! Hooray!
A big thanks to Julian from Karmann Konnection for his persistence in getting this over - cheers! It should be over at Farnborough VW tomorrow. Then it will need modifying to fit the narrower engine.

Complete turn-key 34/40hp Okrasa for sale...

Hello oldspeed fans, here's another thing to tempt your life-saving from unfer your mattress, a turn-key 34/40hp okrasa complete motor build by Mr.Okrasa (Joe Ruiz). On ebay - here. Mmmmm.

The bug goes in...

Took the bug over to Farborough VW yesterday ready for the temp motor to come out (thanks fellas) and the new one to be fitted. Just waiting on the throttle linkage, which is being adjusted to make it 'just right'. Also - this is the first time we've seen the built-up motor in the flesh -it looks great - even better than the pics. Everything on it is just spot-on. Great work Ian.
Now crossing our fingers toes and anything else crossable hoping for the arrival of the Mr.Wob Abarth exhaust.