Oldspeed-Mouse-Motor: July 2008

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.