Heads update & more cleaning up...

The heads are due back from GAC anytime now, they've been fitting them in around their race-car jobs. So in the meantime we've been cleaning up some of the engine ancillaries that Farnborough VW will need when we have the heads back. This was the original 6v generator and regulator that came off the car a couple of years ago when we converted to 12v...
A bit of elbow-grease later...



We thought we'd better do the fuel pump too...
and the 6v generator stand...
That's it for now, hopefully the next post will be either the heads or our Mr.Wob Abarth exhaust arriving.

Back on track...

Hello folks, sorry about the big gap in updates. Rest assured things have been happening on the motor, normal service service will be resumed shortly...

Another mini milestone...

We reached a mini-milestone in the engine build - and reduced the pile of engine components that currently live in our lounge :-)

We took the heads and inlet manifolds up to GAC Motorsport in Aylesbury to be matched and ported. We met Alan (hello Alan) who is in the middle of build two european spec formula Vee cars for the new season - impressive-looking stuff.

We discussed some stuff with Alan, like compression ratio - which he's going to make 9:1 - it means our oversize barrels will need machining down to achieve a deck-height of 1.2mm (they are currently 3.75). That'll be sorted out by Farnborough VW as they build-up the bottom end.

Old-school bling...

The one part of the Riechert Kit that we were not 100% about were the air filters - the old-school pics of the Riechert carbs always look really good with a nice pair of 'cheese-grater' style Knecht filters. We bought this pair on ebay, that fit our carbs. Nice.

Little job...

Did a very little job yesterday while it was raining - cleaned-up an original 6 volt coil and strap that we bought off the samba. Every little helps, as they say.

Machining Goodness...

We went over to Farnborough VW on Friday to pick up the newly machined pistons and barrels - they have been clearanced to work with the standard 1200 crankWe also had a look at the case which has been align-bored. Apparently it needed very little work as it was in much better condition than expected.
Also, the original rods and crank, which have all been machined and balanced...
Everything's looking really good - and it's always nice to see the Farnborough lot - top fellas.

Heat exchangers...

Well we though long and hard about whether to go with the stock heat exchangers, or to go with j-tubes (or indeed with the earlier heat exchangers) - but in the end decided to go with our stock originals - so we have fully working heating - and also because the overall concept is to keep the engine stock and stock-looking apart from the specific tuning goodies.
Anyhow - we got the heat exchangers back from the powder coaters - satin silver-grey - which was the original colour of ours...

More powder coating...

We had part of the carb linkage - bit that fits to the fanshroud - powdercoated satin black to match the fanshroud - to keep things nice and neat.

WOO HOO!

Exciting package from Germany - our carb kit from Bernd Riechert - thanks Bernd! They are twin Solex 34's built with NOS parts to order, and single port manifolds to fit our 373's.

Shiny Tinware!

Well it turned out that a couple of pieces of tinware were rotted through, but we found a couple of replacements (cheers Rob!) and now we have everything back from the powder coaters. Everything has been done in stock satin black. We spent yesterday checking the bits out and refitting the fans to the shroud. A few bits here - pretty nice job I think...