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Aircooled VW-Weber Guru needed

Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:06 am
by eflachbart
Hi Folks,

Its been a long time since I have had a car that I can run hill climbs with that is the reason that I haven't been around. But.. have been having fun. This past weekend I was at Mosport with Varac for the Canadian Historic GP. I have a new car that I bought last fall. A 1964 VW Crusader Vee Sports Racer. I ran it at Lime Rock last fall for the Historics for the first time and found it had lots of flat spots in acceleration. I was just getting used to the car so thought it was me. At Mosport this past weekend I found it only makes power between about 4500 and 5200 rpm where it pulls like a train but is flat beyond that to the rev limit of 6500 rpm. The engine runs dual Weber IDF 44s and was built by someone who supposedly knows what he is doing in california. The PO was a money is no object type and put a 120k into a 40k car so I believe it was professionally built.

I am hoping to find someone local that knows both Type 1 VW engines and webers to sort this out. I thought I had found the problem on Sunday when I found a small piece of gravel in one of the jet stacks. that helped but didnt fully correct it. The PO swears it pulls hard right up to the redline, and his previous lap times support that.

Any one know of a good tuner in VT area that would be willing to spend some time on a dyno and sort this out?

Re: Aircooled VW-Weber Guru needed

Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:32 am
by sachilles
You can try Jason Russell at Vems in colchester. He has a dyno. He's also been a air cooled VW guy for a long while. He now does mostly electronic based tuning. However, if he doesn't know webber/VW he'll probably know somebody who does.
http://www.vems.us

you can email him at the address below.

info@vems.us

Larson Schultz may also be a good resource and he may post up here.

Re: Aircooled VW-Weber Guru needed

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:15 pm
by eflachbart
Thanks Seth. I spoke with Jason yesterday and he pointed me to a guy in the same town I am in Newport VT!

Re: Aircooled VW-Weber Guru needed

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:21 pm
by sdwarf36
Good to hear from you Eric. You gonna be running it at Watkins Glen in Sept.?

Re: Aircooled VW-Weber Guru needed

Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:02 am
by eflachbart
Hi Sherm,

Geez I guess I don't get on to this site much. No I am running the Lime Rock Hysterics this year again. Next year I will do the Glen. Its too difficult to do them both as they are back to back. If you come to LRP say high I'll be in paddock b.

In regards to the tuning issue I had. I went to a local "expert" and the car ran worse afterwards. Ultimately I bought an innovate motorsports LM2 wide band analyzer and had a bung welded into the collector. With the aid of the wideband (which was probably the best racing purchase have ever made) I was able to rejet the webers. The pro race shop that the previous owner used had them buggered. The floats were way off, and the idle jet had been drilled to some garden hose proportion. Basically I wound up changing the idles, airs, mains and emulsion tubes to lean it down to a fairly flat 13.5 AF ratio. I must have picked up 20+ horsepower. The car runs like a raped ape now.

At NMHS a few weeks ago I had brake problems. Pad knock-back I believe. It made things exciting at 100 plus into turn 1. Hopefully that phenomena was limited to NHMS with its tight left handers.

I'm selling my Fomula 3 car now, and looking at a twinplug 69 911. If I get that car (with a cage that meets hill climb rules) you'll start seeing me again at the hill climbs. I miss it. Logistics and cost are soooo much easier!

I did talk with Brian Dennis last year at the historics about running my Gallardo.. But its a sypder and has the pop up roll bar which you cant demonstrate. He didnt think it would pass tech. If it did you'd see me at one of the remaining events this year.