DISASTER! &@#%£!!

What was CE's final word on the Hoover mods (you know- the ones for better lubrication and cooler running)?

@Cory McCloskey

None of those pictures explain why you were towed for a second time?! Methinks someone is trying to suppress his embarrassment of running out of fuel. What say you?

Yeah I'm wondering the same thing ...fess up son !

Very cool! Let the games begin! 

I picked up Cory's car yesterday at the shop he had it towed to. My thinking was I just needed to re-torque the heads and he'd be off and running. Unfortunately, when turning the crank, the rockers did not move..... at all. We pulled the fuel pump block off to look down into the case at the cam gear and noticed a lot of shavings and some damage to the gear. So we won't know for sure what happened until we open it up. It's a Mexican 1600 I got in a batch of parts several years ago so I don't know much about its history.

It's alright though, we'll have his 2110 up and running soon. We got the bottom end completed today. It went together pretty quickly and easily. Cory torqued the case nuts and bolts and I tried to explain what each part did etc. I'm not a scientist so I struggled when he asked what compression was, but I explained it the best I could with the visual aids I had. He'll soon experience the pride of accomplishment when it fires up the first time. Tomorrow or Sunday, we'll see what the deck height is and work on compression ratio.   The heads are 61 cc.

Good on ya, Paul!  Sounds like you guys are moving right along.

Compression or compression ratio is actually pretty straightforward in my shade tree mind.  It's the ratio of two volumes: the cylinder volume at Bottom Dead Center and at Top Dead Center.  On modern gasoline engines, it's usually between 6.0 and 10.0, but there have been higher compression ratios (c/r) on production cars.  When the c/r gets about 10 or slightly higher, bad things can happen, like detonation or pre-ignition, sometimes called engine knock.  Some guys swear they can hear it, but that's a dangerous way to diagnose a potentially fatal occurrence.  By the time pre-ignition is audible, the damage can already be significant.  

There are lots of books written on c/r, and endless papers by mechanical engineers on how to adjust, best c/r for street, strip, reliability, power band, mileage, etc.  When you can't resist increasing c/r multiple times on the same engine, you'd better be ready for a rebuild at some time in your future.  Remember Icarus, eh?

C/r is only one of the many factors in our engines that are compromises between power and reliability, right up there with cams, head work, etc.

Great description of compression ratio. I tried to tell Cory about having all the parts working together, or choosing parts that compliment each other like carbs, cam and head selection. His engine ran great before the tang on the oil pump gave up the ghost so we're just putting it back together like it was. Of course we'll confirm things like compression ratio to make sure he can use pump gas and doesn't have over heating problems etc.

He was really lucky that he was going so slow when his engine seized. Very little damage done. The cylinders were honed and all new silver line bearings used. The oil pump was replaced and the entire rotating assembly was balanced. We're trying to contain cost while fixing things that were damaged.

After we get it installed and running, we'll take it for dyno  tuning. I'm sure Cory will capture some video of that. We will also get an idea of horse power which is always fun.

Cory is learning a lot about what makes his car go and its fun to have garage time with my son and Cory. The weather here in Phoenix is great this time of the year and we're making the most of it.

Paul- So I take it you/CE didn't bother with opening the oil passages for better oiling to the lifter bores and full time flow to the heads and rockers?

I have always followed CE's advice and direction. I don't consider myself a "builder" per se, but rather an assembler. Sort of like the engine kids available through CB Performance, CE prepares my parts and guides me through the assemble process. I have had great luck with this partnership and have never (knock on wood) had an engine failure in my drag cars or street cars. I'm sure the modifications you suggested are good but it was ultimately Cory's call. CE hasn't been doing these modifications, though I'm sure we could have insisted on them. Cory's machine shop costs were climbing as it was.

Too bad no one's willing to learn anything new.

I appreciate the science of the Hoover mods, Al, and wish I could've incorporated them. I LOVE the idea of all that oil merrily sloshing about!

However, the powerful forces of my impatience to get back on the road, Competition Engineering's inexperience with the procedures, and trying to finance the wedding of the century, combined to prevent the experiment.

 I should be in a better position to  make room for those modifications in the future, should the need arise for another rebuild. 

Cory McCloskey posted:

... and trying to finance the wedding of the century 

Beware the bride and her mother. I say again, "beware Bridezilla (your daughter), and her handmaiden (your wife)". They are to be feared and avoided for the entire runup to the "big day".

No matter how much you see yourself as a good husband, a loving father, and a decent person: if you are a thinking man (and I know you are), invariably there will come a point in the process when you will begin to question the goal of the ceremony. Is it to join two people in a sacred union, instituted by a loving God and sanctioned by the state? Or is it a diabolical plot to leave you old and penniless-- made all the more painful in the knowledge that this conspiracy was hatched by the love of your life and your beautiful and shimmering offspring (an aside: perhaps telling her she was a princess all those years wasn't the best move?), but which, in reality, was conceived in the very fires of hell (the conspiracy, not the princess, although one may begin to wonder).

Doubly beware the bride who says, "I just want a simple outdoor wedding". The simple outdoor wedding is where brokerage accounts go to die. It sounds innocent enough, but is in point of fact a hateful little thing, and is to be avoided at all costs. In the event that minds have been made up, and a simple outdoor wedding cannot be avoided-- Daddy Warbucks (you) must secure not one, but two, venues and make an entire alternate set of plans to accommodate for the possibility that the weather on the day of the simple outdoor wedding might be inclement. The invasion at Normandy took less logistical planning, support, and money. It's true that more men died on those beaches, but that would not be for lack of desire on the part of The Father of the Bride, (may Her Highness live forever) to kill everyone even remotely involved as an active or passive participant. Good men have been driven to desperate ends in the service of the simple outdoor wedding. If you own firearms, lock them up and give someone bigger than you the key until after the wedding. Make sure none of your venues have a clocktower.  

Also, one wonders why all the finance guys always obsess about you saving for college and retirement. The REAL money is incinerated when some young thing (yours) and her mother (also yours) seem bent on bankrupting you personally, and in making everybody they know (or ever knew) wear uncomfortable clothes and ruin a perfectly good Saturday eating your catered food and drinking your catered wine (neither of which will taste anywhere near as good as the $35 each they command). Centerpieces will be obsessed over. Runners purchased and discarded. Deposits paid for various venues. I myself (a guy who owns 4 pairs of shoes and who wears a blue workshirt and jeans every day) purchased over 100 "chair covers" (something I did not know existed previously), because the ones available for rent lacked that certain je ne sais quoi required for people in uncomfortable clothes to rest upon.

At the end of the day (literally), they get married, drive off, and leave you with the task of cleaning up the residue of 1500 candles which have melted in various puddles of wax all over the rented venue (the one you must return in pristine condition, even though you rented a carpet cleaner to shampoo the rugs before the reception because the owner couldn't be bothered to). You will collapse in your bed, knowing that some young punk you barely know (but hope is a decent guy?) is ravaging your daughter, and that you just paid a freak-load of money to celebrate their leap into the unknown. They will jet off to Puerto Vallarta, you will go back to work Monday morning

... and life will return to normal.

Your finances and sanity will recover. Your wife will go back to being your friend and partner, as opposed to a member of a conspiracy. And if you're blessed, you'll find that your daughter really can judge character, and that the guy she married is somebody you like very much. In time, they will produce children who will be impossibly small, but whom will grow to be the smartest, most talented young people you could ever imagine. You will find your love multiplied, and the day of your financial ruin will recede into the past, not inconsequential but somehow worth it (?).

ALB posted:

Too bad no one's willing to learn anything new.

Lighten up, Clarance.

It's not that it's "new". It's that taking a 2 ft long drill bit on a weird angle through the case to hit a galley hidden away is a fearful thing. There's one way to do it right and 1000 ways to screw it up. Machinists don't want to aim for the galley freehand and hope for the best. If I were a machine shop, I'd run away from this modification at all costs-- unless the customer signed a waiver absolving me of any responsibility for making a doorstop out of an $800 case. Even then, it'd be iffy.

I think it's a great modification, because the oiling system in a Type 1 is one of the weak links, and the Hoover Mod fixes it to a large extent.

I completely get it, though.

Stan  you need to post Beware the bride and her mother" on FB or with your ok I will it's accurate & funny as can be!

Paul...I can tell that you're having a good time with this engine project !  I just remembered that you and your Son went to the VW Drags in Fontana Ca. last month.

How'd you guys do ??.....................Bruce

Hey Bruce,

We had a great time. My boy was eliminated in the finals and I got runner up which gave me a plaque and prize money. I would have won my division but my tires spun out of the hole. I dialed in at 13.0 and ran 13.18 and 13.16. In that final pass, I lost traction (someone must have left a little oil on the pavement) and tried to make it up by charging down the quarter mile wide open. However, I just missed the mark and came in second place.

It was a great time. My car is the red one and my son's is the Herbie.

I hadn't raced my car in about  years and my son was nagging me to get it ready so we could race together. I normally run low 12s and didn't realized when I entered "Sportsman Eliminator" that for that class you couldn't run faster than 13 flat, so that is what I dialed in. I ended up coasting across the finish line at about 95 mph rather than my normal 109 mph.

This was happy hour at the Hilton in Fontana.

Good for you, Paul!

Paul - your (and son's) car's performance at the VW gig in Fontana is pretty dang good for an 'assembler'. 

Cory - don't forget that this is the SOC forum, so there will never be a shortage of advice or recommendations on your stuff (whether you need it or not). My previous VS was standard VS issue and I logged 100,000 relatively trouble-free miles without all the fancy/pricey add-ons or mods. Your mileage may vary. 

Looking forward to seeing clips of you & car back on the road! 

Excellent Paul !  As you know, I wanted to enter Rhonda in that race but the song of the wind in the palms, the blue, Chrystal clear, warm water of the Sea of Cortez had me mesmerized, with a little help of Tequila in the sunrise !...........Bruce

Bruce, living the life!

I would want Rhonda with me down there..... or you could have let me baby sit her.

Thanks Bill........

Paul.......I've often thought of driving down here in Rhonda. It's an 840 mile trip and all mountains and curves. The problem is the road construction and repairs that go on all the time thought the year.  It would be a trip of a lifetime though ! It's all two lane road with a lot of trucks, buses, and knot-heads that think they're driving for NASCAR.....I would love to punish a few of them ....in-between passing the heavy equipment stuff.

If I really did that, Rhonda would look like a dusty old Hag by the time I got down here.

Going diving tomorrow. Water temp dropped 2 degrees this month so now it's only 82 F but the visibility is still 60 to 100 ft. In Dec. it will cool off dramatically and the North winds will start to kick up. Sooo, we will head back to Arcadia Ca. about mid Dec.

It's always fun to get on here and read about what all of you are doing......Jeeze...we sure live different and interesting lives ! BUT we have a common interest HUH !.....Bruce

Stan Galat, '05 IM, 2276, Nowhere, USA posted:

Cory McCloskey posted:

... and trying to finance the wedding of the century 

Beware the bride and her mother. I say again, "beware Bridezilla (your daughter), and her handmaiden (your wife)". They are to be feared and avoided for the entire runup to the "big day".

No matter how much you see yourself as a good husband, a loving father, and a decent person: if you are a thinking man (and I know you are), invariably there will come a point in the process when you will begin to question the goal of the ceremony. Is it to join two people in a sacred union, instituted by a loving God and sanctioned by the state? Or is it a diabolical plot to leave you old and penniless-- made all the more painful in the knowledge that this conspiracy was hatched by the love of your life and your beautiful and shimmering offspring (an aside: perhaps telling her she was a princess all those years wasn't the best move?), but which, in reality, was conceived in the very fires of hell (the conspiracy, not the princess, although one may begin to wonder).

Doubly beware the bride who says, "I just want a simple outdoor wedding". The simple outdoor wedding is where brokerage accounts go to die. It sounds innocent enough, but is in point of fact a hateful little thing, and is to be avoided at all costs. In the event that minds have been made up, and a simple outdoor wedding cannot be avoided-- Daddy Warbucks (you) must secure not one, but two, venues and make an entire alternate set of plans to accommodate for the possibility that the weather on the day of the simple outdoor wedding might be inclement. The invasion at Normandy took less logistical planning, support, and money. It's true that more men died on those beaches, but that would not be for lack of desire on the part of The Father of the Bride, (may Her Highness live forever) to kill everyone even remotely involved as an active or passive participant. Good men have been driven to desperate ends in the service of the simple outdoor wedding. If you own firearms, lock them up and give someone bigger than you the key until after the wedding. Make sure none of your venues have a clocktower.  

Also, one wonders why all the finance guys always obsess about you saving for college and retirement. The REAL money is incinerated when some young thing (yours) and her mother (also yours) seem bent on bankrupting you personally, and in making everybody they know (or ever knew) wear uncomfortable clothes and ruin a perfectly good Saturday eating your catered food and drinking your catered wine (neither of which will taste anywhere near as good as the $35 each they command). Centerpieces will be obsessed over. Runners purchased and discarded. Deposits paid for various venues. I myself (a guy who owns 4 pairs of shoes and who wears a blue workshirt and jeans every day) purchased over 100 "chair covers" (something I did not know existed previously), because the ones available for rent lacked that certain je ne sais quoi required for people in uncomfortable clothes to rest upon.

At the end of the day (literally), they get married, drive off, and leave you with the task of cleaning up the residue of 1500 candles which have melted in various puddles of wax all over the rented venue (the one you must return in pristine condition, even though you rented a carpet cleaner to shampoo the rugs before the reception because the owner couldn't be bothered to). You will collapse in your bed, knowing that some young punk you barely know (but hope is a decent guy?) is ravaging your daughter, and that you just paid a freak-load of money to celebrate their leap into the unknown. They will jet off to Puerto Vallarta, you will go back to work Monday morning

... and life will return to normal.

Your finances and sanity will recover. Your wife will go back to being your friend and partner, as opposed to a member of a conspiracy. And if you're blessed, you'll find that your daughter really can judge character, and that the guy she married is somebody you like very much. In time, they will produce children who will be impossibly small, but whom will grow to be the smartest, most talented young people you could ever imagine. You will find your love multiplied, and the day of your financial ruin will recede into the past, not inconsequential but somehow worth it (?).

Wow.  Stan.  I'm exhausted.  You've painted a vivid image, pal!

Beautifully-constructed!  It was a pleasure from start to finish!  LOL

I'm looking forward to sharing this wisdom, in total, with other friends who are soon to be fathers-of-the-brides!

Bravo!

Thank god we had boys.

15 years ago, my son & I were having dinner at a nice restaurant. We were talking about the upcoming wedding for one of my two stepdaughters (Chrissie, in photo on the right). My son asked if it was going to be expensive. To put the wedding expense in some perspective for him, I said I could describe it in two ways. #1 - I could stand up in this restaurant and announce to the 185 diners in here "Attention folks, I have all your dinner tabs & drinks covered". #2 - I could buy you a new BMW.

He laughed out loud! 

This was shortly after I bought my first VS, so I guess they deserved similar consideration! Soooo, Cory, I feel your pain. LOL! 

How true and yet truth be known you enjoyed treating her all the way...daddy.

Herbie didn't win.

That never happened in the movies.

My step daughter got married last Sept., 9 months later their done...

BIG WASTE OF MONEY and TIME!!

We should be able to by an insurance policy for those that don't make it , could be tax free great return :~)

Progress!

The last of Competition Engineering's machine work done, and all other bits gathered... 

Paul and I (actually, 94% Paul) have had a couple of good days!

Got the heads bolted on this afternoon, and should begin sprinting toward the homestretch on Saturday. 

I know that many of you have had to hunker down for these winter months, but I'm about stir-crazy with all of this gorgeous Arizona driving weather! 

Soon! Thanks a million, @PaulEllis!

We know the pulley's too small - it's temporary...

Muy bueno!

Paul's still at it this evening!

Way to go guys; it's almost there!

Once you get in a good assembly groove, you tend to keep going until your fingers stop working. 

Hey, Cory........   About that "Gorgeous Arizona Driving Weather":

Friggin rain storm of the century hitting the East Coast - But you "Wheddah Guys" already know that, right?  Are you the "Harvey Leonard" of Phoenix?  We pronounce him "Hahvee Lenahd" up heah. - We wouldn't even attempt pronouncing Cory McCloskey.  What part of Ireland is that from?          

Bill the cat always says it so eloquently...

PS- And Gordon, I hear you; 35 or 40'F and raining on and off for the last who the h*ll knows how long, and Friday or so we're supposed to get snow...

PPS- Cory- if you take a file and round off the edges of brass oil fitting going back into the case you won't have to make such a big hole in the sheetmetal to fit (unless it's already done, and then never mind...). I rounded mine off and along with a little tin bashing (and heat) don't have a hole there at all (and it clears the pulley).

"PS- And Gordon, I hear you; 35 or 40'F and raining on and off for the last who the h*ll knows how long, and Friday or so we're supposed to get snow..."

Al:  Why do you think there are so many pubs in the British Isles?   Just hunker down and have a pint or two. 

Eternal grey like Vancouver