Auto Meister Manhatten Beach

Pat Downs, CB Performance...why take chances?

Or give Greg at Vintage Motorcars a call...

Those would be the only two people I would use for engine work/builds.

Chico's Performance in Arcadia Ca.......Just got my engine dyno'ed there today with spectacular results. You can eat off the floor in his shop. Pat Downs comes down there to do special work when necessary in this area. I now have a surprising amount of power from my little 2110 to play with on the road !........Bruce

aircooled posted:

Chico's Performance in Arcadia Ca.......Just got my engine dyno'ed there today with spectacular results. You can eat off the floor in his shop. Pat Downs comes down there to do special work when necessary in this area. I now have a surprising amount of power from my little 2110 to play with on the road !........Bruce

So what what were the before/after readings, and what did they adjust/change?

Did your engine poop out? Or are you just looking for more power?

Just curious, my engine runs great.. just your standard 9115 that came new with my VS 4 yrs ago  ...but I have always wanted to have Pat D . Build me a bestspoke engine,  And while at It change the gearing on my transmission to better match the new engine..., but I have been holding out till it craps out..,.. but it just doesn't.  It keeps running strong. Knock on wood.

this is my way of living vicariously through others.

cheers

I was just looking to see if anyone had experience with them as they put a new 1776 long block in the VS I just purchased.  The lady who originally bought the car had the 1600 go bad with about 500 miles on the car.  She took it to them and had the 1776 put in it.

Wow, another VS motor crapping out before its time...

who is building Kirks motors?    Roland still around, he builds a nice motor

AL & lfepardo......There wasn't anything wrong with my engine except for a "clank" at idle (which I isolated to the alt/fan by removing the fan belt) and really shitty idle and low speed popping thru the weber carbs, backfiring as well. All are just IRRITATING when your just cruising and trying to look cool ! SO......I pulled my engine out, put it on the stand and attempted to correct a few things and change some as well. I might add that I bought a MAXJAX car lift and have been installing that in between working on my engine so when I go to re-install the engine I will have a really cush job of doing that.

The first thing I did was remove and throw in the trash, the hex-bar throttle linkage. This is after screwing around with it for two years and even fabricating a way to adjust the right and left sections of the hex bar to be individually adjustable for exact carb synchronization. That failed and made things worse. because of my "slamming the accelerator pedal" too enthusiastically, it wouldn't stay in sync. So, out that went!  I switched to a Vintage Speed ball-bearing bell crank system. Doing this created a problem with mounting it because of the serpentine belt drive for the alternator. The idler  bracket interfered so that meant installing longer studs, a couple bushings and putting the hold-down nuts supplied withe the serpentine system on my lathe and cutting a longer alignment shoulder on the back one. That done...now the bell-crank has a level mounting surface. Next was replacing the 36hp heater type fan shroud with one that's not for heaters. Plus the two holes I drilled in the old one to get the wires out  from the two temp. senders I had fabricated into the oil cooler adapter   last year to check the in/out temps of the stock oil cooler. I also changed out that modified oil cooler adapter for a stock one with no mod's. I also adjusted all the valves to zero clearance, changed the oil and plugs and moved the ignition wire loom up above the fan shroud. ( To allow room down there for the new throttle linkage.)By the way...The stock wires will reach quite nicely in this position !  Changed out the rear tin apron for one with no holes for heater hoses and drilled a hole for the oil temp wire to go through to my favorite pick-up location (with a grommet of course) .

Now off to Chico's Performance for a little dyno time. I highly recommend this to anyone to do this. Yes...It costs a couple hundred bucks but it's well worth it and you can find pretty much anything good....or....bad that's going on with your engine......not unlike going to the hospital and getting your own diagnostics done.

So there you have it so far. I gotta go to a late dinner with some close friends so I will post the dyno results n stuff tomorrow. I hope this info is useful to some of you out there...........information is power..............Bruce

I'd be interested in the dyno data as well.

OK...So on the dyno I got 130 HP @ 5500 RPM. Two years ago when I built the engine I got 132 HP @ 6000 RPM.  As I said before, this is a CB Engine kit. Not built by CB or Pat Downs. Built by me. I can't remember the engine kit number from CB but it was a 2110 CC  to be coupled up to a 1.625" exhaust system. I have space save manifolds matched to CB's heads with 44mm Webers on top. Electronic ignition in a 019 blender. (distributor) BUT...I changed things.

When I took the engine to Chico it had 32mm venturi's, 47.5 idle jets, 115 Mains, 200 A/C jets, F-11 Emulsion Tubes. We cranked it to a max of 5500 RPM and got 130 HP. The mid range was strong as hell but it was leaning out at the top end under full load (17.2). We changed the mains to 125 and got the same results but not lean anymore. (14.8/15)   Good to go in my opinion.

I gotta comment here and say that Chico and I have developed a mutual respect and he allows me to do all the wrenching/changing on my engine in the dyno room while he does other work in his shop. I really appreciate this. I am actively involved in my own tests and research.

SO...I went back in and changed out the venture's from 32mm to 36 mm. Some of you know that this is a "dig deep" into your carbs to change them. I also went to 130 mains and didn't change the Emulsion Tubes or A/C Jets.

The results were 136 HP @ 5500 but had a big flat spot at about 2000 RPM so we change the Idle jets to 55's and that eliminated the flat spot but made it a little to rich at idle. Mid-range was even stronger than with the 32mm venturi's. We re-adjusted the air screws to lean out the idle richness to a "tolerable" level and that was it.

After discussion with Chico, we decided to not go to 6000 RPM and test there because it's just pushing it to get impressive numbers but in his opinion, they would have been higher.

Now....for some of you hard-core Pat Downs guys, I have determined that his dyno numbers are always higher than Chico's when testing identical engines. This is not to say that Pats numbers are BS ! THEY ARE NOT ! It's just a different dyno and different readings will be produced.  If I use a factor number that puts Chico's dyno numbers on the same level as Pat's, my engine  would have put out  153.68 @5500 RPM on Pat's dyno.  Pat's (or CB's) advertised HP output for the engine kit I bought is 151 HP ! So...WELL DONE CB Performance !

What's amazing is what small changes can be made to "tweak out" a few more HP and still have decent driveability !   AL and Michael....Hope this is informative and helpful.....Bruce

Bruce, did any of this tweaking significantly change torque numbers between 3000 - 4000 ?

Bruce:  What happened to the A/F reading when you encountered the "flat spot" around 2 grand?

Very cool story and info, Bruce.

Awesome story and results... thank you for sharing the details Bruce.

Gordon....I didn't catch it on the meter. The transition was just to fast plus I was watching the RPM. But you could feel and hear it distinctly. Going up from 50 idles to 55 took it away though.

Just got my new hoist primed and tested with the first lift of my car today. Everything went well and it didn't fall over. It will probably take me a while to trust it. I'll put the engine in this week using it and my trusty old Hein Werner floor jack. Chico said he'd like to test drive it when it's all together. Then it's off to a local car show next Sat.

I have my own Air/fuel ratio tester so I think I'll stick the sniffer in the bung and see what I'm getting on the road too.......Bruce

Bruce, for what it's worth...

Whitecloud has absolutely no flat-spot anymore. She really lights up from 3200-4000 but no flat spot off idle or in the weird 2300-2700 transition area.

We finally settled on: 60 idle, 140 mains, 200 air-correction with F-11 emulsions and 34 venturis. I'm running right at 14 throughout but at 3500 up hitting high 14's, close to 15, good enough for a town this size!

Jim wanted me to change the air-corrections back to 180 but I'm thinking if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Ain't it great to have a shop and mechanic you can trust?

I feel blessed, I've got 2, Jim Ansite and Pat Downs!

Will...We're pretty close to the same set up and right on in the air/fuel ratio.  The small differences in jetting could be due to slight difference in our compression ratios, camshafts, ignition curve, head porting, manifold lengths...uh...and how you hold your tongue ?  I still have a slightly rich idle that I'd like to clean up. Maybe  I'll try increasing the idle speed  a little. Currently it's at 900 ...only because I like the "healthy ", robust sound at that speed. I may bump it up another 100 rpm.

Anibal Chico is only known to two of us SOC'ers that I know of so far but well known in So Cal by VW enthusiasts  He just shipped an engine to Vermont today that put out more HP than mine by far. If he wasn't here i would be using Pat. Even with the long drive for me. Some guys just have that "knack" huh.........Bruce

     Great looking engine Bruce!  I have that flat spot but I'm just too power hungry to go to the smaller ventures. My idle jets are 60s which are what Pat put in when he dynoed it before shipping it to me. This is weird because we are at 1200 ft of elevation and I should be running smaller jets than you sea level guys. A very knowledgeable VW guy here told me if your idle is set right when your mixture screws are 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 turns out, your idle jets are right. Right now the screws are out about 1 1/2 so I don't know what else to do other than drive it and enjoy it and forget about the flat spot. Would richening up the accelerator pump help?

Hi Frank ....Haven't heard from you for a while!  If I recall you have a 2110 with "panchito" heads and a few other "tweaks" that Pat uses. This could be the difference.

Question...Is your flat spot a flat spot thru certain rpm range ? Or is it a hesitation when you start to push on the pedal ?  I know you know some things about carbs so whats your guess ?  Yes these Webers have adjustable accelerator pumps for duration of fuel injected and the nozzles can be changed too........Bruce

Bruce, it seems to happen in 2nd or 3rd gear about 23 to 2600 rpm when you step into the foot feed a little too fast.  If I knew how to do it I would make the accelerator pump come in a little harder just off idle or put bigger pump nozzles in. If it was a Holley or a Quadrajet I would know how to do it.  It's not real bad just kind of a hiccup. Yeah I do have the old Panchitos, Pat liked them because he said they cooled really well. It dynoed right at 150.  It was really snappy until I changed the gears. That was when I found out my trans was a stock 4.12/.89 not the 3.88 I paid for. No wonder it was so quick. I did get the $450 refunded, even after two years which I thought was pretty stand up.

aircooled posted:

Hi Frank ....Haven't heard from you for a while!  If I recall you have a 2110 with "panchito" heads and a few other "tweaks" that Pat uses. This could be the difference.

Question...Is your flat spot a flat spot thru certain rpm range ? Or is it a hesitation when you start to push on the pedal ?  I know you know some things about carbs so whats your guess ?  Yes these Webers have adjustable accelerator pumps for duration of fuel injected and the nozzles can be changed too........Bruce

EVERY CARB/AIR COLED Porsche, on this EARTH, has at least ONE FLAT SPOT....I know that we HATE to admit but it is part of the disease and its HERE TO STAY...

EVERY CARB/AIR COLED Porsche, on this EARTH, has at least ONE FLAT SPOT....I know that we HATE to admit but it is part of the disease and its HERE TO STAY...

...not mine!...

Not mine either. Had other VW's with Weber's and no flat spots as well. Don't know about Air cooled Porsche's but it seems like  they wouldn't tolerate it for a microsecond !

And that makes three. What's a flat spot?