Giday, George. Could you please take a moment and advise what type of clutch you put in those drag racing cars ? If it is some kind of stage 1, 2 or 3 etc. ? What are the characteristics of the clutch disc itself...sprung center, marcel spring or not, same friction material on both sides etc.
Could you also describe the transmission mounts and any auxilliary transverse mounts and or Kafer bars etc.
How much power can you put through a typical clutch and call it successful ?
Thanks.
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Dave, Been following your travails here wrt the clutch. Wish I knew more and could help you, but I think you're way past my knowledge level. I hope George gets back to you because I think that you have selected the right source here, and will get the straight skinny. That said, I'm not sure the very best drag racing clutch is going to be the very best street running clutch. I bet it's more complicated than that. But I hope you find out, then we'll all know.
And then there is the Frankenmotor --hoo-boy, that saga is going to be fun . . .
Yup...thanks for that, Kelly. I called on George because of his drag racing history, he'd likely have some real knowledge on the subject overall....street or strip.
Not being one to stand still too long, I had my clutch disc refreshed and the flywheel resurfaced and picked it up yesterday. Same format, organic on the flywheel side and segmented Kevlar on the pressure plate side. It's done.
Now here's a neat one though. I talked to a guy in Niagara Falls two days ago about getting a rebuilt, beefed up transmission. I explained the type of car I'm running and that I might have up to 170 ft.lbs. of torque to live with. I described my driving style...which is quite mild and his first question was what kind of tires do I have. I told him "old school" 155's. His next question was.." why waste money beefing up the transmission" ? He then explained that with my setup, the first thing to go will be those skinny tires...not the transmission. Hmmm. Anyway, the transmission is coming out and getting sent to him for a full checkup and rebuild. I may change the ring and pinion.
I took delivery of my new engine Wednesday. JDM 2.5 litre soob for $850. 49,000 miles on it and it looks like new.
Well, that is going to be a fun ride -- I look fwd to the build notes, etc. that I know you will post up as things move along.
David, you are truly mad.
While it's true, David, that the 155's aren't going to provide a ton of traction and will be very "forgiving on the rest of the drive train, they are only one weak link. As I've said before, it's not hard to break a stock transaxle with a 1600 (in a stock car with no mid-mount, engine support or kafer bar), and with that much torque at your disposal it would be very hard NOT to spin the tires (by accident, and just a little) occasionally. You need to be set up for the worst case scenario. A stage 1 pressure plate with a more than stock disc will hold up to everything but continual drag racing starts, and along with the usual trans beefing tricks (welded hubs, super diff, hardened keys, etc), a mid-mount and kafer bar you'll never have to worry about it. I like the non-sprung discs, as they are lighter, stronger and I've never had the issues that some complain about (knock on wood), but that's me.
PS- I'm going to go on record as saying I disagree with your trans guy- while it's true that some people get away with big power behind a stock transaxle for a long time, sooner or later it will pack it in, and it won't be anywhere convenient. Spend the little extra for the peace of mind that it won't let you down in the middle of nowhere. Al
I was leaning in your direction too, Al. I think I'd sleep better at night too if I had the transmission beefed up a bit and any prospective future buyer might also think that way.
So, I don't mind paying for it and he'll do any mod I ask for....what would you recommend ? I will be going with new tranny mounts and a rear cradle transverse type engine mount too. Thanks.
The normal strengthening tricks- welding the 3rd and 4ths hubs on the gears (in most stock transaxles they are pressed on which is fine for stock power levels and commuter driving), hardened keys, solid spacer for 4th, and maybe a superdiff are the things I can think of at the moment. Rancho calls it their "prostreet" model, and your trans guy will know the tricks. I would also put a Berg mid-mount and a kafer bar in it.
Nice engine David, what ECU are you planning to use or are you going to stick with a carb setup like before?
I've opted to install a very much to the rear of the car transverse engine mount, Al. The Berg mount is too far forward for my application. The transverse mount will support the engine and provide the anti twist feature.
I'm sticking with the Carb and Ford ignition system, Ray.
That will do it too. It's gonna rip!
Got a bit of the new motor stripped down today. The thing looks massive in the first blurry photo. Second photo is with the intake manifold off and I'm checking to see if my 2.2 coolant manifold will fit where the 2.5 water manifold is. Dead on. Third pic shows a pretty clean environment under the front belt cover too. I cranked it over with a long wrench and this bugger has plenty of compression...way more than my 2.2.
Nice thing is I'll be able to sell the power steering pump, ac pump, intake manifold etc. and heads to recoup some dough to throw at the transmission.
Agreed, that thing is a monster. And what you can see so far, very clean. Can you pick the bloody thing up? How do you move it around?
Lookin' good, Dave.
I've got a collapsible ( folding ) shop crane in the garage, Kelly. Like this....Harbour Freight p/n 35915. Easy to pull or reinstall a motor and lifts stuff out of truck easily too. It only takes six square feet in the garage when folded.
I've got to lay some credit here on Ed Ericson for his guidance and pointers on starting me on the right path. Without his help, I'd probably be stuck looking around for more 2.2 l parts and they are getting rare. Thanks.., Ed !
Welcome.
David, have you ever seen this site... http://www.benplace.com/vanaru_eng.htm
He specializes in doing vanagon, subie conversations and suggests on his site a high torque LUK clutch ... http://www.luk.com/content.luk.de/en/index.jsp
I found this site but you might look into Ben he is in Quebec.
Hope this helps Ray
P.S> Also look here... Diesel subaru conversion, short pans, clutches. ... http://boxeer.com/ee20_parts
Yes, Ray. I'm familiar with them. The van clutch discs are larger and might not be applicable to my situation.
David, I forget, did you reverse the water manifold?
Hope the intake bolts up. Either that, or just drive it with this: http://speeduino.com/wiki/index.php/Speeduino
Hey...nice product, Danny.
There's no advantage to reverse the manifold in my case because the heater outlet from the coolant manifold is only a short run to my heater between the firewall and back seat and the main discharge goes left / aft then down and forward in a straight run to the rad fitting on the left side.
Planning and fitting the intake manifold will be mostly done dead sober.... :-) . My heads are still in the shop waiting for new valve springs and the tech there measured my used head gaskets at .060" compressed. I was surprised they were so thick. When I get the heads back, I will temporarily mount them with made up .060" aluminum shims and check the fit of the manifold. Cometic makes custom / hybrid steel head gaskets specifically for the Frankenmotor and they can be up to .060", then .056", .051 etc. downward. The stock steel gaskets on the 2.5 appear to be .057". I'm shooting for a CR of about 10 or10.5 : 1. Certainly no higher and stock with the 2.2 was about 9.7.
One thing I got reminded of by research on the net was that we want to try to stay as close to stock 2.2 l gasket thickness as possible. Every bit thinner brings the heads closer to each other and thus buggers up the timing ( belt ) a bit.
The transmission comes out this weekend and gets shifted off to Niagara Falls for rebuild or swap. If you have any suggestions Danny to what mods I should do to beef it up, please say something if you can.
David, haven't logged in here in a while. Welded 3 and 4 hubs and steel shift forks. 4 spider gears. You don't pound on it, so that should suffice. You don't need a drag-race trans, do you?
Giday, Danny. The tranny rebuild will be via Geno Boyd in Elizabeth, Pa and includes 4 spider gears, aluminum side cover, steel shift forks, new synchros, welded 3rd and 4th plus a 3.78 first gear out of a later beetle and a 3.44 r & p.
I have a fresh clutch disc on hand now and in case you didn't hear, my left tranny mount was shot totally. All three mounts will get changed out with HD OEM parts and I've bought some other Soob engine mount parts from Small Cars that I will use to build up a transverse engine mount at the very aft end of the engine bay.
Sounds like a really good plan.
Check into those countersunk Grade 8 bolts. You should be able to countersink the plate with a drill press, but a milling machine would be nice.
