Interesting BaT Spyder

Know SOCer's (in general) don't like 4 bolt wheels but the OEM Porsche 914 offered Mahles look great on a Spyder.  (Pedrini's would too but they are heavier than the Mahles and the Fuchs). Looks like they belong there! Like the T4 and 901 transaxle --- not the gauges though.  1437 # weight!

It looks like they may have built a cantilever system from the overhead swing brake and clutch pedals to get UP to the master cylinders.  This is about the only way I think it can be done to have enough room for front "A" arm suspension within the standard wheelbase and  body dimensions of a Spyder.......Bruce

Maybe, Bruce. I have long thought that the main rails need to be moved INWARD, like this car. It looks like a conventional bottom-hinged brake and throttle could work, it's just the clutch that is the problem.

I can’t help but wonder what is wrong with the car that 2 owners would put a total of 209 miles on it in a dozen years.

There is so much to like in this Spyder, and conversely a bunch of this to dislike.

I’m not pining for it or pumping it, just pointing out that “the impossible” seems to have been accomplished some time ago with an already built car. Maybe it’s a disaster in execution, but somebody DID try (and succeed in completing) a Spyder with IRS and a real front end.

I’d want to drive it before making any rash proclamations regarding roadworthiness, but my long held opinions about Mr. McBurnie notwithstanding, this remains pretty interesting at least as a concept.

@LI-Rick posted:

I can’t help but wonder what is wrong with the car that 2 owners would put a total of 209 miles on it in a dozen years.

There is so much to like in this Spyder, and conversely a bunch of this to dislike.

It’s in Pawling, NY, so reasonably local to you and @DannyP.

Looks like a potentially fun drag racer. Built by someone who knows a little bit about drag racing and welding tubes.

I doubt it works as good as it looks, and it doesn't look very good. It's obvious the person responsible has no idea what a 550 Spyder is supposed to look like, or how it should behave...

But the reason it's got only 200 miles on it can be surmised right here:

All that nonsense was of course constructed after the car was done, in a vain and no-doubt failed attempt to cool and feed that ridiculously oversized engine. The foam stuff is the real tell: that stuff will be puffing off and finding its way into those monster carbs as well, doing the things they do.

Now, a real Spyder aficionado would have added more grills to the back deck. Still would not have worked, probably, knowing how the air behaves under these clam shells during actual over-the-road operations...but it's a thought.

Addendum: I thought Type IV engines had the exhaust pipes coming out the bottoms of the heads. Anyone have any expertise to impart regarding this photo?

@edsnova, The auction says the car is using Pauter Machine Super Pro heads.

So the Pauter heads for T4s are designed to look like T1 heads? Inchrestin!

@edsnova posted:

So the Pauter heads for T4s are designed to look like T1 heads? Inchrestin!

If you are willing to write a big enough check, Pauter will build you anything you want.

@LI-Rick posted:

@edsnova, The auction says the car is using Pauter Machine Super Pro heads.

Yup, and that is definitely a type4 case.

So just coincidentally on my ride home from work this afternoon, before getting on here, my wee brain was pondering the T1 head and the T4 head and the differences and which could be made to flow better, etc.

No, really!

And my brain, being a tiny one, turned toward its thought that the cross flow head was better and more efficient in general than other designs, being as how the hot side was on one side, the cool side on the other, the lines of movement straighter and more likely to be able to remain so once the ports were machined in, etc. & soforth...

So in my pondering I thought: "Hmmm, I wonder why no one has made a T1 head to look/work more like a T IV head?

And upon consideration I figured it must've happened but then of course nothing else T1 would fit and the intake and headers and all the valve train parts would have to be custom...

Then I got to thinking about the rockers and how they're necessarily all in a row on the T1, and how canting the valves like on a big Chevy might be cool but how much of a hassle that would be.

The I was home and it was time to get back to work.

So then, seeing these Pauter heads on what certainly must be an expensive and powerful T IV, I am intrigued.

I also did a doubletake on the picture of the underside, because that is definitely a T4 case and those heads are laid out like a T1. That thing is neither fish nor fowl, but I'm very much drawn to its weirdness. Somebody spent long money trying to build the baddest Spyder in the land and is going to take a beating.

I can guarantee there's a way to get air to feed that 2.7L mill, but it might mean something unsightly. Trying to pull more air from a low pressure zone (the clamshell) is probably not the way to get it done.

@edsnova posted:

So just coincidentally on my ride home from work this afternoon, before getting on here, my wee brain was pondering the T1 head and the T4 head and the differences and which could be made to flow better, etc.

No, really!

And my brain, being a tiny one, turned toward its thought that the cross flow head was better and more efficient in general than other designs, being as how the hot side was on one side, the cool side on the other, the lines of movement straighter and more likely to be able to remain so once the ports were machined in, etc. & soforth...

So in my pondering I thought: "Hmmm, I wonder why no one has made a T1 head to look/work more like a T IV head?

And upon consideration I figured it must've happened but then of course nothing else T1 would fit and the intake and headers and all the valve train parts would have to be custom...

Then I got to thinking about the rockers and how they're necessarily all in a row on the T1, and how canting the valves like on a big Chevy might be cool but how much of a hassle that would be.

The I was home and it was time to get back to work.

So then, seeing these Pauter heads on what certainly must be an expensive and powerful T IV, I am intrigued.

Wow.....

On my rides home from work, I was usually just thinking about dinner.

So to keep the type 4 cool, you have to work WITH the airflow, not against it. I once saw another TR at Carlisle that had that same kind of airbox trying to use the decklid grilles for intake. Yeah, not gonna work. It's a good idea to isolate cooling intake and heated waste air, but the direction they tried is wrong.

Angela and Steve Lane did well with a thin scoop to pick air up from under the car and send it upward from just behind the passenger area/firewall. This was on a 3.2 911 six cylinder. If you know, you know how much the 911 fan pulls air, and even that fan needed help in a Spyder engine bay.

After looking a bit harder at this, the rear suspension design looks capable of handling a big V8. They're about double the size they need to be. I think the comment about a drag racer is spot-on.

I like the look of the front suspension, but I'm not a fan of those big 'Murican V8 muscle-car looking pedals and masters.

And the whole fabrication ethos seems to be "busy". But that's just me.

My comment looks mean, I think. But I'll stand by it, with this caveat: I wish I had the builder's skills though, and his budget. The man who made it really is worlds beyond what I'll ever achieve, in terms of automotive fabrication. All those tubes are supposedly chromoly!

Fabrication skills are not the same as design skills, though, and part of design is being realistic about parameters. This car looks a lot to me like the car from a while back with the turbo Suby in it. Lots of power. So much power!! More is More! YAAAH!! BoooYAH!

—But ultimately, failure, because constructing a chassis to handle that power and also fit a 550 body is not easy. And creating a system that can cool all that power is even harder.

The real irony here is that this gigundus T4 with the cubic dinero Pauter heads made about 150 HP at the wheels, which is right in line with what Danny's T1 does at 2.2 liters.

Danny gets just as much power to the road in a tested chassis with matched components that, properly tuned and sorted, deliver a thrilling and very quick, good handling ride that he can drive anywhere. And all of it is almost stock from the box. At least in comparison to this car.

I was thinking that if you had helmet fairings on a spyder, or on a hard toneau equipped speedster, the passenger side fairing could be used as an air scoop directly into the engine compartment.  Your passenger would hate it, but your engine would love it.

Yeah Michael but the high pressure area at speed is under the car. Like @DannyP noted. All the louvres and scoops grafted on up top won't change that.

You know what works? This:

The leading edge of the rear underpan is a half-inch lower at the middle screw (i.e. it's flat across where the rest of the floor is slightly concave). Cold air pours in there and through the louvres and around the oil pan, even as hot air flows out on either side around the exhaust pipes, pushed by the fan.

If I had a 2.5 liter air cooled engine I would need a bigger scoop and louvres.

True enough, Ed. But with a plexiglass low screen on the spyder I'm pretty sure you'd get some high pressure in the headrest area, and fewer rocks (unless they started falling out of my head).

Also, I was mightily impressed when you made that belly pan. It's really something.

It sounds like I might be running some good ole Manometer tests in, under and around on a Spyder.  It won't be an air-cooled one though so I don't know how that would change the readings.  However, it seems to me that an air-cooled Spyder should have plenty air circulating around in the engine compartment.

Danny......You ever take any measurments anywhere ?  Or anyone else ? edsnova ?

Bruce

I just did a yarn test.

What did you discover with the yarn ?  How did you view it  ?  Video camera ?...Bruce

@DannyP posted:

So to keep the type 4 (actually, any aircooled engine) cool, you have to work WITH the airflow, not against it. I once saw another TR at Carlisle that had that same kind of airbox trying to use the decklid grilles for intake. Yeah, not gonna work. It's a good idea to isolate cooling intake and heated waste air, but the direction they tried is wrong.

Angela and Steve Lane did well with a thin scoop to pick air up from under the car and send it upward from just behind the passenger area/firewall. This was on a 3.2 911 six cylinder. If you know, you know how much the 911 fan pulls air, and even that fan needed help in a Spyder engine bay...

You mean like this-

@aircooled posted:

What did you discover with the yarn ?  How did you view it  ?  Video camera ?...Bruce

Click the link, my friend.

@edsnova posted:

Click the link, my friend.

And while you're at it reread the rest of the thread. It's a gem.

@ALB posted:

You mean like this-

Does that work? Busses are notoriously hard to cool.

@Stan Galat posted:

Does that work? Busses are notoriously hard to cool.

I've posted this pic before, Stan.  IIrc the owner claimed a noticeable reduction in running temps.  It would pressurize the area above the transaxle/in front of the firewall in our Speedsters, with a 6 or 8" hole in said firewall then actually feeding air into the engine compartment.