Roberto Pics

Aaron,
Thaks for your comments. You are right about alcohol. In the 70's
almost 70% of the cars running in Brazil were on alcoohol. This
droped a lot because the factories do not have tax incentives. Now
the Alcohol Program is growing again. Alcohol costs less than half of
gasoline and you can find in any gas station. This situation only is
true in Brasil. Other South American Countries do not have large
crops of sugar cane.
In technical terms I see vantages to VW engines: Raise the
compression to 13:1 increasing the engine power. Cooling the engine.
My car has a small front radiator that should be partially blocked in
winters or street use ( yes, as you can see the car is road
registred )
Best regards,
Roberto Zullino

I don't know much about alcohol in engines, so this may be a stupid
question.
Is Mileage increased or decreased on Alcohol?
I know
that is a tough question, because even if you have to use %50 more
fuel, but it is %70 more efficient, the mileage would be better.
-
=theron

Theron,

The mileage decreases by 30%. Alcohol has less energy than gasoline.
I can give the figures in kilometres and liters. A normal VW engine
with 2 Solex 32 carbs can do 9 kilometers per liter of gasoline.
Running on alcohol this figure will drop to 7 kilometers per liter of
alcohol.
Of course race engines have different requirements but I can give the
race set up of my car: 2 Weber IDF 44 carbs with the
following "gliceurs": 180 in the bottom ( fuel ) and 200 in the top (
air ). Sorry but I don't know the tecnical english names
for "gliceur". Ported valves, iskenderian cam 1010 or equivalent and
the most important: a single megaphone exaust. You should hear the
noise. You will never believe that the engine is a air cooled VW.
Best regards
Roberto Zullino

If you can, record the sound into a .wav. I would love to post it
here.

-=theron