Thought I'd start a thread on DYI improvements various members have done to their cars. From "blue tape" waterproofing to hillbilly cruise-controls. List your mods with photos and a description. Variations of the same mods are welcomed.
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...and Terry, your's is?...
The Knuckles Vent is a quick way to increase airflow on especially hot days. It helped me make it home safely in 110°F last summer. And it tucks away nicely when not in use.
Needing heat more than some of you Cali guys, I came up with this idea of routing any available engine heat straight into the cabin thru the rear door pillar area, left and right. No defrost but a lot more heat. It's a shorter route for the heat to travel and you lose nothing like routing it thru the frame rails. Other have tried it and confirmed it as a good idea.
Need a cheap reliable engine ?
Trouble with broken welds on your clutch cable tube ? Fab and install this between the front of the Bowden cable and VW body work and never worry again.
Putting electronic ignition on your Soob transplant keeping you up at night ? Put a Mits dizzy on the back end of your 2.2l head and forget about it.
Got a Wife that doesn't share your enthusiasm for cars ? Think about this....
I needed a way to track my gas mileage when my trip meter started going wonky. I went old school and found a guy in Germany who still had some of these.
Folks would put them in their VW's before VW's had gas gauges. You'd set it to your odo mileage when you got gas and, by watching your odo, you could figure when you were due to fill up again.
I think these fell out of favor not because all cars now have gas gauges, but because drivers under 30 can no longer do the math.
David Stroud posted:Putting electronic ignition on your Soob transplant keeping you up at night ? Put a Mits dizzy on the back end of your 2.2l head and forget about it.
And a keen eye will note that the stock FI ports have been blocked off ( look at the mod behind the spark plug leads ). This wise bugger uses a Soob engine with a carb and Mits dizzy ignition. Anybody like simple and reliable ? I know...it's not for everybody and for some....it just doesn't look right...nor does it smell or sound right...so it can't be right....
David-
THAT’S THE BOMB!
Most folks want Subaru engines for the EFI and crank fire ignition, but those are available for air-cooled engines as well, with about the same level of futzing (high).
Listening to Ed’s (and others) “shutdown woes” makes me wonder about the “no idle jet” fixation. Everybody’s different, but I’d much rather pull jets and clean them than wonder if the problem is a mass flow sensor or an erratic coolant temp thermistor. Or an ECU that needs reflashed. Or if it’s something else. I’m hopelessly analog.
But I’m also mechanical, and generally (outside of this hobby) practical. The big appeal of an EJ25 (for me) is that it’s a 2.5L, 4 valve/cyl, mass-produced lump of possibility back there. It’s cheap(ish) in longblock form, and could be made to make all the right (retro) sounds and smells if you went with analog stuff (as you are advocating).
The Mitsu distributor is cool, but I’d probably lock it out and use a CB BlackBox for ignition control even if I had one, so your Megajolt setup really is simpler and better. Ignition is my one concession to modernity because (IMHO) it makes 10x the difference EFI does. The tuning possibilities are endless.
Anyhow, I wonder how hard it would be to weld up some IDF pattern intakes and run duals (because you know, why keep it simple?). It also seems like there would be a market for an actual 4/1 tuned-length header/exhaust gor these engines, but maybe I’m missing something.
Regardless, a Japanese lump with retro tuneabilities means never having to slow down to keep the head temperature in line.
That’s pretty cool.
Stan Galat posted:
...The Mitsu distributor is cool...
...Ignition is my one concession to modernity...
Was thinking similar thoughts, but in a different direction.
I wonder if that dizzy, or another Japanese one, could be fitted to one of our type 1 engines. There must be a million still available, originally made for one Toyota, Datsun, or another, with decent points or electronic modules around, too.
The quality would have to be better than the Chinese repop junk that many of us are still saddled with.
Has anyone tried this? Is the mechanical connection just too different to work on our cases?
Sacto Mitch posted:
Stan Galat posted:
...The Mitsu distributor is cool...
...Ignition is my one concession to modernity...
Was thinking similar thoughts, but in a different direction.
I wonder if that dizzy, or another Japanese one, could be fitted to one of our type 1 engines. There must be a million still available, originally made for one Toyota, Datsun, or another, with decent points or electronic modules around, too.
The quality would have to be better than the Chinese repop junk that many of us are still saddled with.
Has anyone tried this? Is the mechanical connection just too different to work on our cases?
We did that years ago, Mitch for airplane use. Trying to get as close to dual ignition as we could, we'd stuff two Mitsubishi ignition modules into to one distributor and set them up to fire 180 degrees apart. Each module would fire a separate coil and the output from those was joined by an MSD coil joiner pn 8210. Still single spark to each cylinder at that stage. Some VW heads can support two spark plugs per cylinder so there's an easy way to do it. Check the picture in the center here. That's two Mits modules in one Corvair dizzy. Look at the top pic. That's one Mits module and a four sided reluctor for use in a Soob 4 cyl dizzy and also a 6 sided Ford reluctor I cut down for use in the Corvair motor. I think Stan already may have two plugs per cylinder so going full dual and electronic would be easy to do.
Cool stuff, Dave, but I was thinking much lower tech.
I'm good with one plug per jug, and a 2-liter that's in a pretty mild state of tune.
And the Pertronix module I'm using still seems to be working OK, after about 18,000 miles. It's the other, mechanical junk in the Pertronix distributor that I have my doubts about. I don't think the mechanical advance mechanism is working anywhere close to the specs of an original Bosch dizzy. The one I have has a lot of low-end scatter and an advance curve that is more an advance 'lurch' than a curve at all.
I was hoping the build quality on these Japanese dizzies might be better and their advance curves more predictable from one unit to the next, or maybe more easily adjustable.
Glenn Ring seems to be the only source for a nicely rebuilt Bosch unit, but the supply is dwindling, prices are high, and I'm hearing about dependability issues even with those.
These Japanese dizzies look like another possible solution, but I have no idea how hard it would be to make them work on a Type 1 case.
"Thought I'd start a thread on DYI improvements various members have done to their cars. From "blue tape" waterproofing to hillbilly cruise-controls. List your mods with photos and a description. Variations of the same mods are welcomed." - T. Nuckels
To eliminate rear view blind-spots, I use an old suction-cup phone holder with a convex mirror attached.
I attach this mirror to the windshield when I have my board in the car.
The board creates a viewing blind spot on my right rear.
The suction cup mirror allows me to check for any traffic on my right.
This attachment is also useful with the top up & side curtains installed, or when I have anything on my luggage rack. Hope this info is helpful. 
@MusbJim keeping it simple 👍
If you have only two front latches to hold the top bow down onto the windshield, sometimes at high speed in rain the center of the top will creep up letting rainwater in. If you need to keep on going, a simple home made clip like this will keep the bow down in the center.
Stan Galat posted:Anyhow, I wonder how hard it would be to weld up some IDF pattern intakes and run duals (because you know, why keep it simple?). It also seems like there would be a market for an actual 4/1 tuned-length header/exhaust gor these engines, but maybe I’m missing something.
Regardless, a Japanese lump with retro tuneabilities means never having to slow down to keep the head temperature in line.
That’s pretty cool.
Nice idea Stan. Some more aggressive cams, crankfire ignition, and Webers or Dells. Front mounted radiator and MAYBE even a heater core? All in a mid-engine and IRS suspension all around. Sounds like a dream? Could be easily done in Beck/SE new coupe and I'll bet in a Speedster someday soon. I'd do a coupe with a cage, Outlaw-themed of course.......
