So, no cross country odyssey for breaking in? I am disappoint. 
My my trip home to NYC from Bremen was a real adventure,* but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
*Adventure: "Misery recounted at leisure." Actually, other than being cold, it wasn't that bad. Lucky for me, Carey's repair and adjust to the Jamar lasted all the way until out 5 miles from home when the pin holding the helm joint to the shift bar fell out. Remedied with a small screwdriver and. Was home in 20 more minutes.
@DannyP posted:Very sweet, Anand. When is Robert picking up the car? Soon I'm guessing. It's got to be lighter than my 1500 pound car, probably under 1400 I'm guessing. Robert will feel like he has an empty trailer LOL!
I'm jealous of the wheel/tire/brake drum combo, especially with the rear spacers.
You're going to REALLY fool a bunch of folks!
I'll probably start a separate thread on my cross country adventure to get the Spyder picked up. You never know what could happen when a soon to be retired deputy hauls a$$ across the US to get a Spyder.
@dlearl476 posted:So, no cross country odyssey for breaking in? I am disappoint.
My my trip home to NYC from Bremen was a real adventure,* but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
*Adventure: "Misery recounted at leisure." Actually, other than being cold, it wasn't that bad. Lucky for me, Carey's repair and adjust to the Jamar lasted all the way until out 5 miles from home when the pin holding the helm joint to the shift bar fell out. Remedied with a small screwdriver and. Was home in 20 more minutes.
I offered to fly out and drive it home across the great expanse of the USof A but Anand declined. Said he wouldn't wish that on anyone, even his worst enemy, and especially not his best friend. (My description) LOL
@Robert M posted:I offered to fly out and drive it home across the great expanse of the USof A but Anand declined. Said he wouldn't wish that on anyone, even his worst enemy, and especially not his best friend. (My description) LOL
I've driven that in a Speedster. Out and back, twice. I'd do it again in a heartbeat (and may yet).
It was transcendent, transformative, and had me transfixed at times - but it wasn't in a size tiny Spyder. That might just be torture.
I'm contemplating a road trip in the Spyder when I finish my brake upgrades. Probably not this year as the brakes have been BO'd since mid-May.
Not X-Country though, probably just a loop of all the national parks in Utah. My butt was pretty sore after 120 miles yesterday.
i drove cross country MD to CA..1972 plymouth duster, no air, no nothing..it wasnt pleasant..never again..
@barncobob posted:i drove cross country MD to CA..1972 plymouth duster, no air, no nothing..it wasnt pleasant..never again..
Between 2012 and 2016, I drove from Utah to NY or back 6 times, twice in a 26' Penske truck and once on a motorcycle. They would have to remove Nebraska from the trip to ever convince me to do it again.
@dlearl476 posted:Between 2012 and 2016, I drove from Utah to NY or back 6 times, twice in a 26' Penske truck and once on a motorcycle. They would have to remove Nebraska from the trip to ever convince me to do it again.
We've got a daughter and son in law (and 3 grandkids) in Denver, so I know 80. Nebraska gets a bad rap. 80 ain't that bad.
70 through Kansas, on the other hand....
I have a couple of bicycling friends who did the cross country thing 10 years ago from San Francisco to New Hampshire. Kelly met them when we arrived in Washington DC from a different trip. They both say that if you could skip The entire Kansas to Pennsylvania Thing it would be a nice trip.
They spent two + weeks riding along the side of I-70 In the midwest and all you could see was a wall of corn on both sides of the highway - It was like riding through a never ending canyon of green. All they could do was listen to podcasts and grind out the miles, 10 hours and 120 miles a day. It didn’t get interesting again until Columbus, Ohio.
I’ve ridden Bicycle along/around/under I-70 west of Denver from Breckenridge to Glenwood Hot Springs and it is stunningly beautiful going through the mountains. We even saw a group of bears scampering across the highway. Colorado Black bears are really big compared to our diminutive New England bears, especially when they run across right in front of you! They always looked up in surprise as the bikes don’t make any noise to warn them.
Here's the bike trail next to I-70. Sometimes the trail is under the interstate's elevated sections as it winds through the mountains:
A different guy from that cross-country bike trip back in 2010 is currently riding an mountain bike on the Continental Divide Trail up the spine of the Rockies from New Mexico to Canada. He’s aiming for 32 days and should be done early next month. He's both younger and crazier than me.
@Stan Galat posted:We've got a daughter and son in law (and 3 grandkids) in Denver, so I know 80. Nebraska gets a bad rap. 80 ain't that bad.
70 through Kansas, on the other hand....
The problem with either route is after going through NY, PA, OH, IN, IL (westbound) or UT, CO or WY (eastbound) in short order, you hit KS or NE which seem to take fooooooorreeeeeeever to drive through.
Rhode Island saw you coming, Stan - you’d love our tiniest state.
The only interstate going through the state, I-95, goes diagonally southwest corner to northeast corner so it makes the state feel much larger than it really is. It’s about 45 minutes Diagonally with traffic through Providence, but if you drive East/west on RT 44 it’s only 20 minutes, border to border, 30 minutes if you stop for a “Stuffie”* along the way.
*A Stuffie is a very large clam (called a Quahog (Cōe-hog)) with the clam meat removed, cooked, minced, mixed with seasoned breadcrumbs and butter and sometimes crab meat and stuffed back into the big Quahog shell. Yummy!
BTW, Little Rhody has waaaay more ocean shoreline than Big ol’ New Hampshire.
Sorting is complete! I am certain that Carey is relieved.
Carey went on a final test drive, and discovered another fun item in need of correction: the fuel gauge! As it turns out, 1/2 tank on the gauge equates to “no fuel” in reality. The good news? I got a free picture of out of it while he waited for 5 gallons of fuel from Randy Beck (and oh yeah — Carey fixed the sending unit!). The car is at the paint shop today for some touch ups, and is then ready for delivery (I think!).
I also got in touch with the owner of Pacto in Costa Rica — a nice man named Danilo Cruz. He makes vintage 50s style racing helmets. As ridiculous as they may look, I’ll need it when driving this car with a single plexi windshield and the high seating position (Stewart Little, remember?). One rock to the head and I’ll end up in my own ER.
Danilo was kind enough to match the helmet (see stock photo below) to my car. I sent him a spray out card of French blue that Carey sent me 3 years ago — he matched it with the Glasurit representative there (this photo is of his stock blue and is not the one that is matched to my car). I also got a full face visor; I already have some Chapal goggles.
That is absolutely AWESOME, good for you Anand, you have to post a few picts with you in the full outfit 
You gotta be seriously excited, Anand. Congratulation!
Well done, and completing the vintage look with the helmet is so appropriate.
Vintage mimicking gloves, shoes, and clothes are available...
I'll bet as the car was sputtering and dying Carey said" You gotta be F ^*&%n kidding me "
@Alan Merklin posted:I'll bet as the car was sputtering and dying Carey said" You gotta be F ^*&%n kidding me "
He said A LOT more than that. LOL
@Alan Merklin - he actually shot a video and was talking to me as he was driving. He was singing the car’s praises: everything was working well, the car turned and stopped well. Then he said, “and how it is running like sh_t again.” And the video cuts off.
Then a new video begins: “Add to the punch list: fuel gauge does not work!”
Carey is absolutely hilarious.
We have to see the pictures of you wearing the whole race setup. No snipes coming from me, just a tip of the hat to a couple of men with a vision. Nicely done!
I was wondering what sort of period correct helmet you'd be doing, @arajani. Beautiful and classy choice—no compromises. I've been pondering the same question, with a bit less budget.
@arajani posted:@IaM-Ray - I may just send those photos to you directly, as I am anticipating a lot of insults/jokes as a result of this get up!
Naw, I think in the spirit of these old/new cars it is all good it would be fun, maybe childlike but not childish.
Here is a true picture of a dress up day at our house, year ago, the background is superimposed but the character is my progeny, painted up by his mom
Anand, that helmet and shield can do double duty for Covid.
Just saying......
Carey spoke to Pat recently, and Pat had mentioned that my car needed some ducting from the cylinder heads down to the belly pan. This would be needed to help give hot air a way to escape. Oil temps have been just fine in the test driving that Carey has done, but Pat was uncomfortable with this.
I reached out to my high school classmate and good friend Chris Maglio. We built a solar powered car together in high school and raced it from Dallas to San Antonio. I went on to a BA/MD program, he he went to Cal Poly and studied aeronautical engineering. He owned a very successful engineering firm that did work for DoD and a number of other government agencies — he was always a sharp guy. I wanted his counsel on how essential this ducting was, though I felt I knew the answer (not surprisingly, he knows quite a lot about 4 cam engines, too).
Chris felt that it was essential — just as Pat had said. I sent him the photos of the ducting on the original 550 Carrera engines, and he agreed that allowing the hot air to stagnate was a bad idea. Knowing that I am a pea-brained physician, he sent pictures:
Current setup, without ducting:
After ducting:
Here’s a original 550 motor with the shrouding on it — notice the finning on the heads it totally encapsulated with sheet metal:
Exhaust on a 4 cam head is straight out of the bottom unlike a VW head. Shrouding surrounds it.
Here’s the underbelly of an original car:
So...once my car is out of the paint booth from touch ups and some work to the wheel wells (so my tires don’t rub!), Brady Miller is going to make some ducting for me. He is a award-winning medal worker in Ind\iana who had done work on a few of my prior projects with Carey (his work won 2nd place at Pebble a few years back — he had some free time before his next project). We plan to create some shrouding that will keep the air from that Carrera double fan running over the bottom of those heads and down the holes in the bottom. Of course, we will need to make some allowance for movement of the motor, but that should be do-able.
Pictures of my belly pan, both before paint and after, are below. You can also see the holes below the engine after installation. Note: the AN fittings in the valve covers below have been flipped and are now facing forward!
Sensible prognosis. I was going to say that you should have just gone with a Capricorn Group 4 cam but it doesn't look like they are around anymore, or at least their site is down. Just a little more time to make things right. Sounds like my disease of perfectionism...
@jayniz — I can see you have totally lost your mind. LOL. Those motors are $150k plus. Honestly, it wasn’t the money that I minded — it was the maintenance and upkeep. The art of these motors lies in having someone to look after them — and these people are dropping like flies. I didn’t really envy the idea of having to pack my car up every year and take it to someone for a month at a time for upkeep. I drove my last spyder 10,000 miles in one year.
With @Pat Downs nearby, having a strong, reliable pushrod motor was a much more sensible choice.
@arajani posted:@jayniz — I can see you have totally lost your mind. LOL. Those motors are $150k plus. Honestly, it wasn’t the money that I minded — it was the maintenance and upkeep. The art of these motors lies in having someone to look after them — and these people are dropping like flies. I didn’t really envy the idea of having to pack my car up every year and take it to someone for a month at a time for upkeep. I drove my last spyder 10,000 miles in one year.
With @Pat Downs nearby, having a strong, reliable pushrod motor was a much more sensible choice.
Yep, one of the seldom-mentioned factors in how many 356 Carreras ended up with pushrod engines in the 60's, and several 550's being delivered from the factory with them as well.
A friend of mine's father worked at Porsche with Vasek Polak before they both immigrated to America. One day he was working on someone's 547 and he told me that they're supposed to have their valves adjusted every 10 hours. A job that requires the heads to be completely disassembled, shims replaced, then reassembled.
@arajani posted:We built a solar powered car together in high school and raced it from Dallas to San Antonio.
Well, of course you did. Who didn't?
I know I was certainly doing stuff like that in high-school-- as opposed to collecting loud muffler warnings, taking a "full load" of shop classes, and sitting on a car hood eating Dolly Madison powdered-sugar Do-nettes for the first 2 hrs of class.
I think I found my next calling. 4 Cam Meister Techniker. I like the sound of that. No, but I hear you. No one can work on these things. If I installed one, I wouldn't drive it. I'd park the car in my living room.
Good move. Making the ducting around the Type 1 exhaust pipes is trickier than the 4-cam was or that it would be with a Type 4. No too tricky for your guys though.
@arajani posted:@jayniz — I can see you have totally lost your mind. LOL. Those motors are $150k plus. Honestly, it wasn’t the money that I minded — it was the maintenance and upkeep. The art of these motors lies in having someone to look after them — and these people are dropping like flies. I didn’t really envy the idea of having to pack my car up every year and take it to someone for a month at a time for upkeep. I drove my last spyder 10,000 miles in one year.
With @Pat Downs nearby, having a strong, reliable pushrod motor was a much more sensible choice.
Some things simply are just too much of a hassle to deal with no matter how exclusive the item is after a while an honest assessment needs to be done otherwise the pain in the neck just gets a lot lower and you don't make use of it, no matter your budget.
@IaM-Ray posted:Some things simply are just too much of a hassle to deal with no matter how exclusive the item is after a while an honest assessment needs to be done otherwise the pain in the neck just gets a lot lower and you don't make use of it, no matter your budget.
Some things? Nearly every "exclusive" item has some fatal flaw, compromising it's actual utility.
The more expensive and exclusive the item, the greater the flaw.
Anand, I didn't do the entire under pan like you and Ed. However, I did feel I needed to control the flow out of the bottom of my 911 shroud. I didn't like the way the flow went straight down. In traffic, the hot air bounced off the road and looped forward and back through the fan. In stopped/slow traffic, head temps went up and up. If going say 20-25 or more, it was OK. The only way to stem the temperature creep was to shut it off or get moving again.
Several years ago(5 or 6?) I built some sled tins out of aluminum sheet. Reversed from VW, they face rearward, open towardthe trans. They fit tight to the cylinder heads and fiberglass shroud, making the hot air go backwards. I modified a set of valve cover bails to hold them at the head end. Then I made little L brackets to hold them to the case in the threaded holes designed for OE sled tins.
There was some debate long ago about flow of air around the clamshell. Others have checked, and the rear grilles have an outflow, not intake(that is without the underpan!). The hot air exits through the grilles in traffic. At higher speeds I've no idea where the hot air exits. I've no idea how the air flows WITH an underpan.
I experienced a 10 degree drop in CHT in general, and no head temp creep in traffic any more. I'm pretty satisfied with the tins. They took a few hours of CAD to get done. Some hammer work, some holes drilled, and a few rivets. I used 0.025" available at the local hardware store in 6 x 18 sheets.
I also installed a 911SC shroud on the back of the alternator. I had to cut and bend the metal vanes a little of course to clear the 4 cylinder "aftermarket" fiberglass shroud. That was when I installed the individual CHT senders near each spark plug. I've been monitoring all 4 cylinders temps, and my mods keep the cylinders within 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sorry for the wordiness. Anand I agree that you should duct the hot air out under the pan. Carry on.
Good problem solving, Danny. I need to build some shrouds to direct the air better to my two oil coolers up front. I find lots of times in hotter weather I have to have the oil cooler fans on, while I am driving, to keep the engine temp cool enough for me to feel good about it.
I figure it shouldn't be too hard to fabricate something under the front end to direct the air better.
I really like using manila folders Bob. They work well, and you can bend them without bunching up like corrugated. Great to make patterns with. I found that 0.0025" is thick enough to stay stiff if you put some bends in it. Even a 1/8" to 1/4" tab off a corner line stiffens a LOT. And you can hammer it and curve it a little if needed.
@Bob: IM S6 posted:Good problem solving, Danny. I need to build some shrouds to direct the air better to my two oil coolers up front. I find lots of times in hotter weather I have to have the oil cooler fans on, while I am driving, to keep the engine temp cool enough for me to feel good about it.
I figure it shouldn't be too hard to fabricate something under the front end to direct the air better.
Two scoops could be made to help direct air upwards. IM does that for the subie dual rad setup Bob.
