Hang in there Will! This too shall pass.
Bob: IM S6 posted:But, I think most of us have never experienced what you have guys have gone through.
I've often wondered why that is. Am I especially hard on equipment? Am I doing something wrong? Am I being a tightwad with the choices I make? Or am I just plain unlucky (a concept I don't believe in)?
There's probably a bit of truth in every one of those explanations, but I think the sum total of all of them together is probably significantly less than half the reason for my past troubles. Bad parts, carelessly assembled has to be a huge part of it. I had a somewhat lengthy conversation with Henry regarding this very thing, nearly 10 years ago now. He was complaining of needing to rework or remake nearly everything related to VW replacement parts even then. The situation has not improved in the decade since. As Will's situation proved, a $4 east Asian part can end up wiping out an $8000 engine. There are a lot of $4 east Asian parts in a typical Type 1 VW. Unless they are carefully checked, it's impossible to know which ones are good enough.
I think another reason lots of guys don't have any problem relates to how they use their cars. If a speedster is a sunny day cruiser, borderline stuff is much more likely to be adequate for a long time. Some of us would like to use our cars when it is convenient for us, not when it is convenient for the car. That may mean driving across the country. Most guys do not have that expectation of their speedster, nor do they have any desire to attempt it. Those who do find that $4 east Asian part that should have been checked more carefully by whoever screwed it together.
Like I said, it's a funny hobby.
Will Hesch posted:Stan, I'm just saying that the Madness can become...that!
This 3rd time I'm using the highest quality parts that money can buy, Panchito heads, CB cam with their lightweight lifters. I purchased a magnesium CB Supercase which reportedly runs cooler than my aluminum bubbletop, I know for a fact it will be 18 lbs lighter. I have a new Setrab remote cooler and a Setrab re-usable aluminum filter so I can examine the oil/engine condition as often as I deem necessary.
But...and I'm hedging my bets here...if this one goes south, which I seriously doubt it will, but... if it does...I'm going in another direction, to continue down this road would not be prudent (nor can I afford it any longer!).
Lane said that only the "deserving" are allowed satisfaction in this plastic car realm.
I'm not sure what that means. I thought that for $30K I deserved a car that would at least make it the 200 miles home from the factory...wrong! It had 3 oil spills on the way home and 2 weeks later blew the upright cooler (which blew the poorly constructed engine) due to a stuck pressure relief valve.
After careful research (obviously not careful enough) I chose a builder who for $5K supplied me with a new engine that lasted 1400 km.
I'm now spending another undetermined amount for the 3rd go-around.
Is that deserving enough to be part of this club?
Sorry Cory, for the thread-drift, I just needed to vent.
A word about MAGNESIUM cases..YES they do run COOLER and LIGHTER. My 2.7RS has a MAG CASE with CASE SAVERS which you should look into as they can WARP...NOTHING is foolproof in this arena and every upside comes with its own potential downside. PLEASE read up on MAGNESIUM cases so that you have the full picture/understanding and look into CASE SAVERS!
When Dr. F designed the TYPE I under orders from the Fuhrer....he never dreamed that 6 year old kids would be building components in factories outside of SHANGHAI. Of course he planned on making them in OHIO but we know how that turned out(THANK GOODNESS!).
His PORSCHE designs were more for the SS Boys and the ELITE round table and they were kept under wraps until TRUMAN put his order in for a 4 CAM SPEEDIE!
Banzai Pipeline posted:When Dr. F designed the TYPE I under orders from the Fuhrer....he never dreamed that 6 year old kids would be building components in factories outside of SHANGHAI. Of course he planned on making them in OHIO but we know how that turned out(THANK GOODNESS!).
His PORSCHE designs were more for the SS Boys and the ELITE round table and they were kept under wraps until TRUMAN put his order in for a 4 CAM SPEEDIE!
Ferdinand and FUHRMANN were so far ahead of the PLANET, it was unbelievable: check it out..
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2018:
In true Porsche tradition, the company has developed yet another variant of its 911 Turboline, and unsurprisingly, it's a very limited edition model. The new 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series will live up to its name as only 500 examples of the car will be produced. It also can boast to be the most powerful 911 Turbo S the company has produced, as it makes 27 more horsepower than the "basic" Turbo S for a total of 607. Torque doesn't change at 553 pound-feet of the stuff, and the top speed of 205 mph remains the same, too.
As for the cost of the car, Porsche hasn't set pricing for the United States, but it has priced it for Europe. Over on the Continent, the 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series will cost €259,992, which comes to about $291,250 at current exchange rates. That's also roughly $100,000 more than the base price of the standard 911 Turbo S.
FUNNY...our cars cost less than the exhaust on these new 911s. Just whip out that MOLYBDENUM/PLUTONIUM/PUTIN EDITION AMEX card and drive away
slofuzz posted:MusbJim posted:@Cory McCloskey - DANG, Cory! Total bummer about your's & Paul's engine. I'm sure you'll get it all sorted out.
However, since you've already allotted yourself time for the SLO cruise, you should still come on out. There is always an empty right seat that you could occupy. Come on out and meet the knucklehead West Coast SOC crew and join the shenanigans!!!!
I'm with these guys. Come on out. I've been assured that there will be no shortage of food for our dinner! Plus, you can always stay with GERD!!!
HEY IM BRINGING THE PINK MIATA. DRIVE ANYTHING AND COME HANGOUT WITH THE CROOKED COP WHO SET THIS UP
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We all should have a spare long block stored. I'm thinking I'll have one built like Teby's then store the one I have as a backup. That way 10 years from now Donna can ask why I still have that stupid thing laying around taking up space.
Been away for a couple of weeks touring the Great South West. And I am bowled over at the "bad luck" or whatever it is going on down there in Arizona. Holy Carp!! I think I had something smaller than that screw go down the pipe, and it made a funny noise for a time, then disappeared. Sent a boroscope down the plug hole and saw some dings, but whatever it was must have been either beat to shyt and vaporized, or was regurgitated out the tail pipe. I was advised to do a tear down, but decided to run it and see how it all went. That was two years ago, and things seem fine, or at least good enough.
Perseverance is the key, according to Harry Truman. Yet another rebuild. I'm thinking third time is the charm, and will look fwd to the tale as it evolves, and pray for a happy result. I was in the home of a retired F1 driver a while back, and he had a Porsche engine of some sort on a display case with glass over it. Side of engine had a con rod end sticking out, and some other very difficult to look at bent/broken metal. I suppose it was a trophy, or a reminder. Never got the whole story on that one.
PS: As I recall the incident: first clue that something was or had been amiss, aside from the intermittent and strange noise while whatever went down the intake knocked around, was a loss in power. This turned out to be on account of the spark plug ground tang being smashed into the center electrode -- no sparky, no power. and very obvious once the plug is pulled. So total fix of this problem was to buy a new spark plug. Txs and tip o' the hat to Dan Piperato for the loan of the boroscope. That was kinda fun . . .
Rusty S posted:I have pissed everyone off at one time or another!
I think that was limited to the central valley guys, who took some umbrage with your description of the area.
So does anyone have any details on why or how a rod was thrown through the case during a no-load carb-adjustment session?
edsnova posted:So does anyone have any details on why or how a rod was thrown through the case during a no-load carb-adjustment session?
Hey, buddy!
I'll let @PaulEllis tell the tale...
Yup.....single line-up at the Christmas Tree after some carb changes.....Bruce
Stan Galat, '05 IM, 2276, Nowhere, USA posted:Aw, man. That's rough. CB Panchitos, here we come.
Is Mrs. McCloskey about over this car yet?
LOL Fatefully (and fortunately), Stan, the tub is always healthy when it's in our garage. The sick bay is at Paul's place. My wife rarely raises our garage door and sees a Speedster in a state of disastrous undress.
Cory McCloskey posted:Stan Galat, '05 IM, 2276, Nowhere, USA posted:Aw, man. That's rough. CB Panchitos, here we come.
Is Mrs. McCloskey about over this car yet?
LOL Fatefully (and fortunately), Stan, the tub is always healthy when it's in our garage. The sick bay is at Paul's place. My wife rarely raises our garage door and sees a Speedster in a state of disastrous undress.
Not so at the People's Republic. My wife has grown pretty accustomed to seeing various air-cooled vehicles with their butts in the air. She calls it, "assuming the position".
Just to fill in a couple of gaps in the story; I'm embarrassed to tell some of this, but when assembling my new engine, I used Teflon buttons with slipper skirt pistons (big no no). I should have recognized the issue during assembly but got distracted. I think I was on auto pilot. Anyway, several hundred miles into the new engine I started seeing some oil pressure issues. The idiot light didn't go out as quickly as it should etc. The engine was a 2180 with FK-8 cam, Wedge ports..... everything new and measured carefully. It had lots of power, especially compared to the 1914 the car came with. It was an absolute blast to drive.
Then a couple of weeks ago while doing about 60 mph on the freeway, I looked down and noticed the oil light was on. I turned it off asap and pulled over. The engine temp was normal and there were no indications anything was wrong. If I had less than 10 pounds of oil pressure, the engine should have already seized but it didn't. And it sounded fine, still had power. I decided that it was an electrical problem with the idiot light and fired it up and drove it home (about miles).
I pulled the sump cover and found the sump was full of crushed Teflon buttons. The oil pick up screen was plugged up which caused the low oil pressure. I pulled the engine completely apart to check bearings etc. I cleaned everything to make sure all the button pieces were gone. Amazingly, the bearings were still perfect so I decided not to replace them. It took a couple of weeks to get it back together. I fired it up and everything seemed great. I put about 6 or 7 miles on it and then took it to my buddy Steve Hollingsworth to dial in the carbs using a LM-1 or something similar. I left the car with him overnight and he called me the middle of the next day. He shuddered and stammered and then finally said my engine just blew up. I though he was joking at first, but no.... he said there was a hole in the case.
Long story short, we think there was damage to a piston caused by the buttons and I somehow didn't see it. Steve estimated he was at about 5000 rpm when there was a noise. He shut it off as fast as he could reach the key but it was too late. The damage was catastrophic.
So now I have the 1914 back in the car while I pull myself together. My plan is to get a case from Precision Alloy and a 90mm crank from DPR. I'll end up with a 2500 cc stump puller that will run cool. There is plenty of room for a wider engine so what the heck? Precision Allow doesn't have any cases on the shelf at the moment and said they were 60 to 90 days out. There were very few parts from the engine that blew that can be reused. Even the cam was broken. One head was dinged up pretty good but can be saved. I'm thinking about using the new fake Delortos that recently came to market. There is no hurry, so I'll take my time and get it right this time. This catastrophe was completely my fault and I'll learn from it.
Part of the enjoyment of these little cars is working on them. I'm getting plenty of that aspect.
Paul,
First of all, I'm really sorry for you. That's rough.
But more importantly, I really appreciate how honest you are about what happened. Sometimes we (inadvertently or on purpose) give the online impression that we think we've got this stuff all figured out, and that everything we do goes perfectly. Every time you've posted, you've done your best to soft pedal your obvious abilities. I don't know you, but I wish I did – I think we would be pretty good friends.
So anyhow, it's water over the dam now. I am really interested in what you are planning to screw together next. I'm always looking for the secret sauce.
Thanks for the update.
Stan Galat, '05 IM, 2276, Nowhere, USA posted:
So anyhow, it's water over the dam now.
My dad always said "you can't put the crap back in the donkey. Just clean it up and move on."
Thanks Stan, I really appreciate that.
Paul,
Where I come from, your post is called "mannin' up", or cowboyin' up", which means that you are confident enough that you admit when things go wrong. Many of us can, and do, make the same mistakes, so when one of us admits a mistake, that helps the rest of us avoid the same mistake. Of course, as a repeat offender, I usually demand the right to make my own mistakes, time and time again.
It's easy to keep silent when we err. Thanks for telling it like it is. Good on ya.
Wish you the best, Paul.
Yup, I've been there, too. It sucks, no bout adout it. All you can do is buck up, put it behind you, get what you need for new parts (however long that takes) and start over again.....Maybe better the next time......ABSOLUTELY better next time!
It's good to see that my motor-head son has followed in his father's footsteps and has, at times, left a trail of broken parts behind. All part of being a "Car Guy", I guess.
Good luck with the rebuild, Paul. Keep us posted on the specs, otherwise ALB will be bugging you for them. 
Ah, the ol' "teflon buttons with slipper-skirt slugs" error. Classic rookie fumble. How many times we've all done that one!
(Or, anyway, that sounds like the cool thing to say to the guy who does not know what "teflon buttons" or "slipper skirts" are).
Thanks for sending me to the Google to learn new vocabulary words.
I confess - I always blame Chinese parts when I leave the old oil filter gasket on --- along with the new one on the new filter! Just makes me feel better over 5 quarts of spilt new oil I have to clean up.
Can someone enlighten me? I still wonder why the teflon buttons are labeled by piston size like 85.5 or 92mm, when they fit on the gudgeon pin purely to prevent the circlip from popping and the assembly destroying the bore.
Seems a lot of modern "improvements" to the old air cooled VW end up biting us back. Like the colorful red poly bushings used to replace the rag steering joint, shift coupler, trailing arm bushings and even front torsion arm bushing. Or the 30 mm HD oil pump. Or the mini oil sump (now made by EMPI).
Maybe the piston pins are all the same length, so the buttons have to be not so?
THAT......is astute.
Bingo.
I don't think a trip to Google would help me much to understand WTF you guys are talking about. Teflon buttons?? Paul, Some pictures would fill in for several thousand words.
And, I am truly bummed that this happened. A complete blow-up is just a gut wrenching nightmare. Esp'y when the only guy you can blame for this is the knucklehead in the mirror. Ouch.
This is a motorcycle piston but you can see the button inserted into the pin and the pin is installed in the piston. The argument for these is that they replace the spring clips which can break and migrate into the engine.
I've been using these in my motor with no problems and the pros and cons discussion on these is akin to the type of oil you should use.
I'm at work at the moment so I don't have pictures of a "slipper skirt piston" to show the difference with the piston shown above. The slipper skirt type have cutouts where the piston pins go through. In other words, the Teflon buttons wouldn't ride against the cylinder walls like they do with a round piston. You have to use spring clips with slipper skirt pistons because the buttons would fall out. This is what happened with my engine. I should have realized this during assembly but I'd never used slipper skirts before and was kind of on auto pilot during assembly. Several hundred miles later, I started noticing oil pressure issues. It was taking a little to long to get pressure after start up and then the light started coming on while cruising. I pulled the sump plate and found chewed up buttons clogging the screen. I pulled the engine completely apart and did a thorough cleaning.
In hind sight the crunching of the buttons must have cracked a piston but I failed to see it during reassembly. The engine ran another 10 miles or so before the piston came apart. A rod was forced up through the top of the case and the cam was broken in half. The head suffered some damage but can be saved. I sent the crank out to be examined and it's fine. The other three rods are also fine. Most of the engine was destroyed.
The good news is I'm starting a new build. I'll be using a Precision Allow case (when they are available again). I just got a 90mm crank with type 4 mains and I'll be using 94 mm slipper skirt pistons. It will be about 2500 cc. I'll take my time and pay close attention to details, blue printing everything and making sure everything is perfect.
In the mean time, I put the original 1914 back in and the car drives great. I really miss the power of the 2180 though. It really ran great for the short time it ran. I threw the keys to Cory and had him drive it around the block just so he could see how great it was running. I'm really glad it didn't blow up while he was behind the wheel. He would have blamed himself I'm sure.
This is all part of the hobby. I told Cory we should all keep a spare engine for times like this. I put about 80 miles on mine yesterday listening to classic rock and just loving the moment, living in the moment. It's all good.
Paul Ellis for president.
Copy that!
Where do we vote??
2500 cc?? Oh my . . . Did not know Type 1 hardware would go that high. Why not 2332?? If you wet your pants with the 2180, a properly spec'd 2332 would surely do the same, only faster.
Why not a 2500? It's a toy, play with it if you can...Go fast people like to go fastest!
Precision Allow case (when they are available again).
would that be "Alloy"? And is this the group that makes fer-sure made-in-the-USA custom beefy cases, I think i heard about once before? Maybe billet machined?? Is that even possible?? Not sure what I heard about all of that, except their cases are the absolute bomb -- appropriately priced too, i.e., mucho dinero.
i.e., this:
http://www.precisionalloy.com/pages/tf-1.html
not billet, but cast. Uber cool. Apparently made-in-the UK, not USA. Maybe that's OK.
They will set the cyl bores out per request, so can get more disp, I 'spose. Need special crank to go with? Lots to think about.
And not mucho dinero, but rather a right proper number of guineas.
Todd Francis' case (the Precision Alloy TF1) can be ordered to accept a 4 inch bore. You don't need a special crank.
You do, however, need special heads. Very, very special heads. The only 4" bore streetable Type 1 heads available right now are from JPM motorsports in Sweden. They ARE mucho dinero-- enough that it starts to make a Raby Type 4 look like a value proposition.
If you want to play, you've got to pay.
4" ??!! That's almost 102 mm. Oh, mamma. Does Jake still sell Type 4s? I thought he was having serious trouble finding cases etc. upon which to work his magic. Meanwhile, Paul's new build will be fun and interesting to watch.
It was my understanding the cases were made here in the USA but I might be wrong. The cam is lowered so you have to get special cam gears and it has built in full flow. All I'm hoping for is dependable power and mild temps. I don't plan on racing it, just fun street driving.