Rather than buying a new project at the Super Chevy Show a couple of weeks ago, I decided to burn the money on a car I already own.

Enter one 1957 Beetle Deluxe:




The plan for right now is to pep this motor up a little. New camshaft, new heads, and new carburetors.


The motor as of 4PM today:


The motor as of 7:30 PM today:


The goal was to remove the fan shroud (chrome semi-circular thing in the second picture). It was extremely tough but I managed to get it out. It would have been impossible without the doghouse style cooler. I'm hoping with the shroud and the oil cooler (crusty aluminum thing left of center in the third picture) removed my current jack and jack-stands will be able to get the car high enough to drop the motor. I'll invest in some new ones when I put it back in.

Not sure what I'll tackle next. Probably these dual Webers sitting on the kitchen table.

you going dual carb?

Yes

Where's the engine again? I don't see it.

omg sweet jesus that will be awesome, my little brother has an old bug (71 or something) right now, last time i saw it (couple months ago), it had no fenders and was barely running. Now apparently its all Baja'd out and hes saving to get a 1900cc motor or something with dual carbs. Im not too down with the old VW lingo and parts. But hes making a big deal out of it haha.

What it takes to drop the motor out:



Empty engine bay



42mm DCNF Webers



Makes my brother-in-law jealous because his Mustang only has a single crappy 2-barrel.


I commissioned a guy in Italy to make me some custom 28mm venturis for the carbs. It's currently got 34mm ones in it and that is way too large for just a 1600cc motor. When I get those I'll rebuild these guys. I've already torn them down but I put 'em back together so I wouldn't lose any of the little parts.

The motor is still sitting on my floor jack. I need to strip some parts off of it to lighten the load so I can lift it onto my engine stand.

Holy shit.

???
The only downside is that they're going to take 2 weeks to get here. Should be delivered soon though.

I'm going to take the heads off tonight so I can get the motor off of my floor jack, I need to use it for PM on my truck. With the heads off I can measure the deck height and chamber volume so I can calculate what compression ratio it was running. It required 93 octane using (R+M)/2 method and while I don't really care that I have to use the premium fuel I would like to know what sort of compression I can run. The new camshaft I'm going to use might require that I adjust it.

I got my new venturis today. They look freaking incredible. However, getting the old ones out has been a total pain. I've gotten ONE of them out and I gotta do 3 more.

For comparison purposes here is one carb with the new 28mm venturis installed and the other with the old 34mm ones.

This thread is full of win.

Is that a sarcastic remark?

No.

Motor on stand with cylinder heads removed. Freaking domed pistons are going to complicate my deck volume measurement. As it turns out these are only 83mm pistons/cylinders so assuming a stock crankshaft with 69mm stroke I'm only looking at a 1500cc motor. The good thing is that the 85.5mm ones to give me a 1600cc motor will fit without any machine work. After I get the deck height measured I'll pop the cylinders off, remove the pistons, and split the case. I'm interested in seeing what camshaft is in there.

I'm enjoying this very much!

I used some Play-Doh to make an impression of the dome on the pistons and then measured the volume it took to fill. Static compression ratio is a little higher than 9:1.

It's been way too hot and humid here so I've been less than motivated to do any work outside.

I STILL don't have the case open. I need to take the flywheel off and I don't have the proper tools. I took out the oil pump. It slid right out . I was able to see the stamped numbers on my camshaft. 4062 That's a Bugpack brand shaft. I checked the specs on it and it should be a good street cam. Assuming it's in good shape I will just reuse it.

You might be thinking "but fiber optic, if you already have a good camshaft why bother going further to split the case with all of the associated headaches?" I'm going to have to clean it out. That and I bought an oil filter kit. Yes these old cars had no oil filters, just a screen comparable to that on a patio. There's a method to install the filter without disassembling the motor but I don't trust myself to do it right. Besides I've gotten it this far I might as well open it up and make sure everything inside is OK.

But fiber optic, if you already have a good camshaft why bother going further to split the case with all of the associated headaches?

Finally it's cooled off here. I opened the case up on Monday and what I saw was not good. Crankshaft is smoked. Cam and followers look fine. What a pain.

Yes, I know it's been almost a year.

At about the time I stopped updating we decided to move to a new house. All of my 'fun money' disappeared to help save for the down payment and moving expenses. Now that we've settled in a bit the work can resume.

There was a change of plan at some point. I essentially decided to scrap the rebuild idea and start from scratch and build the motor I've always wanted. The camshaft is probably the only thing that will remain the same.

2007cc (78mm stroke x 90.5mm bore)
Dual Weber 42mm DCNF carburetors
Bugpack 4062 camshaft (.415" lift and 244º duration at .050")
Full flow oil system
Additional 1.5 quart oil sump

Here are some pictures of the new case.


Bored for 92mm cylinders but I'll be using thick-walled 90.5mm


Clearenced for stroker crankshaft, I'll be using a 78mm counter-weighted one.


Oil pick-up tube extension to accommodate oil sump.


Drilled and tapped oil galley which will allow me to use a canister filter to actually filter the motor's oil.


Tomorrow I'm placing the order for a short-block kit. Crankshaft, rods, flywheel, bearings, seals which should get me started again.

yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, i had wonder what happened to this thread. im excited to see how it comes along.

mmm, aircooled. Th build looks good. I have tooled around on a 36hp engine. It has given me an appreciation for the design of the motor and the people/factory where it was constructed.

My plan on a motor is 2.5l+ type 4. You know, after I get out of college and have money for this stuff...

Ooh a nice 2.0. That should be a monster.

So, you're not using those awesome venturis anymore?

No, I'll be able to use the 34mm ones that they came with.

Kinda OT, but do you know how similar this engine is to the one in a 1970s era Porsche (912 and 914 specifically)?

I'm hoping to buy a 914 after life calms down here (T-4 days till due date) and am wondering what my tuning options are for the flat four, and where I might find some good resources for someone who is new to air-cooled engines.

I think the 4-cylinder motor used in the 914 is the same as used in the post '72 microbuses and what's called the Type 4 Volkswagens. In VW circles it's often just called the Type 4 motor. Some guys think it's the finest 4-cylinder aircooled motor VW ever made. I can't say either way but they can be made wickedly powerful. Jake Raby at AirCooledTechnology is probably the most knowledgeable and trusted when it comes to the Type 4 motors.

There are a couple of good forums packed with too much information.
Shop Talk ForumsThey have a Type 4rum and a specific 914 forum

The Forums at The Samba



EDIT: I don't know anything about the 6-cylinder motors.

Short block kit has been ordered. As it turns out the 78mm stroke crankshaft is really 78.8mm. I don't understand why that's the case but it does change my displacement by about 20cc. It will end up being something around 2028cc.

Forged 4340 crank with VW journals 8-doweled
5.4" H-beam rods with 3/8" ARP 8740 bolts
4340 lightened flywheel (12.5 lbs stock is close to 19 lbs I think)
HD chromoly gland nut (holds flywheel on crank)
Main, rod, and cam bearings
Crank gear set
Gaskets
and all dynamically balanced


I also got an appropriate mount for the motor. The one I was using was borrowed from my father-in-law which is designed for small block V8s and was eating up my old case. You can see how it mounts in Post #14. The new one is designed for VW/Porsche motors.


I can take some pics of some of the other parts I've got laying around if anybody cares. Crankcase breather, carb linkage, oil sump, intake manifolds, etc. Just for something to keep you entertained while we wait on parts. Hopefully my stuff will be here by next weekend so some work can get done.

Post away...this is awesome.

Oil sump, looking at the bottom of it.


Profile of the sump. The pickup tube extends into this from the original. It's designed to increase oil capacity so that a non-stock motor doesn't starve itself of oil.


Intake manifold. Weber DCNF to VW dual port.


Same as above from another angle. I'll send these away when I buy the heads to have them port matched to the intake ports on the heads. Flow and velocity++


Carburetor linkage. Connects two carburetors to a single throttle cable. This style mounts to the fan shroud.


Full flow oil kit. This allows the oil to be filtered through a real filter. Originally VWs only had a mesh screen in the sump and really only prevented catastrophic failure. The oil pump's original outlet gets plugged and the oil comes out through the black square pump cover (seen in the top left of the photo), goes through the lines to the filter, and then back into the case through the threaded hole in the oil galley.


Crankcase breather. Similar behavior to a PCV system. Vertical outlet will be plumbed to air filter top to provide vacuum. The two horizontal ones will route to the valve covers to apply vacuum to the crankcase. This is baffled to separate oil out which gets drained back into the case. Also provides a more convenient oil fill hole.




I visited my parents today and dad said there was a VW show in town. There were a couple of sweet cars, a grey oval window and a late 50's early 60's cal-looker, lots of garbage cars, no wild motors, a couple of hippies, and lots of motivation.

The short block parts got here on Thursday. Much quicker than I was expecting them.


H-beam rods. 5.4" length with VW sized big end. With the 78.8mm stroke this will give me a rod ratio of 1.74 which should be good for my setup. Lots of good air velocity. They're called H-beam because if you were to look at the cross section it looks like the letter H. There are also I-beam rods but I think the H-beams are stronger.


Flywheel. I thought it was a 12.5 pound one but the box is marked as 14.5 Still lighter than stock and the extra 2 pounds might help dampen any harmonics traveling through the crank but still allow the motor to rev up a bit more freely. It's 8-doweled which refers to the holes drilled in it. Original VW flywheels only had 4 holes. If you look closely you might notice that the holes are not evenly spaced. It's done on purpose as the flywheel and crankshaft are balanced together and this ensures they get put back together properly.


Forged counter-weighted crankshaft. Stroke length is 78.8mm which is relatively mild for a VW motor. Original VW stroke length was 69mm and the largest that fits before extensive modification is required is 86mm. 78.8mm is also slighly longer than the stroke in a 5.0 Ford V8.


The first step to assembly is getting the bearing and gears onto the new crankshaft. It will require heating up the camshaft drive gear to expand it and then putting it on.

Neat,

So...by having a longer stroke you're building an engine which will not rev super high, but will have more low end torque?

It may still rev high (maybe 6000RPM?) and make power up in the higher range but low end torque is what I'm after.

This may be a noob question...but when you build an engine from scratch how do you determine the redline?

It will have to be test run to see how all of the components interact with each other.





Here's some of today's work. 3 of the main bearings are installed so that they could be marked for proper orientation. If you look at the spot where I didn't put one in you can see a little dowel which aligns the bearings. The little hole that's at 7 o'clock to the dowel is the oil hole. The one that's left out is a split bearing so it's more difficult to make a mistake on.


Crankshaft again. As it turns out they're really dirty when they're new. I cleaned this thing for an hour but finally got it cleaned to my satisfaction.


I know this is a really crappy update. I spent the better part of the afternoon getting the motor stand drilled and mounting the case to it. I was hoping to get the gear set installed but that will happen tomorrow.

if it has pictures of an engine it is an awesome update.

How comes along the engine?

I'll have to quote this...

I'm an idiot and really pissed at myself. I put in the pulley key in the crankshaft before I put the oil slinger on and now I can't get the key out. I've beaten the crap out of it and am very close to just saying forget it and buying a new shaft.

I'm ordering a new crankshaft this afternoon. I really really hate myself for burning the cash but I don't see another option. The old one may be salvageable but right now I don't like the looks of it. I definitely don't want to run it if it's even marginal only to have it die on me and screw the rest of the motor and be out money++.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been beating myself up over this for the past week while trying to make it work. I have very little patience and get frustrated easily. Had I been cool about it I may not have wrecked it. I really hate to learn lessons like this but maybe someone else can learn from my mistake.

Proper order for gear assembly onto a type 1 crankshaft.

1.) Number 3 bearing.
2.) Key for cam/distributor drive gears.
3.) Camshaft timing gear.
4.) Spacer.
5.) Distributor drive gear.
6.) Snap ring
7.) Oil slinger
8.) Pulley key.

About $100 worth of motor oil. 30 weight on the top with extra extra ZDDP for break-in and 10W-30 on the bottom with extra ZDDP for flat tappet camshaft use. And it really is green. Imagine a green slurpee from 7-11 and that's it or Ecto Cooler Hi-C if you ever had that. Not amber at all like every other oil I've ever used. 100% pure Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil. I'll try to get a pic of it, it's wild.


Friday's gear fry. This expands the gear so it fits over the crank. 100% pure soybean oil.


Installed. Also notice alignment hole in #3 bearing. Installed correctly with pin toward flywheel (front) side.

Nice.

I feel for ya. I don't do my own maintenance, not only because I would likely damage the car in the process, but because I would likely give myself an ulcer in the process. These sorts of things just stress the shit out of me.

Well, the advantage I have with the VW is that I don't have to rely on it to get me to work on Monday. I'm not in any sort of rush to get it together which does help. Working on my truck or the Volvo is a little more stressful for that reason. The work isn't hard but it does require a certain level of knowledge to not screw anything up and cheap parts certainly don't help.


Next step for the motor is to put the rods on the crank and drop the crank into the case. I think I might buy a new camshaft too, they're relatively cheap and I'm trying to hit 100HP in this thing.

Man, where did you learn to cook a gear in soybean oil to make it expand?

It's the method described in the official VW service manual.


Here's the entire assembly. Brass gear is the distributor drive. #4 bearing is really little. Dish is the oil slinger to keep oil from coming out at pulley end.


Here's the green oil. I dipped the paper towel in there. I don't know what my fixation is with the oil. It stinks something fierce though, must be all that good ZDDP.

Yes, progress has been slow. I was hoping the rods would just go on and everything would be giggles and pie. That was not the case. The side clearance was too tight, probably about half of what is considered the minimum for a street performance motor. Getting the clearance correct has been an exercise in repetition. Install rod, check clearance, remove rod, reassemble rod, clearance, disassemble rod, install and recheck clearance, rinse and repeat. I've done 2 rods so there are 2 more to go. I'll probably get those done tomorrow now that I've got a good method for it.


Kinda hard to read but the feeler gauge is 0.014" which is good to go. Side clearance is exactly what it sounds like. The clearance between the side of the rod and the crankshaft. Too tight and there's too much friction, too loose and all of the oil flows out, so it has to be in the sweet spot of 0.014" and 0.016" for new rods. The acceptable range for a stock motor is much larger FYI.

One on and torqued down. No hangups and clearance is gooooooood.

Ahh, don't parts look so pretty when they're brand new....

And Craftsmen tools

Note the notch on the right side of the rod. The cap also has one and they are there so you put them on against each other. The rod has some kind of offset in it and this makes sure you get it the right way. Notches go toward the camshaft.


Here's the crank assembly sitting in the left case half.

I was going to mock up my old camshaft in the case but I ran into a problem.


The spot for the large thrust bearing has no notch.


The bearing has a tang on it that won't fit.


So I filed it off. The other way to go is to notch the case but the cam bearings are cheap compared to the case if I screw it up.

I'll drop it in tomorrow and see if I'll need to get my new cam clearanced. It's possible the throws on the crank could hit the cam. I figure I'd try with my old cam so when I order the new one I can have the shop clearance it before they send it.