'56 Oval

[T-34]

One of the guys at work also mentioned pressurising it, sounds like this is the way to go. I guess the most important part of whatever system used is the filters.

Will do a bit of digging and see what there is out there. I like the sound of an off the shelf solution - like the ARB vent.

Cheers for the suggestions guys.

[T-34]

Finally finished my other project which now free's me up to start looking at the Oval again. If you went to Uraidla the other week you might have seen it there. For those who are interested, here's the thing that's been distracting me from working on the Oval...



It's a '65 Type 34 Karmann Ghia. Bit of a rare beast and only one of 12 known RHD factory sunroof cars, and the only one known of in Australia. If you're wondering how I know this, it's because I also run http://www.type34.com The worldwide registry for Type 34 Karmann Ghia's. Worth a look if you like such things

...but enough trivia...

I've owned this car for 18 years and even shipped it with me from the UK when I moved here. It's taken me that long to finally get the thing finished, which has mostly been due to the push I've made on it over the past 6 months. It's got a mildy tuned 2150cc motor running on twin Webber IDF's a Scat C35 cam, Scat rods, Mahle B&P, A&A 4130 crank and all fired from a flamethrower dizzy. Not a screamer by any stretch of the imagination, probably somewhere in the region of 150BHP would be a good guess.

I built the 2150cc engine so that I could use the original engine and box that I had built for it in the Oval. Unfortunately I had a few issues with the build such as a brand new Scat crank which was bent by 5 tho, Dizzy gears with no keyways, missing woodruff keys, perforated oil coolers and other missing parts. This delayed the build a bit whilst I sourced new parts, which has meant that I've taken until November to get it finished, whereas I was hoping to have it finished a lot sooner. This has obviously eaten up a fair bit of Oval build time. With only just over a month to the next test and tune day, I've more than got my work cut out.

I've got some time off over xmas so will look at getting stuck in to some serious work. Need to figure out what's next. From memory I need to weld some holes up in the shell before I can get it back on the pan. I've also ordered a pair of uprated rear axles. These use the Porsche 930 CV joint - same as the gearbox, which means that I should be able to use an off the shelf drive shaft. many moons ago I approached someone to make me some custom drive shafts here in Adelaide, when I contacted them to pick them up I found that they had lost my measurements and not even started them - a big let down. Having the CV joints all the same means that I dont have to fark about with trying to get drive shafts made up again.

Now I come to think of it, I recon the driveshaft bloke has still got the CV joints I left there for him to match the splines. Probably two hopes of seeing those again

[Dr Goggles]

that's a sweeeeeet lookin thing.

[IN2VWS]

Bit of a rare beast and only one of 12 known RHD factory sunroof cars, and the only one known of in Australia. If you're wondering how I know this, it's because I also run http://www.type34.com The worldwide registry for Type 34 Karmann Ghia's. Worth a look if you like such things

......ummmm, sorry to say, but I know of 3 more factory RHD sunroofs in Australia. All have not seen the light of day for 15+ years. Have a look at Boris' from Vintage Vee Dub Supplies RHD sunroof. It is a very nice original example.

[T-34]

Tell Boris to add them to the Registry

[IN2VWS]

Some people don't like being on registries, that is why I didn't mention the names of the other 2 owners.

[T-34]

Totally agree, the numbers we have are only an indication of the remaining cars. Our best guess is that this figure could be two or even three times higher - pretty much exactly the case with the sunroof RHD's here in Aus.

We've only got a total of 34 cars listed for Australia, I'm pretty use there's more out there in hiding.

[T-34]

Made a start on something yesterday - fitting the electric winch into the trailer. Not much but something. Now at least I can get one of the cars out of the garage to give me more room.

[who]

Hi there T-34, and to everyone else on the forum. I may as well pop my cherry here!

I have to say I've really enjoyed reading your build thread, I had a 56 way back in my 20's so the ovals still stir a bit of emotion in me:-)

I’ve really no idea what I’m talking about, and I’m aware that builds are an intensely personal thing… however, have you considered a total loss ignition, and electric powered fans ducted into the cylinder baffles to cool the engine? In relation to gearing, do the automatic transaxles run a lower diff ratio as in a lot of other early cars?

I’ve subscribed to the build and are looking forward to seeing it progress to completion. Cheers!

[T-34]

G'day Who.

Removing the fan and alternator would certainly give an increase in power but I don't think power will be my biggest issue. My guess, and having not had any salt time with the car yet is only a guess [hopefully an educated one], is that my biggest problem will be grip, or to be more exact overcoming the aero (drag) versus grip issue. The beetle does not exactly have the best aero shape, and I'm not going to be running massively wide rubber; simply as there is not enough space under the stock arches., plus a beetle is relatively light so the downward force (grip) is lower than a larger car. The only saving grace may be that the engine is over the rear wheels, this certainly helps give beetles the edge in drag racing.

With respect to power, I'm running a large turbocharged Type 4 engine, this will give me much more power than I can realistically use, so a few losses in the system should not be an issue. Perhaps down the track when I'm chasing to get those few extra mph I may look at the extra power gains to be made, but at present I don't think it's needed to reach my initial goals.

I am also of the mind that electric cooling set ups are generally not good enough for sustained cooling. It's quite successful for drag cars as they only do short runs, but I have a feeling that the extended loading would create more heat than a traditional electric setup could cool. This is especially pertinent with a turbo engine where the inlet temps generally tend to run a lot higher. Of course I'm sure there would be a way to redesign the system so that it is more effective; perhaps by using a standard style fan and replacing the alternator with a 12 volt motor, or maybe something a little more exotic / left field. (possible with a total loss system)

The other thing that total loss systems normally run is a magneto, whereas I am running EFI. The risk in this case is that the fan load could drag the voltage down low enough to cause the EFI to cut out. This could be mitigated by the use of two batteries (i.e. two electrical systems) but now things are starting to get too complicated. Two batteries to maintain and monitor, two electrical systems to have safety cut outs on, more things to go wrong. Possibly worth it if you are chasing the elusive extra few MPH, but at this stage not necessary for my endeavours.

Good topic though. Who knows, when I finally get the thing on the salt I might just need to reconsider.

[who]

replacing the alternator with a 12 volt motor, or maybe something a little more exotic / left field. (possible with a total loss system)

Interesting your comments about running the oem fan with an electric motor... perhaps the type 1 DC generator could be turned into an electric motor? lol. As I said, builds are intensely personal

I've been reading posts both here and on the US land racing forum, and I think one of the most appealing things about this sport, is the depth of technical and engineering ingenuity that is applied to challenges that land racing presents. Cheers,

[T-34]

I've been reading posts both here and on the US land racing forum, and I think one of the most appealing things about this sport, is the depth of technical and engineering ingenuity that is applied to challenges that land racing presents. Cheers,

Totally agree.

For me this is one of the largest appeals of this particular event (S.A. Speedweek), there's a lot of grass roots stuff going on. Nearly every entrant is self built like me and there are very few big dollar corporate sponsor type entries (if at all in Aus - some just have more expendable cash than others ), as a result of this there's tons of ingenuity and masses of variety.

For other types of motor sport things are different, the events are more frequent and more numerous and as a result there's probably millions more development hours that go to contribute towards that shared pool of knowledge. Every tried and trusted modification or way of doing something has been finely honed by a multitude of racers in a plethora of events. That's not to mention the stuff thats filtered down from the big multi million dollar racing like F1, NASCA, V8 Supercars, etc. Okay so this may not be the same bleeding edge stuff that they are all using this year as that info is closely guarded, but there's a lot that's taken for granted in motorsport that was originally developed for the likes of F1.

In LSR, within the design of every entry there's some peer shared knowledge, but then there's the development that comes from running year after year and making the changes that will hopefully make the difference the next time out, there's no pre-defined formula or magic combination of parts. There's some awesome build threads both here and over at landracing.com that have loads of inspiration for someone just starting out like me, and reading through them you can see these year by year changes, the stuff that worked and the stuff that didn't.

Best of all, they're a friendly bunch in LSR and more than happy to share info, give advice and help you out.

[T-34]

Okay. Just back from speedweek and inspired to get the Oval finished.

It's pretty much sat in the garage for the past few years with no progress as I've been sucked into other projects but after yet another trip to the salt without a car I think I need to pull my finger out and get it done.

Just read back through this thread to see where I was up to. I really need to get the car rolling again and get the body lifted back on so that I can get the engine in and start fabbing up the header system for the turbo.

Work has been really slow recently so cash is tight. I need to concentrate on those jobs that I have parts for but unfortunately there are still a few big ticket items to get. I still need to source my race gear, helmet, HANS and extinguisher system, I also need to source some lexan for the windows as the rules appear to have changed RE glass.

One thing that I think that I need to address is the cooling set up. The Porsche cooling fan simply needs to go. It won't fit under the deck lid so I need to make up a cali set up. Main issue is that the case has been machined for the Porsche fan which makes it hard to then use it for anything else; so I will either need to re-case the engine (masses of work clearancing and machining) or engineer something different. Perhaps I really do need to take a serious look at an electric set up.

First off I need to go clean off the dust and take check of everything so that I can pick up from where I left off.

[David Leikvold]

Welcome back Mick,

One thing I noticed while working the start line this year, many cars had difficulty getting the shoulder harnesses to sit properly between the edges of the HANS device. This wasn't a fail but it would be better if the whole belt sat flat in the flat part of the HANS. Maybe you should buy one before you drill the holes in the cage for the shoulder belt mounts.

Cheers
Dave

[T-34]

Thanks for the heads up Dave.

I've got a shoulder bar as part of my cage so hopefully I will be able to position the belts a little better. I've also been looking at the 'hybrid' HANS systems which have an integral harness as they look to be a bit better then the type that relies solely on the harness straps.

One thing I noticed from speaking to a lot of the racers is that quite a few of them were speed restricted due to non-conformances due to the recent tightening down on the adoption of the SCTA rules. I'm pretty sure that most of the stuff that I have already done is compliant with the SCTA rules as we bought a copy prior to starting the build but I really need to go back over everything to make double sure. The one thing that I know I will have to change is my seat. I bought a low back Kirkey as I had aimed at fitting the head rest into the cage but it looks like I night be better off with the high back that has the additional 'wings' as this now appears to be a requirement.

I was really hoping to get a chance to speak with one of the scrutineers but everyone was busy with the racing so I decided not to interrupt. Do you know if there are any more SA scrutineering events planned?

Mick.