Funny Engine Story

[stinger608]

Well lets see here, its coming up on three years since I bought my VDub trike. I did a trade with a fella down in Denver Colorado and I knew there were some odd quirks that needed to be fixed, but I figured I got a good deal doing the trade.

The guy I got the trike from had purchased it about a year before I got it and he had bought it from the original guy that built the trike. He got paper work for the engine that stated it was built by a well known Denver VW shop called Painters Grinding. I looked the paper work over and it showed that it was a 1915cc with tons of machining, hi performance 40mm x 35.5 heads, stainless valves, Engle W120 cam, full flow oil pump, etc...

It was mid August when I got the trike that year, so I really didn't get a good chance to ride it much until last summer. After some short rides I really really felt that the engine wasn't at all a 1915cc and it sure as hell didn't have an Engle W120 cam as it had a smooth idle. I came to the conclusion that if it was a 1915 there was something seriously wrong with it.

So, a couple of months ago I pull the motor and tear it down...........LOL, yea okay, I was right. It ended up being a frigging 1641 with an Engle W100 and bone stock 043 heads. I knew it didn't have the power a real 1915 would have.

It did have an excellent EMPI "bubble top" all aluminum case and an 8 dowel counter weighted 69mm forged crank though. So I decided to build me a decent 1835 out of that combo. Added an Engle W110 cam, the 92mm AA pistons and cylinders, straight cut timing gears, hi performance big valve heads ported with 12mm long reach plug bosses, and thanks to our own Deathbysnusnu, a great set of 1.25: to 1 set of Scat rockers. I ordered Chromoly cut to length pushrods as well.


Well, I finally got it fired up Saturday to run the cam in for 20 minutes at a mild 2000 rpm, drained the oil and filter and put new filter and oil in her and took it out yesterday.


Holy cow what a huggggggggggggggggggggggge difference!!!!! It is 10 fold the engine it was originally! First to second and second to third it pulls the front wheel right off the ground and will do 0 to about 60 in a city block.

Went up the highway a little and came up on a pickup truck doing about 50. Got the chance to go around and hammered it down, pulled out around the truck and once I got past, which was a couple of seconds, I looked down to see that I was up to 100mph.

Yep, that'll work.


Sorry for the long a$$ read but wanted to share this tale with ya all.

[Rsw]

Cool story What gears are you running?

[DeathBySnuSnu]

Good to see ya enjoying it!!!

How ya liking g the straight cut cam gears. I have never done that. Still running bevel cut and double thrust bearings. I am at the extreme limit of its limits though. I just did not wanna hear the straight gears as it is right under me. Are they really as loud as some make them out to be?

Wierd how some folks can come up with these tall engine stories.

[stinger608]

They are pretty loud honestly. Have almost a whine to them. Not bad being in the rear but I think your mid engine design would make it very loud for ya.

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Cool story What gears are you running?

I think the transmission is one of the freeway flyers. At least the 4th gear is.

[jaxbobg]

What are you guys doing? I can see building a trike in your home shop, but then you rebuild the engine? If you're souping up a rear mounted engine like that, it seems you'd see nothing but sky going down the road on the rear wheels, nose pointed in the air.

How many Harley owners have rebuilt their engines? Or Honda, Suzuki, CanAm, Kawasaki, or others? I once had an underpowered trike and sold it so I could buy one that suited me better. Easy-Peasy.

[Ozarkryder]

What are you guys doing? I can see building a trike in your home shop, but then you rebuild the engine? If you're souping up a rear mounted engine like that, it seems you'd see nothing but sky going down the road on the rear wheels, nose pointed in the air.

How many Harley owners have rebuilt their engines? Or Honda, Suzuki, CanAm, Kawasaki, or others? I once had an underpowered trike and sold it so I could buy one that suited me better. Easy-Peasy.

I don't know about the other marques you mentioned, but I'd guess up to 1/2 of HD owners in general do something to increase performance of the HD lump. A lot of folks at least get better flowing intake and exhaust, and then cams are a popular upgrade. If I remember from when we had a VW TrikeShop Runabout, nothing that stinger608 did took any machine work, and was mostly a matter of disassembly and assembly. VW performance parts are inexpensive and plentiful, and it would be a good weekend project, even with ample beer breaks.

[starrider1946]

Stinger I feel you on buying and engine that it's not what it is sold as. I had a VW back in 83 and the motor was going bad so I bought one from wrecking yard that was supposed to have just been rebuilt. I pulled mine and and put it in and it was worse than one one I already had in the car. Guess you just have to be careful what you buy.
Anyway it sounds like you built a beast. Hope you have fun with it.

I don't know about the other marques you mentioned, but I'd guess up to 1/2 of HD owners in general do something to increase performance of the HD lump. A lot of folks at least get better flowing intake and exhaust, and then cams are a popular upgrade. If I remember from when we had a VW TrikeShop Runabout, nothing that stinger608 did took any machine work, and was mostly a matter of disassembly and assembly. VW performance parts are inexpensive and plentiful, and it would be a good weekend project, even with ample beer breaks.

[jaxbobg]

I don't know about the other marques you mentioned, but I'd guess up to 1/2 of HD owners in general do something to increase performance of the HD lump....

Really? Marque?

Wow! That's a pretty obscure word, based on old Middle French and old High German languages. Usually refers to make of automobile, but not necessarily out of context here.

[DeathBySnuSnu]

What are you guys doing? I can see building a trike in your home shop, but then you rebuild the engine? If you're souping up a rear mounted engine like that, it seems you'd see nothing but sky going down the road on the rear wheels, nose pointed in the air.

How many Harley owners have rebuilt their engines? Or Honda, Suzuki, CanAm, Kawasaki, or others? I once had an underpowered trike and sold it so I could buy one that suited me better. Easy-Peasy.

Even if you went out and bought the very last air cooled bug ever made, it would still be so old it would need a rebuild anyway.

Then some us (raising my hand) are just plain motorheads.
We would be hot rodding it regardless of the make or model.
Not so much into the easy peasy way, because well....anybody can do that.

[stinger608]

If I remember from when we had a VW TrikeShop Runabout, nothing that stinger608 did took any machine work, and was mostly a matter of disassembly and assembly.

Yea there was machining to be done. When going from a stock 1600 case and head bore of 85.5mm and going to an 1835 92mm bore, the case and heads have to be "fly cut" for the bigger cylinder bores.

However, if you look at the very top tool on Scat's site: http://www.scatvw.com/master/spec_tools/

You'll see the boring/flycutter set. I have one of those now, which I didn't at the time I needed the case and heads cut, so making the cuts was no problem. That complete tool was on back order and I didn't even get the dang thing until about a week ago. Paid for it in early April. Needless to say I had to take the case and heads down to Denver to be machined.

[FuzzyWuzHe]

Well lets see here, its coming up on three years since I bought my VDub trike. I did a trade with a fella down in Denver Colorado and I knew there were some odd quirks that needed to be fixed, but I figured I got a good deal doing the trade.

The guy I got the trike from had purchased it about a year before I got it and he had bought it from the original guy that built the trike. He got paper work for the engine that stated it was built by a well known Denver VW shop called Painters Grinding. I looked the paper work over and it showed that it was a 1915cc with tons of machining, hi performance 40mm x 35.5 heads, stainless valves, Engle W120 cam, full flow oil pump, etc...

It was mid August when I got the trike that year, so I really didn't get a good chance to ride it much until last summer. After some short rides I really really felt that the engine wasn't at all a 1915cc and it sure as hell didn't have an Engle W120 cam as it had a smooth idle. I came to the conclusion that if it was a 1915 there was something seriously wrong with it.

So, a couple of months ago I pull the motor and tear it down...........LOL, yea okay, I was right. It ended up being a frigging 1641 with an Engle W100 and bone stock 043 heads. I knew it didn't have the power a real 1915 would have.

It did have an excellent EMPI "bubble top" all aluminum case and an 8 dowel counter weighted 69mm forged crank though. So I decided to build me a decent 1835 out of that combo. Added an Engle W110 cam, the 92mm AA pistons and cylinders, straight cut timing gears, hi performance big valve heads ported with 12mm long reach plug bosses, and thanks to our own Deathbysnusnu, a great set of 1.25: to 1 set of Scat rockers. I ordered Chromoly cut to length pushrods as well.


Well, I finally got it fired up Saturday to run the cam in for 20 minutes at a mild 2000 rpm, drained the oil and filter and put new filter and oil in her and took it out yesterday.


Holy cow what a huggggggggggggggggggggggge difference!!!!! It is 10 fold the engine it was originally! First to second and second to third it pulls the front wheel right off the ground and will do 0 to about 60 in a city block.

Went up the highway a little and came up on a pickup truck doing about 50. Got the chance to go around and hammered it down, pulled out around the truck and once I got past, which was a couple of seconds, I looked down to see that I was up to 100mph.

Yep, that'll work.


Sorry for the long a$$ read but wanted to share this tale with ya all.

Dang ... I only understood about 1/2 of that .... but I gotta say ... I loved reading it. I admit ... Kinda like to get "Fat Bottom Girls" front up ... just once.

[Ozarkryder]

Yea there was machining to be done. When going from a stock 1600 case and head bore of 85.5mm and going to an 1835 92mm bore, the case and heads have to be "fly cut" for the bigger cylinder bores.

However, if you look at the very top tool on Scat's site: http://www.scatvw.com/master/spec_tools/

You'll see the boring/flycutter set. I have one of those now, which I didn't at the time I needed the case and heads cut, so making the cuts was no problem. That complete tool was on back order and I didn't even get the dang thing until about a week ago. Paid for it in early April. Needless to say I had to take the case and heads down to Denver to be machined.

Ah oops. Been a long time, and I missed the numbers. I did the 1600 - 1800 "No Machine" upgrade. Mostly a stroke job. I seem to remember there was some minor clearancing to do, I think we went with 74mm rods, but don't quote me, this was 20 years ago. I do know we used the stock tins and exhaust, added an oil filter kit and for some reason added an oil cooler. (I think a friend had one sitting around) It was a dual runner motor with a 40mm dual throat DRLA Dell'Orto carb. Not that much different from Weber IDF, but seemed to have an "Oooooh" factor due to the carb being Italian.

[DeathBySnuSnu]

They are pretty loud honestly. Have almost a whine to them. Not bad being in the rear but I think your mid engine design would make it very loud for ya.

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I think the transmission is one of the freeway flyers. At least the 4th gear is.

Yeah my bevel cuts are good on the backlash and dialed in so they *gonna run.

Not sure of your gear ratios?
I have a spare set of 3.88's laying around somewhere.
A freeway flyer either has a .82 4th or a 3.88 r&p.

I started double flyer. Big 4th and 3.88
I still blew through the gears to fast. I went back and put Splined shafts and 3.44 r&p.

[stinger608]

Yeah my bevel cuts are good on the backlash and dialed in so they *gonna run.

Not sure of your gear ratios?
I have a spare set of 3.88's laying around somewhere.
A freeway flyer either has a .82 4th or a 3.88 r&p.

I started double flyer. Big 4th and 3.88
I still blew through the gears to fast. I went back and put Splined shafts and 3.44 r&p.

Yea I haven't even messed with the transaxle. I will probably "freshen" it up next winter and will look at what it actually is at that time. First, second, and third all seem to be pretty standard ratio's so I am assuming it doesn't have the 3.88's for r&p.

[DeathBySnuSnu]

So whatcha think about those aa piston and cylinders?*
You get the hyper cast slipper skirts or the true forged?

I came close to getting the true forge center pins. If that had of been in stock they would have been bought. So I had to wait and changed my mind. Wound up with the light weight forged offset pin mahle set.

[stinger608]

So whatcha think about those aa piston and cylinders?*
You get the hyper cast slipper skirts or the true forged?

I came close to getting the true forge center pins. If that had of been in stock they would have been bought. So I had to wait and changed my mind. Wound up with the light weight forged offset pin mahle set.

Yea I couldn't afford the forged.
Wish I could have. So far, for the little time I have ran them, they seem to be fine. When I weighed them they were within a 5 grams of each other. So that isn't bad at all.