[owdlvr]

Ooh, I will take a look at that for sure!

So a project is never finished...I haven't been happy with the power level of the car, especially when accelerating from a standstill. The car is just slower then my white '69 was, both in acceleration and top speed. I attributed the top speed both to the massive ride-height and it's resulting instability with crosswinds. (aka part car, part my fear level)...but the acceleration just doesn't make sense. I finally had a chance to look at it last night and discovered a simple issue which is possibly causing the problem. A key step when setting up new carbs/engine? Yeah, that would be determining if you can get full throttle with your pedal. Adjusted now to get to about 80% of the stops on the carbs, will need some reengineering to figure out how to get the last 20%, but I'll try it today on gravel and see how it is.

The other item I'm not fully sold on is the shifting. I tossed this in another thread, and it originally comes from a PM I wrote, but without having to retype it, I think it makes sense:

I'm using a stock bug shifter with EMPI aluminum short shift kit and then a custom carbon knob and custom carbon tube over the stock shift shaft. If I pull the knob and carbon tube off, it's 100% stock VW Beetle...even the lock out plate. I did double up the lockout springs (using two stock ones), and the shift rod is a cut-and-weld mix of stock beetle, steel tubing and Porsche shift rod.

I have a shorter-then-stock-beetle throw going forwards and backwards, but what feels like "stock" throw going side to side. It's easy to figure out where all the gears are and works quite well...most of the time. The problem is the Z-bend in the shift rod. This makes the side-to-side action somewhat vague at times, and appears to bind occasionally. A quick wiggle of the shifter in neutral sorts everything out and the gears become easy to find again, but this doesn't help much if you're on a race track! I believe I have some more R&D to do before I'm 100% happy.

My reverse (and 1st) lockout works well, but I need to build a single-spring that is heavier weight. The two springs occasionally bind and don't allow the shifter to snap up, thus the lockout "sticks on". If you're not careful it's easy to select reverse instead of second. I have learned that if I go into first, and the shifter snaps-up immediately, everything will be okay. If I don't hear the snap, I have to be super careful.

On the catching reverse front, instead of second, even when the shifter snaps up it's possible to 'rub' reverse on your way into second. I had a chance to talk to a couple of 901-Equipped Porsche owners, and the problem is found in those cars too.

Bottom line is that I have fully sorted out perfect shifting yet...I'm currently considering going back to the stock beetle shifter shaft (small diameter) and adding a "gate plate" and tower above the transmission tunnel. Imagine a Ferrari shift-gate-plate, but mounted on a 4-post tower. That should eliminate miss-shifts if it were precisely machined. Possibly ugly, but I will try and find the photo of a factory Audi rally car that used one. The other option is to go with two universal joints in the Z-bend so that when I move the shifter left and right the shaft rotates at the transmission as it should. Currently it rotates and "swings" due to the hard Z-bend. Going universals, however, would require between 2 and 4 mounts welded into the trans tunnel which could be a challenge with the body on.

So shifting is another item I'll be looking into after I get back from two-weeks away.

-Dave