Ta for the good vibes guys. Dave - if mine turns out half as good as yours I'll be pleased - I've been following your build thread with interest. My cousin is a Paramedic in Vancouver - next time I pay her a visit i'm blanking out a day to come and see your car for real :-)
So, the build... All this body prep is no good without some motorvation, so the plan & rationale behind the engine is to start from a new-ish Mag case to keep the weight down out back. That means in reality best to keep it 90.5 bore to keep as much strength in the case as possible. A used CB 78mm crank makes it 2007cc. In order to get the max out of it then we need it to rev to 8500rpm (yikes!) so Mahle Forged pistons & CB 5.4" H-beam rods needed to link them. I think the cam settled on was an FK87, but can't be sure at the mo.
Case and crank may be used, but i did score a good deal on some new CB CNC 044's which are great as a starting point but are being worked on further, particularly to up the CR to 10.5.
Having built a few circuit engines before, and also watching some other circuit racers have oil pressure issues, I set my heart on a decent Dry Sump system. I had a friend badger Rick at Bugpack for ages to get one of their pumps, but it never showed - something about them only being made in batches and then some bloke in Vancouver wanted one for a rally bug... Anyway I gave up on that idea, then out of the blue this popped up on The Samba:
A used but excellent condition ARPM 2-stage pump and for a few hundred bucks is was flying its way across the Atlantic :-) Then a Pace Products tank came up on eBay for less than £100... The tank fits perfectly in the spare wheel well, slid down next to the battery. That way I have as much weight up front as possible.
Carbs is currently my next target - at present I have a set of 44IDF's I bought about 10 years back and have never used. Ideally I'd like some 48 DRLA's, but until they come up on eBay for peanuts then I'll have to stick with the 44's.
Gearbox-wise a friend is building me an IRS box as a Christmas present. He's 68 and has been building VW & Porsche boxes for 40 years, so I trust his skills. He also donated the (again used) welded 1.04 4th gear. With a 4.375 R&P it will make good use of the 8000rpm of the engine.
So, hopefully with that little lot i'll have some "oomph" out back :-)