V8 Super Beetle Project

[74slug]

great job on the build. are you still stuck in that little rental space garage? i guess any space gets full in a hurry. parts seem to multiply don't they? still beats laying out on a gravel driveway in the rain.

i see you're from houston. are you going to be running your bug at houston raceway when your finished? i live about 1 and 1/2 hours east from that track. i'd like to see it go.

[V8 Super Beetle]

Hey there 74slug. I'm still in the rental garage. It did get filled in a hurry, that's for sure. Between all the parts removed from the bug, new boxed parts, and tools, I have limited space. I'll be getting more room soon. I'm about to close on a new house, two car garage, in less than 30 days. So I'll be able to have more room to work with. It's on the home stretch though. Just trying to get a couple issues sorted out so I can start putting things together.

I do plan to take it to the track to see what she does. It might not be until next year til that happens, wedding and new house this year, but I will definitely let you know when I plan to take her out. I'd like to do 4-5 passes to see what she'll do and to help break the engine in. I'm going to load her up on a trailer and take it out there before I get it street legal.

[paulj]

Hey Matt, what spare engine parts do you have left over?

[V8 Super Beetle]

Quick update...

I got all my parts back from the machine shop, again. I had them check to make sure I didn't knock any of big rod ends out of round by using the brass hammer. They checked out fine. I had to order a new piston because one got away from me and hit the ground. So it then didn't want to go back into the bore smoothly. Seems it was out of round. I had the new piston pressed on the rod. I also managed to buger up the rod journal during pre-assembly because the rod caps were hard to get off. So I had it polish and it pretty much got rid of the scratch. Last but not least, the machine shop figured out why I couldn't get the #3&4 pistons on the rod journals. I had the wrong bearings. Apparently you have to have narrowed bearings because of the extra fillet machined on the journals that give it extra strength. I wasn't too upset I had to buy another set of bearings because I now have some Clevite 77 high performance mains / rod bearings now rather than the cheap Summit bearings. This thing is now going from a cheap project to an expensive one. LOL!

So all those problems were taken care of. This past week I took the engine block to the car wash to give it a good bath. I wanted to make sure I got it super clean just to be sure there's no left over metal in the block from machining. I had some help from my fiancé's brother.





Austin wiping the bores down, after hosing it with a can of WD-40, giving it the "paper towel test". I cleaned the block with an engine cleaning brush kit.


When I got the block back from the machine shop I had them leave it bare. No plugs, cam bearings, nothing, because I wanted to install everything myself so I can learn. Months ago I bought a cheap cam tool from summit (summit brand tool). So I gave installing the bearings a try. Well, I managed to ruin a set of bearings and had to remove them because I was using the tool wrong, I think? To remove one of the stubborn bearings I had to put a screw driver through the oil hole and bang out the bearing that way which bent the bearing into itself. Needless to say, I got some bearing shavings in the block. So I had to the load the block back up for another wash. I then had to buy a new set of bearings, which is fine cause I bought a better brand / set (I had a summit bearing set), and I then modified the cam tool. It worked a lot better and thought it should've came the way I made it work. ;D I'll take some pics and show you the mods.

Any who, cam bearings are in, I masked off the engine and painted the block black, knocked in the freeze plugs, and trial fitted the cam. So far everything is going smoothly, for now. ;D




This weekend I'm going to try and have the short block assembled and sealed up. Just like the machinist told me, "You might accidentally get this thing together after all!"

[hellraiser]

if you dont succeed try try again! haha

[V8 Super Beetle]

I know, right. That's how it's been up until this point. Thing is, with an engine, you can't half as it or it wont last.

[hellraiser]

ya, take ur time, my engine, even though it was profesionaly built, im still gunna double check the mains and rod, tourque.

dont wanna shoot any rods lol

by the way, how old r u v8superbeatle?

[V8 Super Beetle]

I'm 28. That's not me in the pic.

www.myspace.com/cmattdabrat

[hellraiser]

ok gotcha lol.

[Mock1racer]

Did you get your engine broke in yet? What are you doin about trans?

[V8 Super Beetle]

I wish. I was going to put it together this weekend, but I'm holding off until this coming Saturday so my old man can be part of the engine building. I don't know when will be the next time, if ever, that we'll get to do something like this. That and he gave me the engine block and tranny for my build so I figured it's the least I could do to show him my appreciation.

I have a th350 I'm going to rebuild. I have a TCI rebuild kit with the added extra clutches, and a B&M shift. It should be pretty beefy and shift hard.

The project has been going slow lately because I'm closing on a new home Aug 14th and a wedding right around the corner. After all that's said and done it's on.

[Mock1racer]

Your wife will have more honeydo crap for you to do than you can imagine!Ha!

[V8 Super Beetle]

Luckily it hasn't got to that point yet. Although I already do quite a bit. I can only image once we get our house. Great...lol

[Mock1racer]

I'm 39 , been married 3x's ...

it happens

[northwestoutlaw]

keep up the good work. well here is my myspace www.myspace.com/424264364