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entry Nov 11 2007, 07:28 PM
In talking with Jay about cam selection he recommended I look at the way I drive. Am I interested in getting the car to the highest top speed possible? Do I short shift or wind it out to the red line. What are the actual RPM I am pulling at 60 mph, and I want to accelerate to say 70 mph?

The 1.7 I have in there now is good for about 90 mph and I don't really need to go much faster than that. I do tend to wind the car out to the 5,800 RPM limit, but that has more to do with the low power the car has right now. At 60 mph I am pulling 3200 rpm in 5th gear and 3800 in 4th.

I talked with Ron Iskenderian at Isky cams. They have two different cams for hydraulic lifters, a "torquer" and a "combination." He says the torque band for the "torquer" is 2000 - 5800 rpm and the "combination about 350 to 400 rpm higher. He says that the "combination" has a rougher idle than the "troquer" and that he prefers the latter because of that.

From the information I have gathered, I feel the ISKY "Torquer" cam #485122 is the best match for my objectives.

Jay called me the second week in November saying he is getting ready to do the machining and balance work on my engine, and we agreed that I would obtain the cam and clutch parts to complete the engine. The cam order came in as follows:

8 chrome moly pushrod tubes.......V-003..............$....60
"Torquer" cam.............................485122.................145
8 hydraulic lifters.........................4852-HY.................96
Valve springs................................205-G8..................28
Freight & tax...............................................................66
Total....................................................................$...395

The same week I got the Sachs clutch kit from 914motorsport for $238 delivered.

entry Nov 8 2007, 12:16 AM
I checked out a number of shops in the Bay Area. Ones that had been recommended by members on this board. I ended up deciding to have Jay's Precision Machine in Santa Clara do the work. He couldn't take in the work in October, and I had to wait until September 8 to bring in all the parts I had collected.

Jay has been working on these motors for over 30 years. He even did work for Garretson Enterprises when they were racing Porsches in the 70s and early 80s. He has a very calm relaxed manner about him, like a guy who knows a lot and doesn't need to prove anything.

Time passes slowly. I call Jay or go down to his shop from time to time, but things move slowly. In the mean time I have some decisions to make.

I decide on hydraulic lifters and cam because I'm not really keen on setting my valves every 3000 miles. From what I can tell, the main argument against them is that people don't maintain them and they go bad. That can be said of anything on these cars. From what I have read, people who have the Isky hydraulic cams and lifters seem to be pretty happy with them. Here are a couple of links that convinced me that hydraulic is the way to go (at least for me).

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?act...f=2&t=74055

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/HydraulicLifters.html


entry Oct 18 2007, 10:51 PM
By the end of July, 2007 I had accumulated the majority of the heavy pieces I needed to build a motor. Most of the other pieces will either get swaped over from the 1.7 or purchased new. You might think I had already decided on how to proceed with the build, but I really had'nt...

1) I could get a 2056 kit from Jake Raby for $3,735. http://www.aircooledtechnology.com/store/home.php?cat=308
Even with the kit I needed the carbs, distributor and case I acquired. I could sell what remained here on 914world and probably come out okay. Jake's kit is a good deal for those confident enough to assemble it. You get a proven product, and lots of new parts. I just hate working on cars. I love driving them, but my experience with working on them is that even if they were broken they ended up working better before I worked on them than after. The thought of cc'ing heads or setting deck height just makes me sweat. So on to plan "B."

2) McMark offers a turn key $5,000 Raby designed motor.
http://www.914club.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=42456
Mark is a good guy. I saw one of the engines he was building when I bought my 914, and the workmanship looked to be first rate. Almost all of the parts I had acquired so far would be needed for the build, and Mark could install the finished engine as well. At this point, however, I was not sure I wanted to go with Raby design. I had $500 invested in a pair of very clean 2.0 liter rebuilt heads, and those heads had (oh my god!) sodium filled valves in them. Did I really want to spend more money to switch them over to stainless steel? I read HPBooks "How to Rebuild Your Voldswagen Air-Cooled Engine" by Tom Wilson. He recomended hydralic lifters for Type 4 engines (and sodium filled valves as well). It got me thinking. Hydralic lifters are stable to around 6,000 RPM, what's not to like?

3) The third alternative was to hire the work out to various machine shops, mechanics, engine builders, etc. and hope for the best. There is more risk in this alternative, because if you order the wrong combination of parts and the thing blows up on you, you have no one but yourself to blame. The upside is that you get to research and investigate how to build the best engine for YOUR application and only you are responsible for the result, even if you didn't bolt it together.

 
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