I just got into the shop and have hundreds of emails and orders to go over, so if you are on my list I WILL get to you!
Here is the summary:
WOW is all I can say!!!
From day one I was confident that I could accomplish my goals, but I never expected to exceed them by so much, so easily!
I learned so much from the trip, even before having a chance to look at the data in depth. The duration of the trip was able to get me "in my zone" and keep me there for hours at a time.... I have noted trends that I never had before, and also saw first hand that some things I had thought previously may now be questionable enough for another look into.
The goals for the trip were:
* Trouble free trip cross country with zero maintenance required- accomplished
* Attain an average cruise speed in the mid 70s MPH over the entire duration of the trip- accomplished
* Data log at least 90% of the duration of the trip for later analysis- accomplished
* Test 5 different oils for temperatures and retrieve samples for analysis- accomplished
* Achieve an average of 25 MPG- Not accomplished, impacted by test work, tuning challenges from drastic elevation changes of the route and an extremely heavy car (2480 pounds). Our average MPG for the trip was 21 MPG
Interesting facts concerning the trip-
- 3,450 miles with no map!
- NO RADIO!
- NO CHASE VEHICLE!!!!!
- Two wrong turns
- 11 States
- 9, 660, 000 revolutions of the crankshaft
- 1628 spread sheet entries
- 5 days of travel time with 46 hours of seat time
- 5 gallons of Gatorade consumed by Pilot
- 8 meals in total over the span of the trip
- 26 hours of sleep for the Pilot and Navigator
- One traffic stop (Colorado Highway Patrol)
- 22 stops for gas with 160 gallons burned for an average MPG of 21.5
- 5 different test oils
- Vehicle weighed in at certified scale at 2,480 pounds (with pilot and Navigator in the cockpit).
- 46 Roadkills
-34 people asked "What are you doing" with one believing the engine was a top secret Hybrid Alternative
Specs of the car-
Mechanical
- 1966 Type 1 Beetle (AKA Bluebonic Plague) restored in 1997, driven hard since. Used primarily as test vehicle for my engine program. Hardly maintained, hardly washed, primarily abused and neglected on a daily basis.
Engine- 2270cc "Type 4 Torquer" built for the current Type 4 engine build up story in Hot VWs magazine. Dynoed at 170 HP at 5,500 RPM and 180 lb/ft of torque at 3,500 RPM. Engine was built from our 2270 "Type 4 Torquer" engine kit with all off the shelf components and no special parts or trick assembly. Engine was installed EXACTLY as it was completed for the magazine article, nothing was changed.
Cooling system- off the shelf Stage IV DTM with no changes except paint detail for the magazine article. Two fan drive ratios were utilized for various portions of the trip for data acquisition. Single Meas style 48 plate external oil cooler.
Exhaust system- A-1 header and 2.5" Magnaflow muffler
Ignition- Mallory unilite with off the shelf settings.
Induction- Weber 44 IDF with off the shelf components except altered main and air corrector jets.
Transaxle- "Speedmaster" from Aircooled Technology. Geared for high speed cruising for sustained periods of time.
Data acquisition system
- Race Technology DL-1 data logger with custom 4 channel expansion module coupled to four dual SPA gauges for precise real time monitoring.
Other electronics
- VDO oil temp and oil pressure gauges along with Autometer tachometer for general on the fly visuals.
- LM-1 Air/fuel ratio meter (provided signal for data logger)
- Lucent Technologies 14 channel weather station
- 350 watts of A/C inverted power
- Two Dell laptops, one with wireless GPRS capability for on the fly uploads of data to the net as well as email capability.
- 3 cell phones for keeping in touch with the real world.
- Two digital cameras and one digital video camera
- One LED headlight for the Navigator
- Cobra trapshooter Radar Detector
- Digital Altimeter
Now for the Summary:
Day One:
Day one began at 0700 as we launched on the way to the Bug Fever Fix show in Carrollton GA. We were still making last minute preparations to the electronics when we had to launch to stay on schedule. We showed up at the VW show, hung out for a while and gave back a borrowed roof rack that we decided we didn't want to use because it made the car handle like crap, made it loud and killed the gas mileage. We took off from the bug show headed for Birmingham l to hit I 65 and head north to Indianapolis. We made it to Indy by 1 Am and crashed for a few hours.
Day Two:
We launched by 0800 on the way to meet up with Ray Iddings of Volksbashradio for an interview... After the interview we decided to go weigh the car at a place that Ray knew about up the road a bit, so we ALL jumped in and took off. The added weight of Ray in the back seat was just enough to max out the suspension and shove the driver's rear tire into the body mount. This resulted in a cut down tire that knocked us SERIOUSLY off pace and took 3 hours from our already late day due to the interview.
Upon replacement of the tire, at a local Wal Mart I decided to use my cordless grinder we brought along on the trip to clearance the body to make sure this didn't happen again.... So thats what I did in the parking lot! We fited the new tire, driopped off Ray and hit the road to Momence IL for a stop at www.lnengineering.com to pick up the remainder of our test oils for the trip. By the time we got to Charles' place and got the tour it was too late in the day to make any serious tracks so we decided to crash there over night and leave very early the next morning since the tire episode took so much out of us. That evening was entertaining as we tore up the back roads in Charles' Fiat autobianchi and his 912 sporting RAT power.... After doing some data uploads we hit the rack at 0030
Day Three:
Up at 0330 after three hours of sleep we were up and trying to get our eyes open enough to drive. The brisk morning air with no heat in the Bug woke us up pretty quickly! We were bound and determined to bust our asses and get back on schedule after losing day two to the tire failure and the interview. We did exactly this as we completed the trek from Momence IL to Denver Colorado (1100 miles) in 23 straight hours of driving. This included time spent doing R&D experiments as well as stopping in the parking lot os a Subway sandwich shop to change to another test oil. In Iowa we hit a hellacious rain storm and got pounded with Hail for about 20 solid minutes. While new, modern cars were pulled over on the shoulder we kept trucking! When the rain cleared up the oil and head temps had plummeted to below normal and now that most of the pansies had pilled off at exits waiting for the storm to clear up we hit the dry road ahead and I ran the car very hard! We saw over 85-90 MPH for 15 solid miles with text book temps and excellent performance!
I decided to bump up the volume a bit on the accelerator and see our first average speeds in the 80s to get into Denver as fast as possible. When we were about 2 hours out of Denver we decided to stop for some chow, this is when Bill fell asleep while ordering his "Breakfast Burrito"! We powered on into Denver where a forum member (mase) was VERY helpful in helping us find a centrally located hotel room for the nights stay. (Thanks mase) We crashed hard at 0130 MST after being on the road for 23 hours and driving through a time zone.
Day four:
Up at 0700 and out to meet with Mase and one of his other VW friends for breakfast and some directions and short cuts to the attractions we wanted to see in the area. After the breakfast we made a jetting change in the parking lot of a Pancake house and were on our way to Loveland pass for an ultimate climb to the top of te 12,000 foot summit! We made the climb at an average speed of 71 MPH and did it in 4th gear! This is a very steep grade thats about 6 miles long and enough to drop most any Type 1 engine to it's knees begging for mercy- not so with the "Type 4 Torquer" as we smoked up it passing vehicles!
When we reached the summit I got there at such a pace I didn't even realize we had crested the grade! Bill had to yell "STOP- We are passing the Continental Divide"! So I locked up the brakes and threw it around in the middle of the road for a photo Op....
While we were there we met up with some individuals that were up there doing the same thing as us- datalogging! These guys were doing it for Chrysler and commenced to inform us that they as well as all the other manufacturers used that grade for datlogging and testing their vehicles. The equipment they had put us to shame, but we amazed them with our set up and what we had been able to make the car do! They couldn't believe that a Beetle could smoke up that grade that fast!
We loaded back up and headed down the hill while chasing some guy in a White Mini that thought it was fast... He out handled me but I was on his ass all the way down the grade! We stopped for fuel and then headed out for Salt Lake City and Aircooled Engineering. We passed through some of the most beautiful country in the world as we headed up Hwy 9 to Hwy 40 and Steam Boat Springs. We made good time until we stopped for Gas in Hayden Colorado and a Colorado Highway Patrolman heard me take off a little "Hard" and decided to follow us. I never saw him behind me as I don't generally look for state troopers riding in silver pick up trucks!
Here is an excerpt from Bill's post on the subject
The Officer informed Jake of the 1 car length for every mph rule and the regulations regarding brake lights. Jake explained how we have been traveling cross country to make it to BugORama in Sacramento and were a bit impatient with the slow driver in front of us and the brake light wire had probably vibrated loose because our rear suspension is riding on the snubber. He did this by addressing the Officer with Sir every sentance. After the Officer returned from the car with Jakes ID he asked what kind of motor he was running -- a 1300 or 1600? Jake explained that he could learn all about the motor in this months issue of HotVW's and that it was a Type 4. The Officer proceeded to reflect on his race-days and tell us about his 9 second bug with a friendly tone of voice. So, obviously there was not going to be a ticket today. Jake took him around to the engine bay, gave him the low-down, and offered to send him a copy of the magazine for giving us a break.
The Officer told us the car caught his eye going through town and that he figured we were packing something interesting under the lid by the way Jake accelerated off the line. We shook his hand, he warned us of animals crossing the roads ahead as the sun goes down, and Jake took his card. Now were cruising HWY 40 passing through Dinosaur, CO with synthetics in the sump.
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We ended Day four very pleased with the Performance of the vehicle and engine. We arrived at Art Thraen's "Aircooled Engineering" at about 10 PM, talked VWs, shot the breeze and crashed (Thanks Art for the excellent place to stay)
Day five
We got a good nights rest and reveille was ao 0730, we got a good breakfast and headed over to Art's shop to do another oil change and swap out an EGT sensor that had been wigging out. Art and the crew were very cordial to us letting us borrow their tools and even their car lift to make things easier!!! We hung out for a while and Bill got the web updates cought up as far as he could until we ran out of file space on the website! Thats right we filled the entire site FULL of pics and data!
We hit the road from Art's place after a photo session and meeting up with a couple of loacl Enthuisiasts that value my work at about noon. The rest of the day was uneventful other than a few simple experiments and a drive across the Salt Flats headed to Sacramento. We headed up hill into Reno for what seemed like days, those hills were very challenging to climb at near 80 MPH and we recorded our highest CHT of the entire trip at 393F! We smoked over the hills and never backed out of the throttle! After we leveled out a bit I decided to do some hard run high speed testing on the empty roads ahead. I bumped her up to 3800 RPM and cruised at 90 MPH for about 50 solid miles with text book temperatures. Heads were solid as a rock and so were EGT while oil temp was not even at 210F!!!!!
We slowed down as some other traffic got back on the road and blasted into Reno where we met up with two forum members and showed them the goodies in the car and shot the breeze for a while...
We then blasted down the hill from Reno and got into Sacramento at about 1 Am absolutely ecstatic with joy that we had accomplished the mission! I have to say that of all the things I have done with these engines and cars nothing has given me the satisfaction of a flawless 3,450 mile performance like this one!
It would be very hard for anyone to beat what we have done on this trip, and it's all documented by a 3rd party Engineer riding in the back seat as a verifier! Now I want to see a 170 HP Type 1 take the same route and do it faster without needing a single wrench put on it throughout the entire duration of the trip!
Now tomorrow I'll be taking the car to the track for one final exhibition pass before pulling the engine out on Sunday and giving it to the new local owner of it. I will then be shipping the plague back home where it will be given an autopsy and then taken apart and retired in the RAT hall of fame- More than likely on a pole in front of my shop- without that car the MassIVe Type IV we know today would never have existed. It's going to be hard to retire it, but "The Bluebonic Plague II" will take it's place at a much higher position on the performance ladder and will be built with a lot of the original Plague parts.
More info and dozens more pics and graphs are available on our cross country pages at [url]www.aircooledtechnology.com/crosscountry [/url] click on the balloons from the area you want to see and follow the link to the data and pics for that leg of the trip..
So....... Next time someone implies that an aircooled engine of the Type 4 variety can't be driven like a modern car over an extended perod of time while making almost double the stock HP please tell them to shut the hell up!
BTW- I was passed 21 times the entire 3,450 miles of the trip and about 1/2 of them were when I was doing test work that would have been hampered by altering my speed-
