JG54 Greenhearts

The JG54 'Green Hearts'* are a club for hardcore Cal-Look Volkswagens. Cars in the club must run quicker than 15.99 seconds in the 1/4 mile. The original JG54 '* Grünherz' were the elite Messerschmitt squadrons in World War II. Some of the highest scoring flying aces were in the JG54. This Blog shows the JG54 club cars and other cal-look inspired pictures/comments... MAC USERS PLEASE USE SAFARI TO VIEW SITE... . FOR MORE PICTURES - CHECK THE ARCHIVES (TO THE RIGHT)...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Alex Spring's Oval

On top of having a new gearbox fitted , Alex had some engine problems . One of his IDA's had been pouring fuel down the 3&4 side , and general problems with getting it to run properly , meant that I was going to check the engine out .

As we started to take the engine apart , several problems became evident .

The engine had recently been upgraded from a 2007 to a 2276 , but there were no discern-able balancing marks on the flywheel . Also , the case had been machined for 94mm barrels , but not been spot faced , so the resulting edge that the barrel had to sit on , was about 1mm wide , not offering good support to the base of the barrel .

I decided to remove the heads , and check what damage , if any , that the over-fuelling problem had caused . The heads looked ok , except that the valve keeper locks had not been ground , and the valve could still spin . I have found that with dual springs ( such as these heads have ) , this will wear out the keeper grooves on the valves in a short time . The valve springs had no shims under them , and were not shimmed to the correct coil bind figure .

The combustion chambers were also some very strange shapes . The cc's were close , but templates were made , and the chamber shape was quite different from one to another .

The engine ended up getting completely stripped and rebuilt . There were no balancing marks at all on the crank/flywheel assembly , so this was correctly balanced .

The case was spot faced to give the 94mm barrels the correct seating surface , and I had some of our custom barrel spacers made , as with the previous build , the barrel heights were all slightly different .

The combustion chambers were reshaped , and the heads fly-cut for the desired compression ratio ( 10-1 ) . The valve keepers were ground so they didn't touch , and the valves were re-lapped in . Also the valve springs were shimmed to the correct amount before coil bind .

I honed the barrels to a finer that factory finish , and fitted new rings , in case any ' bore wash ' situation had occurred with the over-fuelling .

The piston heights ( deck height ) , were also checked and found to be a fair bit out , so this was corrected so that the piston heights were all within 0.002 of each other . The pistons were balanced ( this had not been done before .

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Springs Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex Spring's Oval

The Rimco case was correctly spot faced for 94mm barrels and pistons .

Alex Spring's Oval

Some strange shape combstion chambers .

Alex Spring's Oval

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

After discovering the source of the rattle on Alex's engine ( pic's further down ) , I rebuilt the engine with a new case and some other changes .

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Monday, November 17, 2008

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63

When Alex's car was finished ( pic's in April blog archives ) , a rattle that the engine had on start up , worse when from cold , really started to bother me . We drove the car for a couple of hundred miles , but it was getting worse .

Alex did want to race the car , but I really wasn't happy about this noise , it would go away after 4 or 5 seconds , but I really didn't like the sound of it .

So I decided that rather than risk catastrophic and very expensive damage , I would check it out .

And Iwas very glad I did , I did think it sounded like lifter rattle , and boy was one of the lifter bores absolutely knackered . I've never seen one this bad , and can't believe the rattle wasn't worse .

So , unfortunately an engine rebuild with a new case was carried out . At the same time , the cam was changed from an FK8 to an FK10 , and the compression was raised from 9 to 1 , up to 10.1 to 1 . Some combustion chamber work was also carried out .

The engine is now back in the car , with 350 miles on it so far . More tuning to be done ( larger venturies ) , when the car gets past 500 miles .

Alex's ' Mighty White ' 63



James Dore's 61

Before the floor got painted , Randy had to carry out a few small welding repairs .

James Dore's 61

James Dore's 61