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I haven’t had a chance to put together a real instruction manual, so here are some pics if you haven’t got it figured out.
There are a few options to adjust the width. The arm mount can be slid out on the torsion housing a bit, and then the arm mounted on the outside of the spring plate if needed. I also have some spacers to go between the hub and the spring plate if the wheels have a strange offset. For most standard aftermarket wheels, the setup like the pictures are good. Mock up one side and get the width right, then go do the other side. If it gets much wider, I have CV spacers if needed. There are 4 longer M14 bolts in there. Those are to mount the lower shock mounts to the lower hub mount holes. The other 4 smaller fine thread bolts are for the calipers.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Brian
Good to hear the bus is running good.
Here are a couple of pics of my China diesel heater. I run it on “Kleen-heat” kerosine. It burns cleaner and doesn’t smell like diesel. I get it at Ace hardware or menards. I use about 1 gallon a week, and I run it a lot. I put it in the spare tire well behind the seat of the shorty, and I ran the heat tube through the tool box under the seat. The black outlet vent swivels 180. With it pointed up at the windshield it works better than most any stock vw defrost. Super hot air, and lots of air moving. The fuel tank on mine is mounted in the treasure chest. Only time I smell it is when it’s going through its cooling down cycle. This is the second winter I have been using it. I figure for only $150, even if it only lasts 2 years I will be doing fine.
Brian
Disclaimer……..These are my opinions, based on tons of research, and lots of engine building, head building, experimenting, and trying different combo’s. I have never built the same engine combo twice. I always change at least one thing hoping to make the next combo better, and learn from each combo.
A tight deck is not the cure all for running cool, it is just one of the many things that help contribute to an efficient burn in the chamber. The more efficient the entire combo is, the more power it will make with less heat. It has been known for 100 years a tight deck has many more benefits than a .100″ deck. It is also know that too low of compression will build heat rather than building power. Without sufficient compression the incoming fuel mix is slow moving and collects in the chamber edges rather than staying atomized. This makes for a super slow burn needing way more timing advance, and sends most of the power out the tailpipe in un-burned hydrocarbons. Same reason semi-hemi heads need 36-38deg. advance to make any power. Slow burning flame needs a lot of time to get all of the power out of it.
Lots of guys get into trouble trying to put a w110 cam into 1600 with 8.0cr. The cam is too big for the small CC’s, the low compression makes for a very soggy bottom end and very slow burn. The huge down low load with almost no bottom end power, and a slow hard to light mixture makes it super easy to detonate.
The compression needs to match the cam duration , elevation, octane rating, and intake valve closing point. Along with a tight deck, the higher compression makes the incoming mixture stay atomized in the chamber, and keeps it from collecting around the edges of the chamber and up on the squish bands. This makes for a quick, efficient burn that needs less timing advance, and less advance means less negative work on the top of the piston. Being at high elevation makes the low compression even worse. Not much air up there to even compress.
I always build with the intention of using 91 octane. The higher the compression, the higher the octane needs to be to keep detonation down, but the higher compression also makes way more power, and if it is done correctly the heat isn’t an issue. I think the extra $2-3 per tank is worth the extra power for sure. Low compression, and in-efficiency is causing the engine to work extra hard, creating more heat.
If you run modern style heads, you can have the best of everything. The new AA500 heads, and the CNC panchitos have 60+cc chambers. After un-shrouding the valves on a 40×35 AA500 heads, I end up with 65cc. On a 94×84, .040″ deck, 65cc chambers, you end up with a perfect 9.1cr. This is what Josh B. is running on his bus, and he hauls ass all over in it.
The entire engine needs to be designed with a specific use in mind, and each part needs to complement each other. One wrong component can mess up the whole package. Not all the parts are available off the shelf. I think 1 1/2″ heater boxes would be perfect for a 1968-2180cc bus engine, but you would need to get some, cut them open and add fins to them so they makes some heat. I would not run stock boxes on anything larger than a 1915cc. Too much of a plug, holding too much heat in the heads, and messing up the combo.
Here is an engine load for you…This is a local guys limo bus I built the engine for.
Its a monster, and it weights about 5500lbs, and then it gets 8-12 girls (sometimes “larger” women) added almost every time it heads out. He does wine tours and bachelorette parties in it. He has to pull the steepest longest hill around here to get to the wineries. He also has to run 60mph up and down a highway for an hour to get to Deadwood. He has a big oil cooler under it with no fan. He has been running it for 5 years now, and averages about 10k miles a year. I just took it apart last winter for a preventative maintenance since it is his money maker each summer. I replaced the P&C set while it was apart, and recut the valve seats. This was at 45k miles. That is about the standard service interval for a valve job on a factory VW engine. I did need to do a line bore on the case because of the crank flex from the huge load. The center main started to get looser than I want. I knew this would be a problem when I built it, but we figured by the time the case needs to be cut a few times, the rest of the bus will have fallen apart around the engine. The next one will get T4 main journals on the crank.
Here is the bullet proof combo I did for the limo bus.
New aluminum bubble top case
84mm crank. VW journals
AA 92 Thick walls, grant cast rings
5.4″ Scat I beams
Web 218, set on 106lc. CB light lifters.
Aluminum push rods
CB CNC panchito’s heads. I swapped the springs to a single with a flat wound inner damper.
40mm IDF’s w/ 34mm vents
Stock flywheel, KEP S2 plate
1 5/8″ header
Grooved lifters
26mm oil pump
8.7cr, .045″ deck, 63cc chambers, 2cc dish in the pistons.
It starts making power as soon as the clutch is let out, and it’s done at 5200rpm. Peak torque is made right at 4000rpm…just over cruising speed.
A similar engine in John’s bus would be amazing.
So……build it how you want….but take each part into consideration. All parts need to work together within the same power band, and they all need to work together. Take the time to modify some parts if needed. The power is in the heads, and any one wrong part can screw the whole thing. You cant just toss a part into the mix because you used it in the past, or you have it on the shelf. Don’t just use a cam because that’s what everyone is using. Get the combo right, and make sure all the small details are put into the build, and it will live a long, powerful and cool life. An oil temp gauge also helps you get there….. 😉
Its all in the part combo…
Brian
doing full throttle up wolf creek pass in 3rd gear the whole way 10 miles or so….. yeah…. it got hot… you can’t make that kind of power, without heat.. can’t be done…. 2332 full throttle up a steep hill in a bus…. no way to control that kind of heat…
Been there, done that….😁
I kindly disagree.😉 I did 65mph the whole way up passing people. I drive the poor old girl like a 16year old. 4000rpm every shift. I like to think of it as product testing. I like to drive them way harder than most customers would. When I got to the top the oil temp was barely 220.
Still the exact same engine. 10k miles, lots of Colorado and Wyoming passes. I know it’s not anywhere near JJ mileage, but it gets more harder miles than most old buses, and it just keeps cranking away.
I would recommend not doing the stock valves. I will do the math tomorrow, but I am guessing it will be choked close to 4000rpm. Unable to breath any higher because of the small cross section of the valve seat. Bare minimum do a 37×33 head. They work amazing when built correctly, and you can still just barely use a stock heater box. If you do insist on stock valves, the AA500 heads from AA Performance have a 60cc chamber and actually flow pretty good with a bowl clean up and a really good 3angle valve job.
Brian