Turbo Type 4 Tube Frame Drag Race Oval Project

[Andy Sweeney]

Hello, my name is Andy Sweeney and I live in the North West of England. I've been into VW's since the late 80's and have always wondered what it would be like to go drag racing. Having recently enjoyed a full NOS rebuild to factory specs barn find '57 Oval project, I found myself ready for my next challenge, and what better than to finally scratch the itch and go racing.

Whilst reasonably mechanically competent, I recognise there is far more to building a high performance motor than there is to rebuilding a stock 30 horser, and building a tagged tube frame chassis isn't a job for a chassis novice in a 8 ft wide domestic garage without bending facilities etc.

It soon became apparent that unlike all my previous projects, if I am to do this properly, it's time to call in the professionals.

Enter Rob Judge from RNJ Motorsport.

Rob and I met up for the firs time at Santa Pod raceway earlier in the year (I'm the long one on the right)...



Rob is a well known VW builder in the UK and knows his way very well round a Type 4 motor, which with his fabrication skills and because, well, he's a very well respected guy over here, I decided to ask him to project manage the build from his premises near Silverstone, UK.

We first needed a body. After rejecting several offerings, I stumbled across an unloved '57 Oval sitting on a later pan missing some parts and in need of some remedial work to make road worthy. As soon as I saw that is was actually a mostly rot free dry US import and had perfect rust free gutters, a straight roof, nice doors and rear quarters, a deal was struck and it was mine.





Once stripped of all it's valuables, it was shipped up to Rob's workshop - although a little trimming was needed to to get it in the truck.



To make sure I didn't change my mind, (at least that's what I suspect Rob was thinking) no sooner had the body landed that Rob attacked it with the air saw leaving us with the bits that we will actually use.





A Wikk style one piece front end was secured which should help with high speed stability.





To aid with the mock up, wheels and tyres needed selecting pretty much from the beginning and we eventually settled on Weld Magnum 2.0's in 8" and 3.5" widths as seen here in a Chevy bolt pattern.





These will be wearing 9 x 27 x 15 super soft M&H Drag master slicks and 22.5 x 3.5 x 15 M&H front runners.

For a transmission, I have 6 rib 901 bus box which will be built to the hilt by bears transmissions here in the UK with custom everything, including a steel spool and Bears' own custom IRS race axles.

The suspension will be strut front end and 4 bar IRS rear end.

We went through several options on the motor until we decided to go against the grain and the general establishment with the Type 4 route. Rob, who has built many type for units will build the motor alongside Stateside Tuning who are long established and proven Type 4 specialists here in the UK. Details of the motor will come later, but it will be an EFI, big turbo, 2.1 litre motor, built to rev and will house all the usual high performance components required for a build like this with the aim to get well up into the 400's, and with development, as close to 500 bhp as we can without pulling the pin on the grenade.

In the mean time, Rob has begun fabrication on the chassis.



















Those aren't the wheels of course - mine are still at the shippers in New York awaiting their turn on the plane...

That's where we're at for the moment - stay tuned as we make progress and thanks for reading.

Andy.

[Chip Birks]

I was just thinking about this project today actually. Wondering what ever happened to it. Glad to see you are still working on it! Good progress so far! keep it up!

[Andy Sweeney]

Hi Chip, good to hear from you again.

I kind of stopped posting on the Samba thread because I felt it was rubbing people up the wrong way because I'd cut up an Oval and wasn't doing my usual NOS everything and fine detail stuff. Just kind of didn't seem to fit in with the 'establishment' over there, so rather than rock the boat, I left it alone.

Good to hear from you.

Since my last post, a recent shopping spree over your side of the pond has secured a custom 78mm forged and wedge mated crank, Pauter rockers, forged H beam rods, a custom case, and some welded head cores that we can rework to Porsche style specs on the exhaust.

These should arrive over here late in October when we can begin the basic machining work.

More news as it happens...

[Chip Birks]

I don't say to much over there either. Lots of purists. Oh well. This is a place where all things are accepted. We actually like to have fun!

[Piledriver]

Welcome to the asylum!

The only complaints you will get here about sawzall work is if you cut it crooked.

[ARCANE]

Great work so far Andy, somewhat different to your last Oval project!!!

[Andy Sweeney]

Yes - it's certainly a departure from the originality route.

Different horses for different courses I guess?

[Andy Sweeney]

Good news!

My wheels were collected from Heathrow this morning and will be off up to Robs very soon.

Also secured some Corvette C4 rear hub/bearing carriers and best of all, rear axles, as they are superbly strong, not too heavy, and use very heavy duty UJ's rather than CV's. These will fit the hubs perfectly which also have the correct wheel stud pattern making life much simpler as they'll all fit together nicely.

All we need to do then is modify the inner ends of the axle for width and mating to the spool.

Another small step closer.

[Andy Sweeney]

Well guess what's finally turned up...





I thought it would never happen!

VERY pleased with them.

Also cot the C4 rear hub and axle assemblies stripped off the Corvette. We won't be using the main suspension anchor boss as it's not only wrong for the application, but just too big, bulky and heavy so we'll just use the bearing carriers, wheel mount hubs and the all important half shafts and UJ's which are super strong, yet surprisingly light.







We can get these all blasted and cleaned at a later date.

I'll get these up to Rob's early next week.

Big relief to finally have wheels!

[Andy Sweeney]

Finally after what seems like an epic journey, we got the wheels to Rob's shop and mounted in the tyres. This, along with the hubs, will now allow Rob to further mock up the chassis.

[Andy Sweeney]

Spoke to Rob a few days ago and I gather he has next week put aside to crack on with the chassis and I'm sure he'll be along when he's got something to photograph.

In the mean time, I wanted to take bit of the project on board myself so following my research into the aero problems and possible solutions for a high speed Beetle, I had a crack at building my own rear wing.

A very fortunate set of circumstances found me having the ideal (for this project) rear wing designed by a CFD engineer who's job it is to research and develop aircraft wings, which was handy...

This evening I started to make the the outer end spars which will be the template formers for the hot wire cut foam core and ultimately the end fence mounts.

To ensure a uniform airfoil section it is essential that these two templates are the same. In this vein, I cut out the paper template supplied by Mr CFD and copied this onto some 64th marine ply which I then transferred onto my 6mm billet plate. I've got a bigger off cut for the main centre spars.



The trailing edge extends a good 2" beyond the pointy end of the templates, but this will just be a sandwich where the upper and lower skin meet and continue up and back as the Gurney flap.

Once I'd rough cut these to shape, I clamped, then drilled and tapped them together so they could be cut out and finished 'as one' and hence be exactly the same shape. The tapped holes will be where lightening holes will go further down the line.



I then used my flat bed belt sander to get the profile almost perfect, but then finished of by hand with progressively finer files, and finaly emery cloth on various blocks.





Pretty pleased with how they've come out as now I know I can do it, it'll save me the expense having to get them machined or laser cut, and what I save on the swings, I can spend on the motor...



Ages since I've done any metal work, but feels good to have a bit of the project in my hands. I'll report back when I've done some more.

[Andy Sweeney]

Work on the chassis has progressed with two of the gearbox mounts mocked up, body mounts figured out and billet aluminium door hinge mounts. It's all just dry mocked up at the moment - once fully laid out, we can spend time getting everything neat, tidy and 'finished'.

Starting to look a bit like a race car now.

[Andy Sweeney]

Been doing a bit more on the rear wing....

Next job was to cut the centre spars which also double as the main mounting spars, hence the extended lower edges.





Again, these were bolted up to the end spars to ensure they are all perfectly the same profile.

To join the four spars together and give strength to the wing, they are all joined with four aluminium tubes of varying sizes.



I contemplated how I was going to fold the aluminium skin round the leading edge of the wing in a uniform and even manner without getting witness marks, kinks or creases around the spars given that the foam centre is likely to give a little during the skin forming process.

To overcome this I decided it would be a good idea to have a mandrel at the leading edge in the form of a tube running along the length of the nose to bend the skin round, so I cut an appropriately sized recess in the leading edge...



To hold the front tube like so...



Then it was a case of cutting the strengthening tube holes in the spars...



And then some strategically placed lightening holes, leaving me with these.



Which fit together like this...





Quite please with how it looks so far as it's already pretty rigid even in it's skeleton form and very light indeed. The body of the wing will be cut with a hot wire and made from blue high density styrofoam, then skinned and bonded in aluminium skin with the tubes running through the foam like bones.

I also decided to make the support strut mounting clevises as I don't like the look, shape or weight of off the shelf steel items, so a length of aluminium round bar was sourced.





And cut into four equal lengths...



The turned and faced...



Drilled and tapped one end for M10 studs to attach to the main wing struts...





The the pilot holes for the clevis pin was drilled...



Followed by milling out the slots for the wing spar mounting lugs to fit into and hinge on the clevis pins...



They need finishing off, so that's all I've got to show for now.

[Andy Sweeney]

Did a bit more on the rear wing today.

Firstly, apologies for the poor quality pictures - I dropped my regular camera one time too many ans it's now officially dead, so until such time as a replacement is found, I'm stuck with a crappy phone camera.

Anyway, I 'borrowed' some 50mm thick styrofoam from Dad, which not being quite thick enough will need to be laminated, which isn't a bad thing as it allows me to solve a problem - more of this in a moment.



Luckily it was 610mm wide, which as my spar is 300mm, allowed me to cut it down the middle to laminate leaving me with a 305mm block.



Now what of this problem? I pondered how to cut perfectly straight, true and accurate holes down the length of the foam for the three aluminium tubes to go through without cutting through to the edge of either the spar or the foam which would compromise the strength of the structure.

I then came up with a cunning plan whilst staring at the laminated halves. Firstly, I pinned the spars to the end of the laminate where it will sit for the cutting, strategically placing the three tube holes over the join in the foam.





I Then marked down the length of one of the halves where the tubes will sit.



Next, I clamped a long steel rule to the foam and modified my soldering gun by adding a depth gauge and used the tip of the soldering gun to carve a little hole all the way down the length of one of the foam halves which will allow me to feed the hot wire through the foam and use the holes in the spar as the hot wire template to cut perfect fitting holes for the tubes.





It worked really well and left me with a perfect little slot to feed the hot wire through when the two halves are bonded together.



I then smeared the halves with polyurethane adhesive and let them bond under the weight of a couple of old car batteries and a tool box.



You can see in that picture that I have done this process twice - one piece for the longer centre section and the shorter piece for the outer ends which will be cut in half when finished.

I also got my 2 x 1 sheet of aluminium sheet for the outer skin.



That's all for now - next job is to mount the spars on the ends of the
foam block laminates and hot wire the foam to shape.

[4agedub]

Looking good, I like the rear wing design