ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

Boy did I underestimate how hardened the pizza steel is.
I fought milling it this weekend and ended up tearing up the hub gear in my 6" rotary indexing table from vibration.
Lesson learned, my little lathe / mill just isn't up to the task and I should not have forced it to do so.
Picked up a new gear yesterday and ordered a 1/4" X 18" 6061 aluminum disc to machine.
Also, just finished up the 4th brass lifter sleeve when I heard a pop / sizzle and shut the lathe motor off.
There was definitely an electrical smell, and I suspect a capacitor gave up the ghost.
Didn't have time to check it out, but I found my LCR meter and will test them when I can this week and hopefully rebuild the rotary table.

Oh, I also picked up a Wiseco 39-6079 W6079 nylon flexhone brush to plateau hone the cylinders.
And in big news for me, my custom camshaft is supposed to be delivered today by UPS.

Nonstd checking clearance makes it difficult to compare to anything...

I hope to have my cam profiler back to working this weekend and I will have the full profiles.

Groovy, curious what comes up.

Piledriver wrote: ↑Tue Nov 04, 2025 4:46 pm Nonstd checking clearance makes it difficult to compare to anything...

Remade the hardware of the cam profiler to get stable readings.
Now using modified lifers with aluminum inserts for 4 digital dial indicators.
Mostly done with the software.
What checking heights do you want to see the data at?







Been awhile since I posted, but here is what I've been up to.

Got the degree wheel done, although I did go to aluminum after snapping too many 1/16" carbide bits.
I was a little skeptical, but the bubble is readable to about 1/8 degree.









Took a Comp Cams 4798 crankshaft socket and lathed the ID out to VW type1 and used a 6mm HSS bar with an angled end to cut the 3/16 keyway to 6mm.
Also drilled and tapped another hole further out for the set screw to clear the case.



Today I checked the cam for clearance.
Since it is on a little over 0.9" base circle instead of the 1.2" that the other cam was the lobes clear the crank.
I had to get out the die grinder in 4 places for minor removal by the middle bearing and just behind the thrust bearing for lateral rod clearance.
I got the short block together and started to check rod to cylinder and piston to valve clearances but found I need to take just a smidgen out of the cylinder stud holes toward the cylinders for the 10mm studs to alaign with the stud holes in the heads.
Will work on that tomorrow and hopefully get the rocker arm geometry set, and the head studs and pushrods cut to length.
If I'm lucky I might have time to degree the cam.

Progress is good.

Happy new year!

The only two "standard" advertising/check clearances I'm aware of for cam profiles are 1mm (euro std) or .050" (more or less US standard)

These were intended to get past the ramps on the profiles and provide some kind of comparative basis for cam selection and advertising. Also works as a reference for dialing in... sometimes check values like you got on your cam card were used simply for dial in.

Yesterday I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, but made progress.
Got the head studs cut to length in the lathe.
I took the die grinder to the stud holes in the cylinders and elongated them in towards the cylinders for the 10mm studs to line up in the heads.
It didn't take much grinding with a burr and then a sanding roll.
I also plateau honed the cylinders with the Wiseco soft nylon honing brush.
(This was a suggested by Brian Salter @ Salter racing)
It made them noticeably smoother to the feel with a fingernail.
Plateau honing is supposed to make break in quicker, improve ring seal, and less metal particles during break in go into the oil.

Before:



After:




EDIT: Looks like I need to raise the rockers a lot according to pictures I found on the wayback machine since these are the old style rockers.
Good thing I did not cut the pushrods.
Got the rocker arm geometry set.
Pauter instructions say to center at mid lift.
That is what I did, but the adjuster is supposed to be in line with the pushrod at mid lift.
Because the old CB street eliminators were ordered with the "LS1" spring package they got 0.100" longer valves and add the lash caps and you cannot get both a roller centered and the adjuster in line with the pushrod.

The Brian Salter style level degree wheel works great!
No pointer to have to attach and adjust.
Center the bubble and it is as accurate as your eye can guess 1/8ths of a degree.



But.......If you look closely Dumb Ass got his B's and A's backwards, so BTDC and ABDC are marked AT and BB etc.
Knowing that makes it simple to read, but if I could kick myself I would.
I also wish I would have made a jig for the stamping so it was uniform.

Max lifts with "loose 0" were intake 0.568", exhaust 0.571".
This means that the Pauter "1.40" roller rockers are actually 1.48 at max lift.

I did not have time to cut pushrods, but the adjustable pushrod is set.

Sitting at work this weekend due to workload so not able to work on the engine.
This week I was able to work some more on the cam profiler software after my wife went to bed.
I have it where I can import up to 4 cams to compare the profiles and print the chart.
Here are the 4 cams I have available with cylinder 1/3 lift profiles enabled:





It gets pretty messy if I have more than 2 cams with all the depravities enabled lol:





But with just cylinder 1/3 and 2 cams with derivatives not too bad:





Even better with just the intake or the exhaust:





I also have it print out cam cards with every measurable item I could think of a way to do the math.
Cylinder 1/3 math works out close to the cam card he provided to me, but the math is wrong in the
program on intake and exhaust areas for cylinder 2/4 that I need to work on.
Since I am measuring all 4 lobes at once, even if I am off a little on TDC the differences between
cylinders 1/3 and 2/4 are accurate and due to the grinding.





I can also print a cam card with a selected rocker ratio.
When I get back to it I will add the option to remove a chosen amount of hot lash.
I do realize that rocker ratio changes a little though the lift, but with the rocker ratio and lash removed it
should be pretty close to what the valve really sees with that addition if the valvetrain is rigid and proper springs.

Anything someone wants to throw out that I should add?

I just noticed that I am only computing the overlap centerline and area for cylinders 1/3 so that is another
thing to go along with the intake and exhaust areas for cylinders 3/4 being wrong.

.

Oh, one more thing I added is the ability to zoom in to an area selected with the mouse:

I'd like to add that you should be working at NASA !

Got some stuff done this weekend.
I triple checked cam timing and it is right on with the cam card.
I triple checked the rocker geometry by Pauter's instructions.
Got the adjustable pushrod length set.
Measured and determined I needed to cut 2.87mm off each end.
I started parting off the CB chrome moly tapered pushrods and part way through the lathe quit.
The mill motor also would not run so I knew it was in the control circuit.
Found that the main contactor had a contact burnt.
Of course it was in about the most difficult place to get to.
Ordered a replacement, but the contactor controlled both the hot and the neutral so I moved the hot to the good contact and temporary junctioned the neutrals so I could continue.
So 2 hours later I was back at it and finished cutting them.
Cleaned them inside with rubbing alcohol and a small but long handled test tube brush.
Won't be using that brush for test tubes, they were filthy with grease inside.

Today I used a piece of aluminum at one end and an old lifter at the other to install the ends with a 3# hand sledge.
They turned out between .01mm to .07mm shorter than the intended 287mm, but that is insignificant.
Weighed them for s&g and they weigh 105.8 grams.
Cleaned out the AA cylinders that CB hones for the Wiseco Pistons (which I also plateau honed) with lacquer thinner and cheese cloth multiple times then immediately put a little WD40 on them.
Wiped them as dry as I could and applied Total Seal Quickseat powder.
They turned light grayish green which it says they will in the instructions if they are clean enough.
I previously had gapped the rings and balanced the pistons so I used some TS assemby lube on the rings and installed them.
Wiped a little on the skirts, rod bushings, pins, and pin holes.
Got them installed into the barrels just far enough I could still install the second spiralocks later.
Cursed a bit installing the spirolocks, but my first time using them as previously I had pistons cut for double snap rings.
Took the checking springs off the heads and installed just the outer original springs for cam break in.
I hope it isn't really hard to get the new Manley LS springs on with air and the spring tool I had to make a custom shaft for with the larger Pauter rocker studs.
The LS springs CB used so long ago had lost about 10# at the seat so better safe than sorry.
Gapped 8 new plugs and out of the 8 only 2 would index correctly without washers.
Went through the remaining ones cylinder by cylinder with 3 sizes of indexing washers and found only 2 of the remaing ones that indexed to my liking with washers.
Put a smidgen of Permatex ultra copper silicone on the case where the barrels seat.
Installed the barrels and pistons and pins and spiralocks.
Put the 0.040 copper gaskets in the heads and put them on.
Put a smidgen of the ultra copper on one side of the 4 washers that go inside the rocker box.
Torqued the bolts per Bently first to 7 then 23 ft/#.
Was going to pull the cam bolts one by one and put locktite 262 on them but couldn't find the new bottle I had just bought a week ago.
Decided to call it and went to the house and there it was still sitting on the kitchen table.