Researching Street-rail build - recommended I start here

[cptcrusty1]

Howdy y'all. I'm in the Houston-ish area. I'm tossing around the idea of building a Type 1 engine with my kids: Tear down crappy old but running engine, rebuild it into coolness, then stick it in something. I'd like to do a street rail, probably 4 passenger version, that I can drive around town, pick up the kicks from their snobby private school, etc. Then, swap out the back tires and get dirty when the urge presents itself.

I'm looking for good sources for engines, OR, probably decent ideas for a non VW engine, KEP kit, on a Type 1 Tranny (can you put other tranny's in those frame kits?) Non-Vw engine is probably where I'm headed as I got sticker shock for a block-only, still needing refinish and cleanup, no heads, cyl etc.

I've seen some good frame websites, opinions are always welcome.

How do you register a custom vehicle in Texas???

In the past I've had a 67 swing axle and did two engine builds on it, plus lots of Of-the-shelf body mods. Had a blast... then marriage happened.

Anyway, HI!!!!

Crusty.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

4 passenger sand rails are more commonly available that in the past. Do a generic search and pay attention to what you see.

For the the trans a three, for or six rib IRS bus trans would be stronger than a stock bug trans but I think there has been some talk about a Subaru trans that I am hearing talked about lately.

As far as an engine goes the V-6s are used a lot but I have even seen the Buick/Range Rover engine which was based basically on the AL Buick V8 w/updates.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=texas+ins ... 2e26d28a76 This might help with the registration of the toy. Keep all receipts you spend on the build as you will/might need them for proof of non-theft items (some states do check on that)!

Front ends can be King and Link, ball joint or now you are seeing more IFS's being designed. Each has it good and bad so it is worth looking into. Shock should come into play here too.

This should give you a start on things but it is the other uses that on the street use that you need to plan for.

Lee

[chuckput]

Welcome Crusty! I have always thought having a sand rail for the street would be awesome, but here in California it is difficult to do without a VIN. That's why I went the Baja Bug route. You will have to confer with a Texan as to the legality of your dream. I know your state was in the news a couple of years ago wanting to ban fiberglass based, street legal VWs due to perceived safety concerns. As to your question concerning what powerplant to use, that is really a personal decision. Just remember that when the horsepower goes up, things can break downstream. Your transaxle becomes a weak link so it will need to be upgraded appropriately. By keeping a mild ACVW engine build, the Type I tranny will work. If you change to a GM Ecotech you will increase the power and asphalt is less forgiving than dirt so you can run into issues on the stock transaxle. The other issue with a water-cooled engine that you don't have to worry about with an air-cooled engine is the placement and plumbing of the radiator. Different water-cooled engine options you can consider are: GM Ecotech, Subaru, Honda or Nissan V-6.

As to where to look for an engine, there are a bunch of places. For ACVW, check out thesamba.com. You can also check the classifieds at race-dezert.com. There are usually different engines available under the off-road parts section. Even try Craigslist.

[baja5]

Ditch the VW and look into a Honda or Acure V6 swap. Can be done way cheaper than building a new VW engine. More HP and reliability for sure. Check leathernecks build thread for his engine swap.

[cbeck]

Check the Texas dune buggy coalition facebook page, they may not be licensing tube frames. The fiberglass buggy guys just finished a several year fight to get their buggys relicensed.
Turbo subaru's are also popular. Being a flat four, they sound kind of proper in a buggy.

[Wolfin]

I have a street legal rail in Arizona. I had to get a Class Three inspection and then got it registered after that. Pretty easy overall. Mine has a hot little Ford V6 in it. It's naturally aspirated and has really short headers so it rumbles like a V8. If I could suggest one thing to somebody building a rail and wanting to swap in a larger water cooled engine: Go oversize on the radiator and try to mount it so it gets some airflow. Mine is a 4 core and it's up on it's back with the leading edge stuck up in the air flow. It works. Other than having to put in plumbing, a water cooled engine will deliver more HP with more reliability.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I have a street legal rail in Arizona. I had to get a Class Three inspection and then got it registered after that. Pretty easy overall. Mine has a hot little Ford V6 in it. It's naturally aspirated and has really short headers so it rumbles like a V8. If I could suggest one thing to somebody building a rail and wanting to swap in a larger water cooled engine: Go oversize on the radiator and try to mount it so it gets some airflow. Mine is a 4 core and it's up on it's back with the leading edge stuck up in the air flow. It works. Other than having to put in plumbing, a water cooled engine will deliver more HP with more reliability.

Then you can add a video rear view mirror camera on top or in back of the radiator . I've have a 2.8 Cologne Ford V6 also in my black buggy also. From what I understand it is a good choice but it is carbureted (a 350 as I remember it 2BBL carb that is center pivot float style) not FI or "puffed".

Lee

[Wolfin]

Yeah mine's a 2.8 Cologne too! It's running a Mallory dual point firing a Mallory Super coil thru a points isolator circuit and CDI booster. I machined out a 4" riser for the intake manifold under the carb for low end response, installed headers, a pretty large K&N filter and a Holley 4412. I did a little minor porting work on the heads and intake while doing a valve job, just to match stuff up better than it was. I also did the "extra water cooling port drill out" modification to the heads at the same time for better cooling. My radiator is mounted at a slant. It catches some wind off the top and has the fans on a thermostat. The oil cooler is a massive Tru-Cool with a fan on it too. The neat thing that I did with this set up, was to add 4" two tubes like dryer tubes from just under the radiator above the roof to in front of the oil cooler to blow air thru the cooler. It works even better than I hoped it would. The oil cooler fan hardly ever comes on now even while crawling around off road in 115 degree weather. Before it was almost constantly on. I still want to machine out better water outlets for where the radiator hoses attach to the engine. I'm pretty happy with it.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

The idea of the tubes to the radiator is an interesting idea for sure. I wonder if side scoops would have worked also... Hmmm!

That is an interesting paint job but I hope you don't ever get lost as they may not be able to see you .

Lee

[Wolfin]

The air tubes go to the oil cooler. It's mounted vertically on the right side. Yeah, I thought about side scoops but decided that they may get torn off to easily. The tubes work even better than I thought they would! I was going to build a kind of scoop for them to pick up more air but it wasn't necessary. They're out of the way, don't block my vision to the rear or side and aren't even really noticeable. Yup, I painted them in camo too!

Early on, I had a lot of trouble with it overheating so I tried all kinds of ideas to help it run cooler. Yeah yeah, a fan shroud would help but it wasn't in the budget. I ended up raising the front edge of the radiator two inches to catch more air coming over the top of the car. That worked well but I do watch out for low hanging branches! I also bumped the timing up to 14 degrees. Stock is 12 degrees. Kicking the timing up a degree or two will help most engines run cooler. On the interstate running at 70, the temps will climb enough so the fans stay on most of the time but it never overheats.

The paint job just sort of happened! I was going to powder coat the frame but the cost was prohibitive for a play car so I sprayed it with Rustoleum Forest Green. I bought it in the gallon can and thinned it just enough to spray it. Then I did some welding and other stuff that damaged the new paint job so I was going to just rattle can it for repair but somehow walked out of my shop with a can of brown. One thing led to another and I started doing the frame in camo. Then I decided to cover the frame with something and settled on camo cloth. Easy, cheap and durable. Cosmetic repairs are easy. Just grab a can of brown, grey, black and spray away. It's hard to ruin a camo paint job!

[Ol'fogasaurus]

You brought up an interesting subject. If you do a search on airflow and a search on airflow patterns you will find some interesting things. Your raising up the radiator to a couple of inches over the roof got you into a good airflow over the top of the cab... just before it would start to curl into a knot as it dropped down at the end of the passenger cabin. On a tube buggy you still have air flow coming around the tubes but then your head and seat back(s) can cause airflow patterns to be interrupted also.

Side scoops don't always work well also, partly because of you are changing the airflow patterns/direction and possibly causing some dead spots due to the bouncing of the air based (at least partly) because of the flow design. Mounting the radiator(s) sideways with a scoop doesn't work well either and that is based on a specific rail that tried to do it. A low mounted radiator didn't work so they tried a side mount and it didn't work. They then tried two side mounted radiators... the same problem.

Even the flow through the engines is still constantly being worked on.

While I was still working (in aircraft engineering) there was a request by some of the foreign airlines to change the shape of the toilets as some of the men, when they sat, had their "wedding tackle" dragging on the cold metal toilet bowl . The answer back was that the Vacuum Toilets (air sucked out the contents of the bowl not gravity) had probably (as I remember being told by the supervisor who had to do the report {this answer some how was also covered in the local newspaper]) of at least a thousand hours of wind tunnel time in their designed shape.
Something that sounds so very simple can be so complicated.

A very interesting discussion.

Lee

[cptcrusty1]

Check the Texas dune buggy coalition facebook page, they may not be licensing tube frames. The fiberglass buggy guys just finished a several year fight to get their buggys relicensed.
Turbo subaru's are also popular. Being a flat four, they sound kind of proper in a buggy.

This is what I was afraid of. I seem to remember hearing about this. Before I can move forward with anything, I have to determine if I can even get it licensed/registered... wow... seems like I have some leg-work to do.

[Wolfin]

Yeah, the licensing issues have doomed a few projects to the back burner! What about a rail frame on top of a VW pan? Has anybody tried something like that? Might not be worthwhile.

Yup, the airflow dynamics over the car is a real thing! I don't have a wind tunnel but I did tie a bunch of little ribbons to the top and sides and then had somebody drive along side and video it. (The overheating was driving me crazy!!) The air on the sides was too turbulent for much use. That and the easy to snag convinced me to not bother with side scoops. The air for about 2 inches above the roof line was also very turbulent but still enough to cool the oil cooler thru the air tubes. Above 2 inches, it became smoother and steadier, good for cooling. That's why I raised the front of the radiator: To catch that airflow and let it blow thru the radiator.

I tried a scoop type arrangement on top of the radiator on the leading edge to scoop more air in but it destroyed the airflow so bad, that it actually caused it to run hotter in a short time! I figured out that it didn't add much to the airflow going thru it but destroyed the airflow across the top of it. It lost that wing lift effect which cost a lot of cooling.

My next experiment will be to build an "eyebrow" for the windshield. The problem with the roof top airflow, is that the windshield forces it upwards at an angle. That forces it to flow in a kind of wave across the top so most of it flows right over the top of the radiator. Putting an eyebrow on the windshield with angled vents on the top to blow the air straight back may help out quite a bit and will eliminate that "bow wave".

Really, it only starts to push the temps when running at high speed on the interstates. Even then, it never overheats. Truth is that I just like trying different things with it! Besides, a windshield eyebrow all done up in camo over diamond plate Aluminum with rip saw teeth cut into the front of would look pretty tacticool! It might even cause the Illegals that I run across down South to run for Mexico!!!!

[chuckput]

Yeah, the licensing issues have doomed a few projects to the back burner! What about a rail frame on top of a VW pan? Has anybody tried something like that? Might not be worthwhile.

This is essentially what my Baja is. The front frame head has been cut off, the front beam pushed forward two inches and then tied into the roll cage. I maintain the pan with its VIN stamped on the tunnel. I kept the VIN plate for the body when I changed bodies so the pan and body have the the same VIN.

[cptcrusty1]

Looks like sourcing a good VW engine is really going to suck. $4500 for a good long block with some stones... not including carbs, cooling shrouds, etc. Thus confirming the original response. I'm not looking for a rocket, just something that's going to boogie rather decently, maybe burn the tires...LOL... I'm looking at 109 dune buggies right now and starting to scratch my chin..... hmmmm....

What other TX-legal dune buggy chassis are there?

I like the Subaru option in that they are partially owned by Toyota and their engines are bulletproof. Will they mount to a VW tranny with adapter without significant wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth?