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May, 2005

It's been over a year since my last site update, but these things happen once a project such as Sharkey reaches completion. But a couple of news-worthy things have taken place.

First off, a few months ago I suddenly noticed a new sound in the engine compartment. It was only noticeable under moderate-to-high boost and is difficult to describe. Then, rather suddenly on the way to work one day, under a very mild load while taking off from a light, a severe "puffing" sound began. It was the sort of sound one would hear when a spark plug worked its way loose, but a little lunchtime tinkering ruled that out. I limped home that night and began to tear into the engine the next evening, borrowing a compression gauge to help pinpoint the problem. Compression was good only on one cylinder and two others were mild textbook failures. The fourth, however, wouldn't produce anything over about 25 PSI. I found a few valves that weren't adjusted properly but began to doubt that this was the cause of my problem. I then removed the valve train and found that the lower right cylinder stud nut on #1 was finger-tight! The others weren't that loose, but they were all definitely not up to specs. I tightened them all up and performed another compression test, and now had three "good" cylinders but still one bad one. One of my 0.060" copper head gaskets had split and had blown outward (basically, no amount of retorquing was going to result in a good seal). So, over the next few days, the engine had to be torn down to the shortblock and everything reassembled. minus the copper head gaskets. My compression ratio did increase from 7.25:1 to a smidgen over 8.0:1, but both responsiveness and fuel economy have improved somewhat. I've dialled back my boost to about 10 PSI max to compensate. So I guess the moral of the story is this: if you are running copper head gaskets, retorque your cylinder heads every second oil change. I retorqued mine about 500 km after they were first installed (as per spec) and this still didn't prevent them from loosening. The copper eventually distorted and became thinner and thinner, to the point that the head could begin to hammer down on top of the gasket (further distorting it). The gasket then split and blew out along one side. If I hadn't been running the copper gaskets, I could have simply retorqued everything and saved myself several hours of teardown and reassembly.

About a month prior to that, my new tires and wheels arrived. My old front tires were 195/50R15s mounted on 15"x6" Weld Prostars, while the rear tires were 245/50R15s mounted on 15"x8" rims. The front tire size is getting pretty difficult to find these days and the rear size is next to impossible. Knowing this, and working for a company that offers employees exceptional deals on new tires, I felt that it was time for both a tire and wheel upgrade. I settled on a set of Nokian WRs, which are unique in the world as being the only "all-weather" tire (ie: they are an all-season tire rated for 100,000 kms of tread life, but they are also rated for severe-winter duty by the D.O.T.). This particular model of tire is available in a huge range of sizes, from 13" all the way up to 19". I settled on 205/50R16s for the front and 255/40R17s for the rear. These were slipped on to a brand new set of American Racing Hopster wheels (16"x7" up front, 17"x9.5" in back), complete with limited-edition "Hot Wheels" center caps. The Hopster has a semi-familiar classic look to it for an older car like an ACVW, yet is available in modern sizing up to a whopping 20"! I've had a lot of positive feedback so far. Pics can be seen here and here.

March, 2004

I got a few more things done on Sharkey during February and early March.  I had a single week of unused vacation time left over from last year and was forced to take it no later than the last week of February.  Since I was being "forced" to take a vacation anyhow, I decided to use one of this year's weeks and make it a two week stretch.  I worked the Sunday to Thursday shift prior to starting my vacation and by Thursday evening, I had my engine torn down to just the basic longblock (still in the car, however).  All of the chrome engine bay tin was removed and set aside, along with the fan shroud and the decklid hinge brackets.

First thing Friday, I took all of the chromed items to a local chrome plating shop to have them strip it all down to the nickel layer.  While they were working on that, I took the time to rewire a couple of things and start to work on another project — incorporating a NACA-style duct into my decklid.  The bodywork took me the remainder of the weekend and early part of the following week.  Around Tuesday I picked up the dechromed stuff and headed out to a distant powder coater to have it all painted gloss black (along with a couple of other things).  While I was at the platers, I also dropped off two other items for polishing and plating.  Wednesday I was done with my decklid, so I made a quick trip to a local body shop so that they could squirt on the paint for me.  I was promised that my powder coater, plater, and body shop would all have their respective jobs completed by the following Friday.

So there I sat, for a week and a half, waiting for things out of my control to be completed.  I spent some time performing a few other tasks on my car, but most of the time was spent on non-automotive things around the house.  When that Friday eventually rolled around, everything was done and I proceeded to start work that night.  Saturday was pretty much an all day stay in the garage, where I took my time and got everything installed except for some last minute things.  Sunday morning I finished up, and I was driving my car again by Sunday afternoon.  Then it was back to work on Monday.  It was an odd two week vacation, with a flurry of activity near the beginning and another flurry in the final two days, with a big ho-hum moment in between.

Anyway, I've replaced my engine pics in the engine section of my site, and added a couple of pics of my NACA duct.  Enjoy for now, since I'm pretty well done for another year.  All I've got left to do now is get my fuel and ignition curves mapped correctly...

January, 2004

As with any project, once you think you're at the end of the road, there isn't much news left to tell. As of November 21, 2001 (the date of my last website update), I didn't have much left to talk about. That has all changed in the last few months.

I finally took Sharkey off the road back in early October of last year for some much needed tinkering.  It was originally intended to take only about a month or so, but delay after delay stretched that out to three full months.  By the time I had Sharkey road-worthy again, it was just after Christmas and the bad weather had arrived.  Less than 48 hours after I had taken Sharkey for her first twenty minute road test, we received nearly six inches of snow.

The first item to be tackled during this three month hiatus was a complete teardown of Sharkey's engine.  The crankshaft was reground and new bearings were installed throughout.  A new custom ground turbo camshaft was installed, along with new lifters and rings.  Everything was reassembled in a brand new Brazilian case.  The heads were rebuilt and most of the valvetrain was replaced with new components (some of it contrary to my original intentions, unfortunately).  The main intent of the teardown was to replace the camshaft with something more efficient for my particular turbo set-up, along with a growing need to reduce emissions for local annual testing.  The headwork was simply something I really should have done when I originally built the engine back in June of 1999.

While the engine was out, it was also time to do away with the original CB Performance dual Dellorto-style throttle body set-up and install something a little simpler (in theory anyway).  The old throttle bodies, intake manifolds, and intake plumbing was all removed and new CB Performance EFI end castings were installed.  These castings look just like the factory dual port ones, except that they feature fuel injector bosses for my electronic fuel injectors.  A big-bore custom intake manifold was designed and built to mimic the original factory center section, minus the heat riser tubes.  The new custom manifold was designed to accept a single 60mm Ford 5.0L Mustang throttle body, complete with an integrated IAC (idle air control) valve.  Custom intake plumbing was crafted to connect the throttle body to the turbocharger outlet, while a Morse throttle cable connected the throttle to the gas pedal inside the car.  Custom silicone hoses were required to account for the angles necessary to line up the new intake plumbing.  The original CB Performance fuel rails and pressure regulator were retained and new stainless steel braided AN lines were fabricated to connect everything together.

The entire intake system upstream of the turbocharger was changed as well.  Gone is the J-pipe that connected the turbo inlet to a small cone filter inside the engine compartment.  Instead, custom plumbing routes the incoming air from a custom air cleaner housing mounted inside the right rear fender.  From there, a 2.5" flexible hose connects the new airbox to an air intake snorkel located near the torsion bar housing ahead of the right rear wheel.  This was all necessary because the stock air vents below the rear window of a '63 Beetle were designed to flow enough cooling and breathing air for a 1200cc engine with a stock redline of only around 5,000 RPMs.  Higher revs, together with a larger displacement and a turbocharged need for even more incoming air meant that additional airflow was absolutely vital.  Relocating the air intake for the engine itself so that cool air could be gathered from outside the engine compartment was the first step.  Later this year I plan on installing a single NACA duct in the decklid to ensure that I have more than enough airflow into the engine compartment to feed the cooling fan.  Airflow for the oil cooler is still handled externally by a 10" electric cooling fan.

The external oil cooler also received some custom airflow modifications.  My initial installation featured no shroud around the fan that cools my large Mesa oil cooler (located above the left side of the transaxle).  The new shroud allows incoming air to be drawn from a source further away from the cooler itself, drastically reducing the likelihood of the cooling fan simply recirculating the same air through the cooler over and over again.  The inlet also features a ram-air scoop for unassisted forced induction through the cooler when the vehicle is in motion and the fan is not running.  I'll have to wait until the summer before I can determine whether or not it was all worth it.

The entire engine compartment wiring was redone, partially to solve some fire-related problems that happened a few months prior (a small injector o-ring leak, coupled with a spark plug wire that came loose and cut through to the core, caused a tiny fire that I was lucky to spot when it was just a small flame, although it just happened to be in an area where my main engine wiring harness was located).  New Magnecor spark plug wires were ordered and installed.  The real reason for the rewiring, however, was to make way for an ECU upgrade for my Wolf computer.  Gone is the old version 3.0 computer.  The newer v4.0 ECU features far more programming options, many of which I will discuss in another section on my site.

What else... the ride height at the rear of the vehicle was raised slightly, primarily to gain a little extra ground clearance for my sump, traction bar, and Supertrapp exhaust.  The Supertrapp was repositioned slightly and the entire CB Performance turbo header was ceramic coated.  The old 1.5 quart oil sump was replaced with a new Gene Berg 3.5 quart model, giving me the chance to relocate my oil return for my turbocharger into the side of the block instead of into the side of the sump.  The extra oil capacity of the bigger sump was needed so that I could lower the oil level inside the original case sump far enough to ensure that the turbo oil return was above the oil level.  The original CB Performance design places the return in the side of the sump, below the oil level.  This creates problems under high RPMs as the frothy oil coming off of the turbo bearings backs up inside the return line and works its way out the oil seals into the intake and exhaust sides of the turbo.  No more oil in the intake system and no more blue clouds of smoke when I climb on the boost (at least so far).  The engine had to be completely apart for this modification, since the return is fitted directly into the side of the original case sump.

The interior was partially removed in order to route the Morse throttle cable along the outside of the center tunnel (made even more difficult by the fact that I had decided to glue all of the carpeting in place).  Additional work was required under the rear seat to install the somewhat larger Wolf v4.0 ECU and route the serial cable up to the front of the car for laptop programming.  The dash had to come out to swap out a defunct mechanical fuel pressure gauge and reinstall an old exhaust backpressure gauge instead.  Nearly all of the wiring leading to the engine compartment now flows through the inside of the car behind the rear seat, where it passes through a 1.25" diameter hole cut into the firewall.  Before, all of the wiring between the area below the back seat and the engine compartment flowed underneath the car, which cluttered up the area directly below the external oil cooler.

Does it sound like three month's worth of work?  Probably not, until you consider that the intake system not only had to be fabricated during this time but designed as well.  The same goes for the new cold-air air intake system and the new cold-air oil cooler ducting.  Fabricating a bracket to secure the throttle cable to the center manifold section took nearly a week of evenings just to get it to route the cable without binding, while all the wiring took nearly another week (everything was routed, properly cut to length, soldered, shrink wrapped, and secured in place).  And let's not even consider all the time spent dry-fitting all of the engine components...