Mr_Diesel
08-22-2005, 01:50 AM
So I went out to a local race track in Utah... I really like the Pro 4's class. They are all "american" cars because it's an "american" class. So all the cars are named like... Taurus, Stratus, Cavalier, etc... Well... durring time trials, there was this one car... The announcer gave us a bit of information about the vehicle. It was a "Ford Taurus"... He then continued to describe, the car, and he said it was "powered by a volkswagen engine"... I about screamed!!!! I kept my eye on him the entire night... He did very well, and he actually won the most points in the class that night, and took home a 500 dollar purse!!!
I went down in the pits afterwards to check out this car. The guy owns and operates Utah Imports... It's a euro tuning shop in Utah. I asked him if he would be willing to pop the hood and reveal some information about the car... Before he poped the hood he said "it's got a passat engine in it"... So I figured it was the 16V... NOPE... It was an 8V!!!
Passat 9A 2.0L 16V BOTTOM END with a stock crank and stock rods. He had the STOCK rods polished and balanced for about 150 bucks. He got some kinda pistons (forget the name), but he was running 12:1 compression. So the entire bottom end was stock with the exception of the polished rods and high comp pistons. He found some rod bolts that work great on the 2.0L 16V rods... He said Ford 302 ARP Rod Bolts are the exact same bolt, except the head of the bolt needs to be slightly machined to fit on the rod. These bolts are VERY VERY tough.
He then went ahead and told me about the top end. He bought a Eurospec 8V cylinder head... Apparently Eurospec went out and found a really high flow head from South Africa or something that flows almost as good as the 16V stuff... He stuck that on there... Stock from Eurospec.
He deleted the entire pulley system. He was using an electric water pump. He was using a deep cycle batter that had to be charged after every race due to the water pump and coil drainage. Not using these two items saves like 2hp he said... Not to mention the weight.
I didnt ask how, but he is running a total vacuum inside the crankcase, which helped with about 5 or 6hp.
He was using carbs... 4 motorcycle carbs I belive... (You cant use fuel injection in races because high pressure fuel or any high pressure liquid is a no no in these races).
He redlines the engine at 8,900 rpm.
Not sure what he had done to the tranny, but he did something to the innards that made it only a 2 speed... I think because of weight reductions, and less hp loss in the tranny.
He showed me a stack of dyno sheets that he was using when he was tuning the engine... I probably talked to the guy for a good hour... It was REALLY really neat. A great guy to talk to. He says he chose the 8V head over the 16V head because the extra flow and hp wasnt worth the added weight.
Ohhh he was also using 110 octane race fuel for the 12:1 comp... He said, all in all it was one of the cheaper engines he had built... Really I think it wouldnt cost much more than 1,000 bucks to build an engine like he did. The last engine he used made it through 3 race seasons of beating the piss out of the engine at 12:1 comp at 8,900rpm, the engine held up just fine.
Just telling you all about my cool experience with an awesome VW tuner... 208whp is possible with the 8V if only a few things are done... Not too expensive either! Not very practical considering it would probably last less than 10,000 miles under normal driving conditions, but still... 8V shiz is sooooo cheap it would be worth it to rebuild it every year!
Disclaimer: All of this information is just what I understood what he told me... If the owner of this car, or somebody that knows about this car more than I do, please feel free to correct my inaccuracies.
I went down in the pits afterwards to check out this car. The guy owns and operates Utah Imports... It's a euro tuning shop in Utah. I asked him if he would be willing to pop the hood and reveal some information about the car... Before he poped the hood he said "it's got a passat engine in it"... So I figured it was the 16V... NOPE... It was an 8V!!!
Passat 9A 2.0L 16V BOTTOM END with a stock crank and stock rods. He had the STOCK rods polished and balanced for about 150 bucks. He got some kinda pistons (forget the name), but he was running 12:1 compression. So the entire bottom end was stock with the exception of the polished rods and high comp pistons. He found some rod bolts that work great on the 2.0L 16V rods... He said Ford 302 ARP Rod Bolts are the exact same bolt, except the head of the bolt needs to be slightly machined to fit on the rod. These bolts are VERY VERY tough.
He then went ahead and told me about the top end. He bought a Eurospec 8V cylinder head... Apparently Eurospec went out and found a really high flow head from South Africa or something that flows almost as good as the 16V stuff... He stuck that on there... Stock from Eurospec.
He deleted the entire pulley system. He was using an electric water pump. He was using a deep cycle batter that had to be charged after every race due to the water pump and coil drainage. Not using these two items saves like 2hp he said... Not to mention the weight.
I didnt ask how, but he is running a total vacuum inside the crankcase, which helped with about 5 or 6hp.
He was using carbs... 4 motorcycle carbs I belive... (You cant use fuel injection in races because high pressure fuel or any high pressure liquid is a no no in these races).
He redlines the engine at 8,900 rpm.
Not sure what he had done to the tranny, but he did something to the innards that made it only a 2 speed... I think because of weight reductions, and less hp loss in the tranny.
He showed me a stack of dyno sheets that he was using when he was tuning the engine... I probably talked to the guy for a good hour... It was REALLY really neat. A great guy to talk to. He says he chose the 8V head over the 16V head because the extra flow and hp wasnt worth the added weight.
Ohhh he was also using 110 octane race fuel for the 12:1 comp... He said, all in all it was one of the cheaper engines he had built... Really I think it wouldnt cost much more than 1,000 bucks to build an engine like he did. The last engine he used made it through 3 race seasons of beating the piss out of the engine at 12:1 comp at 8,900rpm, the engine held up just fine.
Just telling you all about my cool experience with an awesome VW tuner... 208whp is possible with the 8V if only a few things are done... Not too expensive either! Not very practical considering it would probably last less than 10,000 miles under normal driving conditions, but still... 8V shiz is sooooo cheap it would be worth it to rebuild it every year!
Disclaimer: All of this information is just what I understood what he told me... If the owner of this car, or somebody that knows about this car more than I do, please feel free to correct my inaccuracies.