off early to the train station with a bag full of stickers and t shirts and a head full of anticipation and apprehension.
i’m taking the train to Bradford to taylor machine services to collect the bus.
Martin has had the bus there for the last two weeks installing and plumbing and wiring and theoretically it’s all done and ready to drive.
the plan is (ha ha) to pick up the bus, make a clean getaway, hook up with steve from VWretro in sheffield and cruise down to VW action at herts showground in the evening.

arriving at taylors i found the bus up in the air on jacks with martin giving the new powerplant a final diagnostic on his laptop.

the new engine was built by Paul Hamilton of VW Speedshop and was specced as follows;

2332cc Engine (84mmx94mm)

* New AS41 racecase,bored for larger cylinders,drilled and tapped for
full
flow, clearance for 84mm long stroke.
* Case fitting kit.
* Scat 84mm forged chromoly crankshaft,8 dowel,counterweighted.
* Bearings for above.
* Scat “H” beam chromoly conrods with “ARP” 2000 rod bolts 5.5″.
* Webcam 86c clearanced camshaft.
* Scat straight cut steel cam gears.
* Scat lightweight cam followers.
* Scat 12lb chromoly flywheel.
* Scat 38mm flywheel gland nut.
* Full flow oil system,Berg relief cover.
* Berg full flow oil pump.
* Mahle forged stroker piston and barrel set 94mm.
* Ported polished street eliminator 44 x37 cylinder heads, dual springs, chromoly retainers.
* Scat 1.25 pro ratio rockers.
* Engine bearings,seals,wide mouth pushrod tubes,gaskets, double thrust cam bearings.
* Cylinder studs 8mm chromoly.
* custom cylinder spacers.
* Manton chromoly push rods.
* Kennedy Stage 2 2100lb clutch cover.
* Scat deep sump 2L.
* Teflon piston pin buttons.
* Full stainless 1 3/4 header.
* full stainless 3″ Magnaflow Muffler.
* Bosch 009, Petronix coil /ignitor, Scat leads,chrome clamp.
* Full set tinware,no heaters/Doghouse oil coolerand bracket/ Rocker covers Special breather tube /New fuel pump and filter,welded fan,new pulley, oil cooler,oil hose.
* New weber 48’s with matched tall manifolds,Berg linkage………

the carbs and distributor, ignition & fuel system has been stripped off been replaced with a full electronic fuel injection system featuring DTA fast engine management system feeding 45mm throttle bodies, bosch injectors, a Taylor custom crank sensor unit & pulley, full hi pressure fuel circuit, sensors for head temp, ambient air temp, fuel pressure, throttle position, voltage, crank sensor and lambda sensor. also installed is a Hurst linelock which has been wired into the ECU top provide RPM launch control, a new external 8pass oil cooler & electric fan setup and an autometer oil temp gauge on the burgeoning bouquet of instruments springing from the dash.

there’s probably much more that i’ve forgotten so i’ll try and get it right when i update the tech pages on the main website.

anyhow.

as i turned up martin was doing last minute twiddling anbd ran me through all the diagnostics and control setups on the software. to monitor or change settings on the ECU just plug in an old 486 windows 98 laptop and fire up the DTA software. you then have conotrol of everything and if i put in some more sensors i can do even more dumb, flashy tech stuff. like with a front & rear wheel sensor set i can set proper traction control ! all the stuff you get on an S class mercedes except heating !

after some more twiddling, brake adjusting etc i took the bus out for a spin with martin in the passenger seat.

onto the open road and foot down.

a most satisfying throaty roar and the bus LEAPT UP and off toward the horizon. the bus wasn’t a slouch before but the difference was immense…

…a brief moment of hesitation came over me as i realised the brakes needed bleeding a bit more. in a standing-bolt-upright-with-both-feet-on-the-pedal> kind of way.

after final twiddling and more cups of tea I load the bus and depart for the motorway in the dark. Poor martin, he’d been pulling late nighters all week to get the bus done and still had work to do on lil’ woper, his mad-fast vw engined fiat 500 race car, which he was taking to show at VWAction.

i head on out the the motorway. pausing only for fuel and food. I’m excited and quite apprehensive. there’s a LOT of new stuff and buckets of technology that’s been installed and the quick jaunt that martin and i did in the bus earlier is the furthest it’s even been. ordinarily i wouldn’t dream of doing the journey ahead on something completely untested but what the hell. and anyway, i’ve got no choice.

keeping careful eye on the temp gauge, although the engine is pretty much all run in it’s still a little tight and the heads are kinda mad for a bus and not renowned for their magnificent cooling ability, i eas e the bus onto the M1 and head south. cruising at about 70 the bus is mild and running fine. as a BMW M3 passes i give the pedal a gentle tap to see what happens and within moments the bus leaves the Beemer in its wake. much to my delight and the consternation of the passengers of the shiny german executive motor…

…aha, thinks i. it works then.

🙂

the journey was long and largely uneventful, nothing important fell off and aside from a quick bit of twiddling with the plumbing on the fuel rails all was fine. there does seem to be something that needs tracking/altering on the ECU fuel/ignition map. it’s doing a kinda ‘episodic’ power loss that an on/off of the key seems to reset. i’ll chat with martin over the weekend and see.
i know that it will take a few weeks to shake all the bus out of the system but the prospect of having SOFTWARE problems in an antique microbus makes me giggle almost as much as feeling the g-force.

oh yes, by the way, although the final sweeps haven’t been done yet Martin tells me the torque & bhp are somewhere in the region of 180ft/lb and 200 bhp.

i’m looking forward to getting it into the strip and seeing what it will actually do