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Yeah, that's the guy, Stan!  He was really pushing the 4" bore thing and seemed to be making huge power- but then, how could you not with that much displacement?  A bunch of people were seduced by his ways, ordered parts (and paid up front) but he could never deliver.  Some people were still trying to get their money back 4-5 years later.

The Nickies thing is very tempting, but the only real street heads that will work with that much displacement (101.6 mm pistons with an 86 mm crank) are, as you say, from JPM (they do build great stuff) and they ain't givin' em away...

PS- you probably already know this, but yeah, I followed your drop down that rabbit hole with great interest.

Last edited by ALB

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@Stan Galat posted:
At that point, I'd just buy a 6-speed Hellcat if I want to be the king of the street...
...(not that I would ever hoon on the public roadway, perish the thought - there might be an elderly blind cow, lost and wandering in the roadway)


No worries, Stan.

You can get the Hellcat mill in one of them manly RAM pick-me-up trucks and wipe any cow that gets in your way clear off the planet.

RAMTRX

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@ALB posted:

PS- you probably already know this, but yeah, I followed your drop down that rabbit hole with great interest.

I did know that, but thanks, Al.

The problem was ignition. I really, really wanted the "bundle o' snakes" distributor and the two coils hanging off the shroud, but the whole thing would have worked so very much better with a proper crank-fire setup. In the end, I ruined the heads (and probably the bottom end) when my stupid Comp-u-Fire module loosened up down at the Tour d' Smo, and I didn't have the 7mm socket I needed to fix the issue.

The uncontrolled preignition and backfiring almost burned the car down and certainly ruined the heads (which I shipped to Denmark to be fixed, and will apparently never see again).

Next time I'm looking for that King-Kong motor (for Projekt X), it'll just be a Pat Downs 2332 with IDAs and megajolt.

Last edited by Stan Galat
@ALB posted:

Yeah, that's the guy, Stan!  He was really pushing the 4" bore thing and seemed to be making huge power- how could you not with that much displacement?  A bunch of people were seduced by his ways, ordered parts (and paid up front) but he could never deliver.  Some people were still trying to get their money back 4-5 years later.

The old website was 4inbore.com, but it's a dead link now. Using @Gordon Nichols "archive.org", I was able to pull up a screenshot of the old site from 2009. The guy's name was Jeff Denham.

It was going to bug me until I remembered. Now I can go on to other things.

@Stan Galat posted:

The old website was 4inbore.com, but it's a dead link now. Using @Gordon Nichols "archive.org", I was able to pull up a screenshot of the old site from 2009. The guy's name was Jeff Denham.

It was going to bug me until I remembered. Now I can go on to other things.

Thanks- you saved me the trouble!

Jeff is a pretty talented guy.  Unfortunately, a lot of people like that really need to let someone handle the business end of things, but I think for so many that's hard to do.

And yeah, the dual plug engine certainly had some growing pains, but it was a great idea.  I'm sorry you're giving up on it.  What did what's his name say about the heads?

Last edited by ALB
@ALB posted:

Thanks- you saved me the trouble!

And yeah, the dual plug engine certainly had some growing pains, but it was a great idea.  I'm sorry you're giving up on it.  What did what's his name say about the heads?

He had some Covid or vaccine related heart issues (I was never clear), then (like so very many people in this hobby) just seemed to lose interest. He's tired all the time from the myocarditis, it's not his day gig, and I'm not standing in front of him. He does a lot of rally-car work and that pays better than the VW stuff, I think.

The heads had issues unrelated to detonation related damage, and fixing them was going to mean doing a bunch of work on them, enough so that it was a question if we should proceed or not. I approved the work, but he must have just run out of steam.

I sent a "hey, do you want to do this or not?" email, and got a "let me think about it" reply. That was months ago.

He flaked, for sure. I'm out the freight, but the engine never worked as well as it might have with better heads.

How to get that done is an open question. Nobody wants to undertake an experiment. If this were a T4, Hoffmann Engineering would ship me a set of head already done and ready to go in a month. Alas, this is not a T4.

... which, were I to do a twin-plug engine I would recommend doing. A 4" T4 is routine, the bore spacing is set up for it, and there are heads and headers that would work perfectly. 20 years ago, Raby was making 200 hp with crushing torque with Hoffmann heads on a 4" bore, twin plugs, and an 86b. He went on to make easier, more reliable power with smaller engines and less exotic setups, but his ways became much more secretive. He stopped leaving breadcrumbs to follow.

@imperial posted:

The is an old Nissan motor  that has a duel head distributor with 2 caps  , I think that’s what the Aussie uses…..

It was a twin plug truck motor, and I believe the exact same distributor cap Stan used.

I know that stuff looks cool and all, but crankfire is just BETTER, by every metric. More accurate(massively), fatter(longer dwell is available because multiple coils) and higher voltage spark, and all the way up the rev range too. You know, where you need good and accurate spark.

Jake is still doing type4, but I'm not sure if it's for hire. I know he plays with aircooled for himself though.

Way back in the day, Jake wanted me to return my heads so he could twin-plug them. I'm sure I would have seen more power, he talked about 25 hp or so. And I could have upped the compression even more than the 10.2:1 it is now.

I'm pretty happy with the pull and drivability now, I can't see it getting much better for a naturally aspirated, aircooled VW of 2165cc.

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