what every boy needs - yeah seriously

wrote in message
...
On Jan 13, 10:06 pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:

At the obvious cost of proving myself a heretic regarding VWs....

We could go back into the old debate about whether a nearly stock VW
engine
could be a reliable 50 to 60hp powerplant with the right sort of pressure
cooling system. With all due respect to Bob, a/k/a Veeduber, I am still
convinced that it can

I have to side with VeeDuber here. I've got the benefit of experience
he probably doesn't. All my ground bound VW's operated at a density
altitude of 7000 ft - on average. When it comes too cooling by air it
takes air to do the cooling. We have less of it here than folks in
his area do.

A VW bus with a stock 1600cc was marginal and if modified to give it's
rated hp at our density altitude cooling became enemy number one. My
motors lasted longer than the guys across town in large part because I
was PICKY about the cooling, going to such extremes as siliconeing the
gap between the fan housing and the cylinder covers to keep the
cooling air inside. I bought spark plug hole seals by the
hundreds.............

The later model bus with the 1700/2000 would even show signs of heat
stress in stock form if the seal between the engine and body was
missing (flat rate shop across town never put them back).

Point is, cooling these things IS a problem. As much as I like the
old air-cooled VW's they have real problems and limitations. The most
reliable VW bus motor was one I ripped out of a Rabbit and stuffed
into the hole. 100K miles later with no heating problems, more hill
climbing power and fuel efficiency made the cost of the swaps worth
every penny. Rabbit radiator fits under the deck sideways and the
customers had heat too..... no more scraping the ice off the inside of
the windows as you drove.

BTW did you know that a stripped 8 valve VW water cooled motor weighs
LESS than an air cooled TP IV? Rather than keep flogging the air-
cooled why not try a belt PSRU on one of these canted over at about 45
degrees?

Simple as an air-cooled 1600 based VW? No. More reliable? Probably.
==============================
Leon McAtee

Interesting. I did not know that the 8 valve VW was lighter than the Type
IV, especially since I believed that it probably had an iron block. I have
never been a fan of reduction drives; but there were a lot of conversions
based upon inline fours with belt reduction drives during that time period.
AFAIK, several were quite successfull. And a lot of the newer engines are
lighter for their power and might be easier to cool.

Peter

On Jan 14, 11:10*am, "Peter Dohm" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Jan 13, 10:06 pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:

At the obvious cost of proving myself a heretic regarding VWs....

We could go back into the old debate about whether a nearly stock VW
engine
could be a reliable 50 to 60hp powerplant with the right sort of pressure
cooling system. With all due respect to Bob, a/k/a Veeduber, I am still
convinced that it can
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mybe it CAN. All I'm saying is that it never happened for me and I
gave it a pretty good go. Failures ALWAYS pointed to excessive
heating/lack of cooling.

Probably the biggest factor in folks thinking it CAN do that are the
ones that simply ran it til it dropped then built another, without
paying any attention to MTBO. I know two turbo types that thought TEN
HOURS was a good number for their heads. One of those guys swore up &
down that he NEVER HAD A LICK OF TROUBLE during a thousand hours
behind a turbo'd VW. But what he failed to mention was that those
thousand hours were accumulated on THREE DIFFERENT CRANKCASES and that
about the only time you saw his plane was at a fly-in or TORN DOWN,
getting new heads, new bearings, a new crankshaft, and so forth. But
he's right: It NEVER LET HIM DOWN. He never crashed. He never had
to land off-field (although he had a number of landings at strange
airports). And if he had to rent a U-Haul truck to get the thing back
home, why, that was just part of the game. (KR2, based in Oregon)

I don't look at flying that way.

wrote in message
...
On Jan 14, 11:10 am, "Peter Dohm" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Jan 13, 10:06 pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:

At the obvious cost of proving myself a heretic regarding VWs....

We could go back into the old debate about whether a nearly stock VW
engine
could be a reliable 50 to 60hp powerplant with the right sort of
pressure
cooling system. With all due respect to Bob, a/k/a Veeduber, I am still
convinced that it can
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mybe it CAN. All I'm saying is that it never happened for me and I
gave it a pretty good go. Failures ALWAYS pointed to excessive
heating/lack of cooling.

Probably the biggest factor in folks thinking it CAN do that are the
ones that simply ran it til it dropped then built another, without
paying any attention to MTBO. I know two turbo types that thought TEN
HOURS was a good number for their heads. One of those guys swore up &
down that he NEVER HAD A LICK OF TROUBLE during a thousand hours
behind a turbo'd VW. But what he failed to mention was that those
thousand hours were accumulated on THREE DIFFERENT CRANKCASES and that
about the only time you saw his plane was at a fly-in or TORN DOWN,
getting new heads, new bearings, a new crankshaft, and so forth. But
he's right: It NEVER LET HIM DOWN. He never crashed. He never had
to land off-field (although he had a number of landings at strange
airports). And if he had to rent a U-Haul truck to get the thing back
home, why, that was just part of the game. (KR2, based in Oregon)

I don't look at flying that way.

-----------begin new post---------

I am really not dissagreeing with you--as the pressure system that I am
thinking of would use a VW type cooling fan to augment the ram air pressure.
That would be a rather obvious source of added weight and an easily visible
use of power--and would never be popular.

Interestingly, the guys I knew who broke cranks (amoung other interesting
problems) were also flying KR2s--although they were based in Florida.

Personally, that is not a level of reliability that I could accept; and I
have never considered an application that I believed would draw much more
than 40 HP continuously from a VW--even though I have been willing to
consider ideas that asserted a theoretical peak power of 60 HP.

Peter Dohm wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Jan 14, 11:10 am, "Peter Dohm" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Jan 13, 10:06 pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:

At the obvious cost of proving myself a heretic regarding VWs....
We could go back into the old debate about whether a nearly stock VW
engine
could be a reliable 50 to 60hp powerplant with the right sort of
pressure
cooling system. With all due respect to Bob, a/k/a Veeduber, I am still
convinced that it can
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mybe it CAN. All I'm saying is that it never happened for me and I
gave it a pretty good go. Failures ALWAYS pointed to excessive
heating/lack of cooling.

Probably the biggest factor in folks thinking it CAN do that are the
ones that simply ran it til it dropped then built another, without
paying any attention to MTBO. I know two turbo types that thought TEN
HOURS was a good number for their heads. One of those guys swore up &
down that he NEVER HAD A LICK OF TROUBLE during a thousand hours
behind a turbo'd VW. But what he failed to mention was that those
thousand hours were accumulated on THREE DIFFERENT CRANKCASES and that
about the only time you saw his plane was at a fly-in or TORN DOWN,
getting new heads, new bearings, a new crankshaft, and so forth. But
he's right: It NEVER LET HIM DOWN. He never crashed. He never had
to land off-field (although he had a number of landings at strange
airports). And if he had to rent a U-Haul truck to get the thing back
home, why, that was just part of the game. (KR2, based in Oregon)

I don't look at flying that way.

-----------begin new post---------

I am really not dissagreeing with you--as the pressure system that I am
thinking of would use a VW type cooling fan to augment the ram air pressure.
That would be a rather obvious source of added weight and an easily visible
use of power--and would never be popular.

Interestingly, the guys I knew who broke cranks (amoung other interesting
problems) were also flying KR2s--although they were based in Florida.

Personally, that is not a level of reliability that I could accept; and I
have never considered an application that I believed would draw much more
than 40 HP continuously from a VW--even though I have been willing to
consider ideas that asserted a theoretical peak power of 60 HP.




I've always thought that the broken cranks were the cast versions not forged cranks.


I've never heard of anyone breaking a forged crank.

FWIW

Richard

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
---------------preceding posts snipped------------------

I am really not dissagreeing with you--as the pressure system that I am
thinking of would use a VW type cooling fan to augment the ram air
pressure. That would be a rather obvious source of added weight and an
easily visible use of power--and would never be popular.

Interestingly, the guys I knew who broke cranks (amoung other interesting
problems) were also flying KR2s--although they were based in Florida.

Personally, that is not a level of reliability that I could accept; and I
have never considered an application that I believed would draw much more
than 40 HP continuously from a VW--even though I have been willing to
consider ideas that asserted a theoretical peak power of 60 HP.


I've always thought that the broken cranks were the cast versions not
forged cranks.


I've never heard of anyone breaking a forged crank.

FWIW

Richard

I had thought that as well, but it appears that my information was
incomplete and Veeduber included some probable reasons in an adjacent post.

In any case, the broken cranks that locally came to my attention occurred in
the range of 150 to 160 hours of operation and I was told at that time that
failures of that type were well known at a similar time in service.
Although I no longer recall what I was told about the exact nature of the
breaks, the engines involved were driving props on the accessory end and the
failure was probably the gradual crack progression that Veeduber describes
from a point between the threads and the woodruff key slot.

Peter

On Jan 14, 4:55*pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:

I am really not dissagreeing with you--as the pressure system that I am
thinking of would use a VW type cooling fan to augment the ram air pressure.
That would be a rather obvious source of added weight and an easily visible
use of power--and would never be popular.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trouble with the coaxial blower mods was the SAME as with the
turbo people, in that there simply was not enough fin area for the
increased density/flow to do much good. Everyone seemed determine to
get "60hp" sixty mythical horsepower from an engine that in its most
powerful configuration only produced 57bhp @ 4400rpm.... and you only
got to pull that for something less than 5 minutes.

So you increase the displacement to something seriously silly and
USING THE SAME HEADS & FIN AREA start pulling as much as 85hp(!!) from
that configuration... and wondering why things weren't working right.

Maximum SUSTAINABLE OUTPUT of the '1600' (displacement 1584cc) under
Standard Day conditions was something like 36bhp, whereas PEAK OUTPUT
can be just about anything you're willing to pay for. It doesn't blow
up (although it can) but it blows your bhp right into the porcelain
fixture.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interestingly, the guys I knew who broke cranks (amoung other interesting
problems) were also flying KR2s--although they were based in Florida.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you talk 'broken cranks' and VW's you gotta define which TYPE of
'broken crankshaft' you're referring to, because there are TWO
distinct cases. In the FIRST CASE, ANY VW crankshaft, cast, forged
or billet,....can, will and has... displayed the 'classic' fracture
failure, in which a fracture is initiated in one of the internal
threads of the PULLEY HUB, the peaks of which may approach to within .
058" of one of the corners of the Woodruff Key keyway cut into the
NOSE of the crankshaft. (As you may know, the Woodruff Key is a
segment of a circle, as is it's keyway. Unlike a SQUARE key, with the
Woodruff, which is far easier to fabricate, if you want a KEY of
substantial length and width then you must be willing to accept a
KEYWAY of significant DEPTH. This is what allows the keyway to
approach so closely to the internal threads. Another factor here is
that, unlike British or American thread-forms, METRIC threads come to
a sharp POINT. These factors COMBINE to virtually guarantee the
formation of a crack in the nose of the crankshaft.) The crack then
progresses along the corner of the Woodruff keyway cut until it
crosses over to the Stress Relief groove which completely encircles
the nose of the crankshaft. Once it reaches that point you may as well
tighten your straps and punch the locator beacon because you're about
to turn into a glider.

This situation was discovered by the British firm of Ardem who sought
-- and RECEIVED -- certification for the Converted VW. They worked
out the critical load was something on the order of 27 bhp, and the
maximum amount of time was around 200 hours. And that's what they got
certification for. T.O. power limited to 3 minutes; tear-down &
magnaflux inspection REQUIRED at 200 hours. Once they got all the
paperwork out of the way they even allowed Prince Phillip to hop one
(ie, license-built Druine 'Turbulent' powered by the Ardem 4C02, a VW
engine converted for flight that was rated at 30.7bhp @ 3000 rpm (but
only for about one minute).

Then we have the Clyde's Buggy sand-cast crankshafts. Clyde's (sp?)
is better known today as 'CB Performance' but it's the same shop just
a different name. I believe Clyde's last name is Tomlinson but I'm
going back forty years and more... Anyway, the owner's son went to
Brazil and began importing all sorts of stuff, including
crankshafts. Rex Taylor used some of those crankshafts -- which
happened to be castings -- in some of his engines and their failure
effectively put Rex out of business. But it also fostered the
Conventional Wisdom that ALL cast crankshafts were bad. Which is
kinda strange when you think of it because the Big Three have been
using cast cranks in their biggest engines since Jeeter was a pup. In
fact, what you're running into here is the fact that a crankshaft
fabricated using the Lost Foam process is actually superior to a
forging, which is why you find cast cranks in some of the best racing
engines. But Volkswagen owners didn't get the benefit of those
properly cast cranks until they started coming in from China. Prior
to then we had some cast cranks that were so bad the thing could
shatter if it fell off the bench.

The reason a MODERN casting is superior to a forging has to do with
the manner in which the casting is allowed to cool. A modern-day lost-
foam CAST CRANKSHAFT is allowed to cool at a carefully controlled rate
so that the internal grain structure of the crank comes out denser
than in a forging. Another advantage is that many of the high-
strength alloys simply cannot be forged! But one of the funniest
things you'll hear about cast cranks is that they are LESS EXPENSIVE.
Due to the price of today's fuels it actually costs MORE to produce a
a high-quality cast crankshaft. Using casting methods, you CAN produce
a cheap crank but the real reason to go with a casting is to take
advantage of the casting's denser grain structure.

Those early cast cranks were junk, pure and simple. Dropping one
could cause it to break like a piece of glass and using one in an
airplane engine was little more than corporate suicide. There is
simply no way you can compare those early sand-cast crankshafts with a
modern-day casting, such as used by Volkswagen and Ford.

Most American pilots aren't familiar with the 'flying club' system
found in Europe and most other places in the world. One reason the
clubs enjoy an enviable safety record is because they are required to
have a certified A&E on staff. aren't aware of is that flying clubs
are REQUIRED to have a certified A&E on staff. Which brings up an
interesting point about VW engines converted for flight. A majority
of those engines were used to power flying club hacks, with a long
waiting list that covered the entire flying season.

Remember the tear-down and inspection requirement for the Ardem
engines? Specifically that bit about a Magnaflux inspection every two
hundred hours? The truth is, a Magnaflux inspection cost MORE than a
new crankshaft. As soon as the airplane was taken off flying status
and began to undergo is winter maintenance schedules, the engine was
torn down in order to receive a NEW crankshaft. Depending on how many
hours the flying club's planes accumulated over the summer, you could
count on it having a NEW crankshaft every two years. With that in
mind it's easy to see why broken crankshafts simply were not an issue
with any of the club's VW powered aircraft.

-R.S.Hoover

wrote in message
...
On Jan 14, 4:55 pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:

I am really not dissagreeing with you--as the pressure system that I
am
thinking of would use a VW type cooling fan to augment the ram air
pressure.
That would be a rather obvious source of added weight and an easily
visible
use of power--and would never be popular.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

The trouble with the coaxial blower mods was the SAME as with the
turbo people, in that there simply was not enough fin area for the
increased density/flow to do much good. Everyone seemed determine to
get "60hp" sixty mythical horsepower from an engine that in its most
powerful configuration only produced 57bhp @ 4400rpm.... and you only
got to pull that for something less than 5 minutes.

So you increase the displacement to something seriously silly and
USING THE SAME HEADS & FIN AREA start pulling as much as 85hp(!!) from
that configuration... and wondering why things weren't working right.

Maximum SUSTAINABLE OUTPUT of the '1600' (displacement 1584cc) under
Standard Day conditions was something like 36bhp, whereas PEAK OUTPUT
can be just about anything you're willing to pay for. It doesn't blow
up (although it can) but it blows your bhp right into the porcelain
fixture.
SNIP
-R.S.Hoover

Hope you don't mind my jumping in here Bob. Do you remember the Porsche
engine with the cooling fan behind the prop? It was supposed to
eliminate the need for cowl flaps and also prevent shock cooling too.
What happened to it?

--
Anyolmouse

fan-cooled VW/Porsche http://popnet.ch/reichen/HB207/image035.htm

it's the powerplant of a ALFA HB 207, quite a few flying here in Europe
http://popnet.ch/reichen/HB207/index.htm


"Anyolmouse" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...

wrote in message
...
On Jan 14, 4:55 pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:

I am really not dissagreeing with you--as the pressure system that I
am
thinking of would use a VW type cooling fan to augment the ram air
pressure.
That would be a rather obvious source of added weight and an easily
visible
use of power--and would never be popular.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

The trouble with the coaxial blower mods was the SAME as with the
turbo people, in that there simply was not enough fin area for the
increased density/flow to do much good. Everyone seemed determine to
get "60hp" sixty mythical horsepower from an engine that in its most
powerful configuration only produced 57bhp @ 4400rpm.... and you only
got to pull that for something less than 5 minutes.

So you increase the displacement to something seriously silly and
USING THE SAME HEADS & FIN AREA start pulling as much as 85hp(!!) from
that configuration... and wondering why things weren't working right.

Maximum SUSTAINABLE OUTPUT of the '1600' (displacement 1584cc) under
Standard Day conditions was something like 36bhp, whereas PEAK OUTPUT
can be just about anything you're willing to pay for. It doesn't blow
up (although it can) but it blows your bhp right into the porcelain
fixture.
SNIP
-R.S.Hoover

Hope you don't mind my jumping in here Bob. Do you remember the Porsche
engine with the cooling fan behind the prop? It was supposed to
eliminate the need for cowl flaps and also prevent shock cooling too.
What happened to it?

--
Anyolmouse

"oilsardine" wrote in message
...
: fan-cooled VW/Porsche http://popnet.ch/reichen/HB207/image035.htm
:
: it's the powerplant of a ALFA HB 207, quite a few flying here in
Europe
: http://popnet.ch/reichen/HB207/index.htm
:
:
: "Anyolmouse" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
: ...
:
: wrote in message
:
...
: On Jan 14, 4:55 pm, "Peter Dohm" wrote:
:
: I am really not dissagreeing with you--as the pressure system that
I
: am
: thinking of would use a VW type cooling fan to augment the ram air
: pressure.
: That would be a rather obvious source of added weight and an easily
: visible
: use of power--and would never be popular.
:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
: --------
:
: The trouble with the coaxial blower mods was the SAME as with the
: turbo people, in that there simply was not enough fin area for the
: increased density/flow to do much good. Everyone seemed determine
to
: get "60hp" sixty mythical horsepower from an engine that in its most
: powerful configuration only produced 57bhp @ 4400rpm.... and you
only
: got to pull that for something less than 5 minutes.
:
: So you increase the displacement to something seriously silly and
: USING THE SAME HEADS & FIN AREA start pulling as much as 85hp(!!)
from
: that configuration... and wondering why things weren't working
right.
:
: Maximum SUSTAINABLE OUTPUT of the '1600' (displacement 1584cc) under
: Standard Day conditions was something like 36bhp, whereas PEAK
OUTPUT
: can be just about anything you're willing to pay for. It doesn't
blow
: up (although it can) but it blows your bhp right into the porcelain
: fixture.
: SNIP
: -R.S.Hoover
:
: Hope you don't mind my jumping in here Bob. Do you remember the
Porsche
: engine with the cooling fan behind the prop? It was supposed to
: eliminate the need for cowl flaps and also prevent shock cooling
too.
: What happened to it?
:
: --
: Anyolmouse
:

Nice site. It isn't the same configuration as the one I saw in a
magazine here in the US though. There was a large air intake filled with
a fan just behind the prop. The fan was supposed to supply all the
cooling needed and protect the engine from over cooling from ram air as
well as supply cooling during taxi and low speed operation.

--
Anyolmouse

On Jan 15, 6:23*am, "Anyolmouse" wrote:

Hope you don't mind my jumping in here Bob. Do you remember the Porsche
engine with the cooling fan behind the prop?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you mean the engine for the British blimp, yeah, I remember it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was supposed to
eliminate the need for cowl flaps and also prevent shock cooling too.
What happened to it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They had trouble with the blimp, as best I can recall.

Come on... you should be able to remember it. It was in most of the
magazines back then.

The blimp could not provide the forward velocity needed to cool the
engine, so instead of going to Fat Fins or any of the other possible
solutions (the Porsche engine was already Type Certified -- they
couldn't mess with it without running into the CAA. So they came up
with the idea of providing a 140mph cooling air-flow INSIDE THE
COWLING. The engine didn't know any better. It would stick out it's
toe, feel that blast of 140 mph cooling air and say, "Oh goody!" (but
in Chermann of course) and fly off into the sunset... with half a
dozen tourists on-board (at about $50 per, as I recall). Quick tour
around the pea-patch, niffty landing to the portable Pylon Tower,
commerative T-shirts, coffee mugs and an autographed picture of the
Fearless Aviator, and off they go for another trip around the pea
patch.

Ah, the wonders of aviation...

It wasn't the ENGINE'S fault that the thing was not a howling
success... and the truth is, I've forgotten the details as to WHY it
was not a success... if I ever even knew them.

-Bob