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| < PREVIOUS | Building the #702 Rabbit
GTI (Stephen Jones) |
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The
next step was to make the car handle event better. I was using the typical
'sport' lowering springs that handled nicely on the street. But I wanted
more. I spent some time on the phone with a fellow hill climber and
VW-guru. Based on that conversation I was off to Ground Control to get
my two step springs (two linear rate springs of different rates stacked).
I ended up with 300 tender and 450 main springs in the front and 150
tender and 300 main springs in the rear. The tender spring acts like
the progressive part of your typical spring. Once the short and low
rate tender spring is compressed you are now sitting on the main spring.
The black spring is the tender and the red is the main. (pictured) |
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In
2001, I purchased a Dodge Durango for both a tow vehicle and my daily
driver. This means that it is time for more horsepower since I didn't
have to drive the Rabbit to work everyday like I had been doing (climbing
over the roll cage). Since I didn't know anything about turbo or supercharging
I opted to use the same engine components and increase the compression
ratio. I brought the head down to Motion Machine on Gregory Drive in
South Burlington, Vermont to have a complete valve job and shave 100/1000th
(1/10 inch) from the head and shave 40/1000th from the block. In addition,
they milled the piston tops so they didn't rise above the top of the
block. As you can see from the image, I had an interference engine.
The image at the left show the piston with the hold (piston was cracked)
and the scored cylinder wall. This is the 1.9 liter 12:1 egnine. |
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The end result was a 12:1 engine that ran great (220psi per cylinder; 180psi is stock), but it needed race fuel. Unfortunately, in the winter of 2003, I was not running enough octane during an ice race event (Ice Time Trials with the Sports Car Club of Vermont. www.SCCV.org) and I managed to put a hole through the #4 piston and score the cylinder walls. Ouch. I removed this block and installed one of Andy's old 1.8 blocks. This gave me 240psi per cylinder. Good! More power. Unfortunately, I ran this second engine at an event without knowing that the first engine died due to lack of octane. I got another hole.... piston #4. Okay, enough.... I ordered 10:1 pistons for the 1.8 and put it back together. This is when I found out that the original problem was due to low octane levels (I mixed VP Red [110 octane] and Sunoco 94). I now run VP C12 (112 octane) exclusively. Back to 2002...... |
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During
the original engine building process where I was working towards 12:1,
I knew that I needed three performance gains to compliment the horsepower
gains. I needed quicker acceleration (lightened fly wheel), non-slip
clutch (Kennedy 4-puck bronze clutch), and a way to put the power down
to the road (a limited slip differential, or LSD, by Quaife). The image
at the left shows a stock fly wheel, while the next image over shows
a lighten version. To the right, this is the puck clutch installed on
the engine. |
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| Transmission..... | ||||||||||||
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| The LSD was installed into the transmission by Caleb Deane of Anything Auto. One advantage of this car at events is the close ratio gearbox. All stock GTI gears. Love it. The transmission went into the car without any problems... even with the puck clutch. | ||||||||||||
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