JMR Development blog

Discussion in 'JMRacing' started by mr hillclimber, Sep 27, 2011.

  1. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    Well it's been a while!....so about time for a brief update.

    It's just about a year ago since we gave Nick a power upgrade with a re-ported head and 45 Dellorto's. He's been using it to good effect too...harassing other cars more powerful on paper, plus a much needed brake up-grade which he's able to use to haul the car up from some kamikaze style moves.

    This year started out with some strong running performances...watching my 1800 8v out-drag 1.8t's coming off the corners at Silverstone put a smile on my face!...even with, as we discovered only after the race, the tracking toe-ing out a mile!

    Nick was running well at Rockingham too until an alternator belt failed in race 2, but the biggest high of the year so far came at Cadwell Park last weekend with both Nick's & JMR power's first circuit race podium!....

    After avoiding someone else's heavy crash at the start of the race (apart from tap in the back), Nick got his head down and set off after the rest of the field. After a drama free run to the flag Nick was politely asked to pop straight up to the podium!....he was 3rd in class!

    A text message from Nick's wife to tell me the news and of the mile wide smile on his face (mine too!) was great to hear after all the effort put in by the simple family run team. Another strong start in race two saw Nick up to 3rd again but he wasn't quite able to do the double podium due to the exhaust manifold splitting open after the race 1 shunt, but we were all still happy with 4th....a great weekend overall.

    So the MK1 & "team Penfold" are heading off to Snetterton in a couple of weeks to see if the old 1800 can hold it's own maybe one last time...Nick says' some of the better MK4 Golf's can have an advantage in terms of power so he needs some more grunt...we're working on that at JMR which will hopefully be ready for Brands Hatch in around 6 weeks time...watch this space as they say.

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    ...imagine how exited he'll be when he wins!!

    Who needs a lottery win when a 3rd place finish feels this good!!!

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    "well actually it was all rather easy in the end..."

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    Last edited: Jul 5, 2014
  2. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    There's a bit of MK2 action going on at JMR of late...

    First up is rising Hillclimb & Sprint man Jon Wool. Jon runs Mr Sticker along with father Chris and makes all my Logo's, cards, stickers etc, and started taking an interest in MK2 Golf's a couple of years ago, first with a 16v road car which he swapped in an ABF after killing the KR, then the current race car came up for grabs at a steal with a modded 8v on K-star, Koni's, Eibach bars etc. Jon stripped it to use in the road class in Hill's & Sprints after a couple of local fun day events saw the "go faster" bug tap him on the shoulder, first with a head and cam upgrade from what was originally fitted, followed by some bargain 45 Dellorto's...the bug was starting to nibble a bit harder by then, along with a 4.25 final drive and Quaife diff...actually "my" Quaife diff...about time I upgraded!

    We squeezed 150hp from the old engine with poor squish, a std valve ported head and a Newman 280 road cam, which saw Jon start to harass some of the mid field cars in the class, along with some more chassis & brake work & a bit of a diet...the car not Jon. However, upon starting the car to put on the trailer for the last event of last year we had a call from Jon to "come and listen to this noise will ya and tell me if I can use it"!.....not with a knocking big end you cant no!

    So over the winter Jon hunted down a std 1800 block with good bores & pistons and we set about a fresh bottom end. Jon wanted to get involved to not only lighten my load but just show an interest in what goes on to build a modified engine. I had the piston crowns machined to give a full diameter squish band and a reduced bowl to raise the C.R, along with tighter clearance once the block was machined down to suit. Jon set about cleaning everything to my standard & gave the block a fresh coat of paint. I fitted up the rods with ARP bolts and re rung the pistons and popped them into the freshly honed bores, leaving Jon to torque everything up and dress up the block ready for the head.

    A part way through the build I had regular calls along the lines of "what if we..." from Jon, resulting in his "budget" engine getting some of our steel buckets, my favoured 318 degree hillclimb cam ground by Piper for me some and Isky valve springs. The head received it's third round of mods with some 40.5mm inlets as they fit on the std seats and the original 33mm exhausts.

    We popped it on the engine dyno for a work out at AP Motorsport where Alvin and I squeezed 170hp at 7000 from it. The above spec head/cam/carb combo is capable of making well over 180hp in 1800 form at 500-1000 more rpm, but we've found the realistic ceiling of std piston rings. Due to the thicker nature of them over thin items in forged pistons they break the seal against the bore wall much over 7k due to flutter and create high crank case pressure which in turn forces oil out of the breather...at least Alvin's dyno wont go rusty!

    I've seen this before and thought it was an isolated case but this is the 3rd time now on 1800's with std pistons...Nick Penfold's VAG trophy car above is showing signs of it after a couple of years hard use knocking on the door of 7-1/2k at times, though driving through 7000 isn't as hard on them as holding it over 7 on the dyno....the positive side of this is knowing the limits and making engines survive by using them as intended, though they appear to be withstanding the abuse so far on a 13:1 C.R and have given Jon a couple of 3rd's in class this year to date, his times now knocking on the door of some of my old times but 20hp less and over 100 kilo's more, so we're both more than happy with the performance.

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    Jon in action at Wiscombe hillclimb...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye0hdtEyc04
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2014
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  3. TonyB Paid Member Paid Member

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    Looking good, always a few Golfs running on the South West hills and punching above their weight. I've raced with Jon a few times when I've travelled down to Wiscombe and it's good to see the development on the car. If I go this year with the Road rally car it's a fair bet he'll be going quicker than me for the first time :cry:, but good luck to him.
     
  4. TrackCab16v Forum Member

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    true craftman working on them 8v s . nice job Jason , well done to the car and drivers to :thumbup:
     
  5. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    Cheers Tony. Yeah Jon's got stuck into it big time...considering he originally was happy to just pop along for a laugh! We ran it on the rollers recently to clean up the carburation a little and nip 'n' tuck the ignition map some more and saw 142hp at the wheels @ 6,500 with 500rpm to go to peak, so it's running mid 170's easy enough, and going by the low 47 second run's he's doing at Wiscombe on not the best rubber and with gear selection issues it's a strong contender now.

    Thanks a lot Paul....yeah they're not bad for what they are....basically budget builds, though we may yet go 1800 16v next year with the white car to crack 200hp and give the Elise's something more to think about.
     
  6. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    From budget 8v's to a not so budget 8v...but with a difference....enter Tim Moll's 2ltr 8v crossflow.

    Tim and I hatched a plan a couple of years ago to build up an 8v he had been collecting parts for over a number of years. It was initially going to be a conventional 8v with throttle bodies at the rear based on a race head Tim had bought. To cut a long story short Tim got stitched up when he sent the head to be checked over by someone claiming to be a VW specialist, who claimed Tim's race head to be scrap, but in fairness he did Tim a "good" deal on an exchange head...so good I declared it junk when Tim dropped it down to me for flow testing, with valve seats that had done many thousand miles, a spark plug thread insert that pulled out when I took the plugs out and race buckets that had been shimmed by Stevie Wonder...thankfully they don't operate on here, but many have caught a cold in his hands.

    Anyhow, I re-claimed the junk head for Tim but told him it wasn't up to scratch for what he wanted for a proper race engine and suggested the crossflow type head could be worth a look at. From there on in we embarked on a series of flow tests of the many variations...swirl...non swirl...German...Mexican...Tim sent so many I lost count, but a lot of the flow data can be found further back somewhere. We settled on a non swirl German casting in the end...I think!...Tim Know's them better than me...he's got less to think about than I have!...but we hatched a two tier plan which will eventually see a proper big valve head built up, but in the mean time, and based on all the flow data I had, we wondered just how close we could get to 200hp on basically std valve sizes as I've heard so many times that a big valve or big exhaust valve is needed to make power....read on to find out how close we get...

    Tim supplied me the parts he had that he initially had planned to build up himself, but I fancied the challenge of seeing where we could take this so talked him into letting me build it for him. The block came in good nick but the blue had to go...didn't it Tim!...well it would have clashed with the car!

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    ...looks much better in JMR orange!

    In went a bladed crank secured with ARP main studs....

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    ...along with steel H section rods and some Wiesco forged pistons. There were for a turbo 8v application with a deeper bowl, but I had them decked to reduce the bowl size and then the block skimmed down to match and bring the piston proud of the deck face to give my favoured squish...

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    It need a fair bit off....80 tho...yep..2mm!....but it took it ok much to the surprise of my machinist...

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    Some more ARP hardware is used to hold the head in place in the shape of their high quality stud & nut kit...

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    Nothing gets taken for granted in the JMR workshop, even new parts get stripped and checked...

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    ...with the bottom end all closed off with a JMR baffled sump...

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    The head was built up with steel buckets & shims, along with some cam lobe clearance to stop the Kent GS6 cam we used clattering into the head!...

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    The internal hardware consists of Supertech valves, valve springs & top caps, and just to prove this is the "small valve" version...

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    It's difficult to know exactly how to describe it as it's running std valve sizes as per a GTi @ 40mm inlet & 33mm exhaust, but the crossflow comes with 39.5mm inlets in std form, so we use Supertech's 0.5mm oversize inlet which fits on the std seat ones cut to suit...so it's sort of a big inlet valve conversion but at the std GTi size we all know. The head flow's 94cfm on the inlet, which is around 8cfm more than I see from a std 40mm inlet in a conventional GTi head, and around the same as I see from a 40.5mm inlet in a conventional head...Jon Wool's & Tony B's original head both make/made 94-95cfm from a 40.5 inlet....so the crossflow head works better in that form.

    Feeding the air into the head are a pair of Jenvey's finest in 45mm flavour, mounted on one of our JMR inlet manifolds which was prototyped on this engine...

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    ...and the waste gasses exit via Tony B's old Ashley 4-1....nothing trick (yet!), but it works...

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    Tim supplied the trigger wheel already mounted on the front pulley so I made one of my sensor brackets to suit, and we gave it all a stir on the AP Motorsport dyno......but did we hit "our" 200hp target....

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    ....not quite.....197hp @ 6,500 rpm, with a drop of to 194 @ 7000. Peak torque is very strong though with 162ib/ft @ 5000, which is 20-25ib/ft up on what I see from the top spec 1800 8v hillclimb engines...and they're far from slow!

    When I say "our"...Tim had his fingers crossed for hitting 200 but I didn't calculate it as possible on the small valve head as I knew it would cap the torque back at the very top end and expected around 194-195, but it's still pretty good for a restricted 2ltr, and in all honesty as Tim has to run to a power to weight limit in the VAG trophy it gave a touch over what we needed for the cars weight so he'll need to carry a couple of kilo's ballast to start with to give the turbo boys a chance!....until we change to the proper big valve head over the winter that is!

    After a few installation teething troubles Tim had a great run coming up through the field at Snetterton recently only for 5th gear to shred itself 2 laps into the first race of the weekend!....roll on Brands Hatch in a couple of weeks...I'll be watching from the sidelines so fingers crossed! ;)

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    Last edited: Aug 6, 2014
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  7. mitlom

    mitlom Forum Member

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    Great write up Jason.....but then I am biased lol

    I hope you don't mind but I just want to give a shout out to someone else that has been instrumental in sorting me out with some bespoke machining of parts for the engine and car build.......someone else that I have known for many years, Mart (aka Hotgolf) machined me up the lightened bladed 2ltr crank we're using, along with a lightened flywheel and auxiliary shaft for the engine. He also has made me a gearbox mount to suit the 02K box I'm using, some inner CV spacers, a remote thermostat housing and is my gearbox builder of choice :thumbup: In fact he is currently re-building my race gearbox following 5th gear shredding itself, which we are fairly certain was due to oil starvation, due to me following the VAG workshop manual I had that stated a fill qty of 1.6ltrs which Mart has informed me is about a ltr short of what it should be for the type of abuse I have been giving it :o
     
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  8. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    Not at all...I was actually going to mention the crank but I wasn't 100% sure Mart had done it...nice job..:thumbup:
     
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  9. TonyB Paid Member Paid Member

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    Good stuff. As ever nice to see engine development in the raw, and the subsequent results in competition. I know Tim has had a few teething troubles but hopefully most of that is now resolved and I reckon he's going to go well.

    Don't know about the comment '...and the waste gasses exit via Tony B's old Ashley 4-1....nothing trick (yet!), but it works...', that's probably the trickest Ashley MK1 manifold in use lol, not much on there that hasn't been, machines, welded, ported, taken apart and 'fettled' or simply changed! :thumbup: Of course it's in the 'Tatty' theme.
     
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  10. mitlom

    mitlom Forum Member

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    Fingers crossed all my issues are now behind me and hopefully this is where the competition will now be as well at Brands on the 16th/17th ;) lol

    There's no doubt that the manifold works, I think what Jason is eluding to is that we are working on a plan for a 4-2-1 manifold to get rid of that dip in the torque curve around the 4.5k point which Jason is pretty sure is as a result of the 4-1 design of the ashley and the far from ideal primary runner lengths....watch this space for winter developments regarding this :thumbup:
     
  11. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    What he said!....lol

    I've just spec'd one for a current engine in mid build...it's a work of art in stainless steel rather than a manifold!...pics in a couple of weeks when it goes on the dyno...unless someone can prove me wrong I can be fairly sure you'll have never seen anything like it on an 8v Golf engine before!
     
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  12. TonyB Paid Member Paid Member

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    ^^x2, Yeah, I know I was just having a bit of fun. Jasons been threatening to build a MK1 manifold for years, not seen one yet. Not holding my breath!! lol
     
  13. Jon Olds Forum Junkie

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    GS6: my fave 8V cam.............keep those write-ups coming!
    Jon
     
  14. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    Honest Tony it's already done....I'd send you a pic but you wont sleep for a week! lol

    Yeah it works ok so far Jon, we'll see if it continues to perform with the big valve head over the winter developments.
     
  15. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    Just to prove we're not totally 8v biased here's some multi valve action for you....

    I was approached by Duncan Brown on here about building a box of bits that he had acquired. Most of the bits were there but although Duncan wasn't chasing a power figure as such he said 215-220hp would be nice and anything more a bonus (I was long for the "more" bit!), though he would prefer decent torque rather than all out numbers. With the parts we had to hand I suggested to Duncan that some of the parts would need upgrading to reach his target, namely the cams...Newman 272 hydro's...and the exhaust manifold...an off the shelf road based 4-1.

    Among the parts was a ported cylinder head so I started from there to see what we had to work with. Airflow was decent to be fair but was achieved via ports that were too big and throats that are too small, so my concern was low & mid torque could be hurt, however there was plenty of flow for top end breathing....that wasn't the biggest issues though. At some point in it's past the valves seat's must have been cut by the machine shops tea maker as I doubt someone who knew what they were doing had done them. However the main issue was both the head & inlet manifold faces...the same tea maker must have been asked to clean them up but didn't really understand the job in hand as I'd imagine he used a variety of smooth grit wet 'n' dry to get the finish but with wildly varying hand pressure as there wasn't a straight surface on either!....tarted up for sale springs to mind.

    After assessment at my machinists he declared he could true up the faces and re-cut the seats so we went with that to save starting from scratch with another head. Once we knew what we were working with I looked at cam spec's to suit and found exactly what I wanted with Piper's 290 degree race profile. Duncan didn't want to use more than 8000rpm so I wanted to see peak power at around 7500rpm and I had a torque target of 170-175ib/ft. With steel cam buckets and race valve springs added into the mix I built & shimmed the head up to suit.

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    With the hefty skim needed to true up the head face we had a very shallow chamber, so the forged pistons needed their raised compression crown reducing a fair bit to bring the C.R back in line and the valve pockets deepened to clear the valves at TDC. With the machining done and the block decked to give the required squish I use the bottom end was built up with the steel H section rods and wedged crank as supplied, with ARP studs used to secure the main caps and the head.

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    Duncan supplied some KMS throttle bodies to go on our JMR inlet manifold, and ventured off to Tony Law Exhausts with the manifold spec I gave him to suit the powerband I wanted to achieve.

    After bolting the engine on to the AP Motorsport dyno Alvin set about setting up the Omex management and squeezed all that was possible from what we had....

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    ...which was 229hp @ 7,500rpm (229.99 if we want to be picky!), holding 223.75 @ 8000 and 172ib/ft of torque @ 5,500rpm. With the torque target hit and hp bonus over what Duncan was hoping for it should drag a MK1 Golf around the circuits ok.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh72umPWXEg

    ...turn it up!.....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BIcYHyAJII

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    Last edited: Aug 11, 2014
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  16. Hotgolf

    Hotgolf Paid Member Paid Member

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    Morning Jason.
    I'm pretty sure that block came to me to be bored out, as I know I did the crank and aux. shaft. The main cap bolts are 12.9 allen heads I supplied that I tend to use old head bolt washers with as they are 5mm longer than a stock mani cap bolt.
    I know I didn't touch the head though, I have a bridgeport in the garage to do all my sanding lol
     
  17. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    Morning Mart...it was mentioned you had the bits at some point, crank looks ok :thumbup:

    Ah....they're not the same 12.9's...they're under the bench as when I dummy'd it up and they didn't clamp the caps I thought "what the f$$%?"!! lol...so used some of mine.

    Oh you'd have laughed if you saw it...I was close to writing it off it was that bad...the chamber was already shallow but we got away with it in the end...std chamber size is 48cc, the norm is around 44-45, this one is 42!
     
  18. Hotgolf

    Hotgolf Paid Member Paid Member

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    I think the original owner was told to get the head bolt washers , that would explain the lack of clamping lol
    42cc! Oops !!
     
  19. mr hillclimber Club GTI Supporter and Sponsor

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    Opps indeed!

    It's interesting tho as unless ones been skimmed that much and measured before we know how shallow the chamber can be made, tho there's no more room for another skim. I'm inclined to call around 43-43.5 as the max normal limit to allow for a skim.
     
  20. Jonsie Paid Member Paid Member

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    Morning Jason,

    I have been reading this thread with real interest especially as it is giving the 1800 8v much needed kudos. I have an MK2 Jetta 8v SPi 1800 at the moment and am looking to add a modified GTi head as per your thread, standard valves but flowed etc, fit a Newman cam and the TSR four branch I have, full jetex exhaust and K&N panel filter in modded box.

    I was wondering if it was possible to use my block (engine code RP) to rebuild still as an 1800 but better suited for fast raod and the modded GTi head. I imagine that will require decking to raise the compression and new pistons etc for better "squish?" My car is my daily driver and will remain that way as I have a 1979 RX7SA for hooning, I just really like the 1800 and way it drives but want to make it a GTi as the old SPi unit is past its best and the 8v GTi ftw always as it will retain the originality of the car.

    THanks for any help and the excellent threads. Will continue to read with interest.
    All the best
    Simon
     

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