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R32rennsport's Amazon Thread

It's been about a month so I thought I'd share some updates.

First and foremost I've been meaning to address my oil leaks since getting the engine broken in. I made quite a few rookie mistakes on assembly of my first B series engine and I thought now was a good time to take care of those while everything has been cancelled and make some tuning changes as well. Now mind you I have an "essential" job in the automotive industry and have been lucky enough to keep normal employment and decent pay so I've been chipping away at things in the evenings and weekends when time permits. So up for reseal was basically everything, oil pan, timing cover, fuel pump, cylinder head and I even found some seeping freeze plugs on the hot side.

With the induction off the car I've decided to experiment and choke the DCOE 45s down to 34mm chokes down from the 36mm that were in it and change jetting as needed. I felt the car had great mid range and top but always suffered a little down low and I think this will wake it up a bit, I've never been a fan of tuning an engine for high RPM driving as it generally sees that range only briefly even during spirited drives.

Cosmetically I decided to do a color change on my American Racing Torq Thrusts, mainly because the matte light grey was near impossible to keep clean but also I knew a darker center would ad more contrast. I also commissioned a set of brushed aluminum center caps to be made borrowing from the design found on very early hubcaps and mudflaps. I think the combination will really add some class to the car. I'm thinking about repainting the gold steel wheels to a glossy medium gray now but we shall see. If anyone wants a swell set of custom caps made up contact @idyourride on Facebook or Instagram! Around $50 a cap to start including design work.

 
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Sometimes the light hits just right. Hopefully I'll have lots more content to share in the future including a short film! Had a great photo shoot with Car Tales on Youtube/Instagram. Unfortunately, the car was being cantankerous so I hope we didn't film anything to embarrassing, haha!

 
So glad to be on the road enjoying the car lately. Having a solid overdrive really makes the car so livable when not rowing gears on a twisty back road. Can't wait to improve the braking performance and add the limited slip to really pull out of tight corners. I need to address the springs, I'd like to maintain a similar ride height but I definitely need linear springs, these progressive springs do not match my driving style. So stoked on it!

 
Been doing a lot of fine tuning over the past month, including a struggle with a mystery misfire for nearly a week that was caused by a secondary venturi set screw rattling loose in turn rotating the venturi blocking main jet fuel flow. Once that was sorted I started to play with jetting and timing in preparation for a rolling road/dyno session. Options are very limited where I live and the operator was not well versed in older carbureted cars so most of the tuning was up to me based on his translation of numbers. Luckily right off the bat I had jetting dialed in based on AFR curve so we spent most of the time playing with ignition curves on the 123 Distributor. The hard lean stumble around 2200rpm is messing up the overall AFR and is a noticeable issue when pulling away from a stop that I need to iron out. Most anything we did netted a gain or loss of around 1 hp/tq so it was safe to say I was pretty much optimal before even driving on to the dyno. At basically 110/110 average I'm making stock advertised figures for a late B20 engine which I expected given I built the engine with less compression then stock to error on the safe side of our high ethanol content 91 octane here in California. On the topic of compression I'll probably bump it up the next time I have the head off as we couldn't get detonation even at 45 degrees total!!!


 
cwdodson88 said:
Good numbers! This is a great build. Love it.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Current specs for those curious:


1974 metric 8 bolt crank B20 with IPD big bore (B21 pistons .020 over) (did not 0 the deck to pistons), compression approx 9:1
1973 B20 F head (8.7:1) with IPD head gasket advertised installed at .045" thick
Port work to both intake and exhaust, single high rev springs, 38mm exhaust valves, stock intake valves
KG10 camshaft 280 duration .445 @ 1.5 110 lobes
4 into 1 header with 2inch Simons sport exhaust
45 DCOE 151 x2 with 36mm venturis, 190 air, F2 E Tube, 145 main, 65 idle
 
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Decided to finally upgrade the seat belts in the car after 10 years. The originals are a great novelty and I always enjoy telling the story about the Amazon having the first production 3 point seat belts, but lets be real they are of their own era.

I found a simple and cost effective solution in the 98-04 VW Jetta or Golf 4 doors (I have lots of experience with these cars as I've owned them for nearly 20 years). I bought a full car set at the local wrecker for $40 and about an hour of my time. You'll need a 17mm socket, a #2 phillips screw driver, a small pocket flat blade screw drive for the upper buckle cover, and a small prybar to pop off the interior plastics if your pulling them out yourself. The belts/plastics come in stone grey, sand beige or black (black is extremely rare, only in specialty models like my Golf R32). I found the set out of a car without collision damage and from 2003 to get the newest set I could find.

Installation is straight forward with the exception of mounting the reel to the base of the B pillar. The webbing in the reel will bind up against the vinyl door panel so it will require a thick washer or like me a thick bracket that also integrates the belt tail mount. Luckily all the hardware is the same but I had to make up a bracket. The last important item to note is the VW rear seat dual buckle will be needed for front (besides on the VWs you'll find the front buckles are attached to the seats which requires removal of sets to remove). The buckles are tied together by wire coated in soft metal. I tweaked the the coated metal slightly to position the buckles away from the seats.

(Grade 5 hardware was replaced, just used as mock up, highly recommend Grade 8 hardware!)




 
What's really nice, besides the obvious self retracting feature, is that with the ratcheting mechanism I can know buckle in my two girls car seats in the car so they can go cruising with dad!
 
That's cool! Stock seatbelts in those cars are nice but modern belts are just better if you're not hung up on period correct, etc....

How bad was the ticket from CHP ?
 
matt b said:
That's cool! Stock seatbelts in those cars are nice but modern belts are just better if you're not hung up on period correct, etc....

How bad was the ticket from CHP ?
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Yeah, I'm more about being practical then original when it comes to safety and besides putting in modern belts was the only way to talk my wife into letting the girls ride with me.

Not terrible, just 10 over, from the pay scale looks like $220 and I can take online traffic school to avoid the point on my record. All in all I'll be taking it easy for awhile.
 
Checked another item off my project list this weekend. I've been running cut down progressive springs for years, it was always mean't as a temporary solution to dialing in my ride height but at approx. 60mm drop from stock I've came to the conclusion that the car is both too low for practical enjoyment when driving the car aggressively as well as having pretty poor vehicle dynamics. I decided to pick up and try a set of the readily available and inexpensive 30mm Lesjofors. Visually the car is very subtly raised between 3/4-1inch, dynamically though the car feels completely different with the biggest difference at the front of the car with improved travel, geometry and increase in spring rate. The old front springs were 8 coils, the new springs are 6 coils and spring diameter is +.5mm. Overall I'm very happy with this change and eagerly await to test overall dynamics next month at our local PCA autocross, the last event I attended the car had pronounced nose dive which in turn would cause early lock up at the rear wheels.







 
!!! VIDEO !!!


https://youtu.be/Laa6aBF4hLw


I had a blast this weekend tossing the old girl around. Not the fastest way around a track by any means but it put a big smile on my face and everyone else that was watching. Some proper tires and a limited slip out back and I'll be in business. The new Porterfield RS 4 pads completely transformed the car and I highly recommend them for anyone that drives their vintage Volvo hard, great for a daily as well with no brake noise! The new 30mm drop springs kept the vehicle dynamics noticeably tighter then the lower 60mm setup but if I were to continue doing events like this I would definitely need some higher spring rates, these are a good all around setup though.

Enjoy!



 
Thanks guys, my friend Paolo did a fine jobbing putting this little feature together. I'm surprised at how well the audio recorded. Very happy to share this with the community. Sorry for making the Amazon a little more well known. :lol:
 
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