Letting the "Chicken" out of the bag.

In reply to rdcyclist :

Have ever run E85?  I was looking at ethanol content sensors, any recommendations? 

I'm really glad to see the chicken will keep on racing. It's really something to see it run.

And thanks for sharing all the details. When I saw the fiddle brakes on it a few years ago, it made me want to incorporate something similar on my B-Mod build. It's very clever.

Will you be able to run e85 on that engine setup? You'll lose a bit of power as compared to race gas, correct?

E85 allows you to run bigger boost at more spark advance than race gas because the ethanol cools the intake charge. With all of the supporting mods like WAY bigger injectors, you'll see 50-100 horsies over gasoline for similar builds. Of course your gas mileage will be quite a bit worse but for hillclimb that's not really a useful metric. You don't need a ethanol sensor if you're always running E85. If you switch back and forth, I would suggest separate tunes in different ECU's. They're easy to change, especially in this car.

At the power levels you're anticipating, you'll need to do rods for sure. The stockers are good to about 350 or so; above that you're rolling dice and it's just a matter of time until they come up snake eyes...

The 2.8 heads do flow better but are not really worth the trouble at less than 500 ponies and really bigass turbos. The 2.7's will be fine with a good valve job, light porting (mostly clean up) and some port matching. I think they also have a broader powerband because the intake ports are smaller. To run the 2.8's you're going to need to port the intake manifold a bunch.

Do you have a larger MAF housing? Which MAF are you running? The later model, 01 and up, A6's and S4's run the Hitachi unit and it's a little easier to tune.

If you do a rebuild of the 01E trans, you'll be fine. Those have been run in cars making 800AWHP without problems. The weak link in the drivetrain is usually the clutch and you've addressed that. And the car is quite a bit lighter than an S4 (3400 lbs) so the drivetrain is not stressed as much.

Are you running the stock shift linkage? There are a coupla aftermarket units that work much better. I also make some of the components to tighten it up if you're interested.

I would suggest a Fluidamper as a replacement for the harmonic damper.

Ya gas mileage is almost a non-issue.  Especially if I can run E85.  My other race car got about 4 mpg, and half of that was coasting back down the mountain.  Running VP C12 and Sunoco 93 split 50/50, it wasn't terribly cheap.  The reason I was looking at the ethanol sensors was because E85 isn't actually always 85% ethanol, it actually can vary drastically.  I would tune it on true E85 with the sensor in place, that way if I got a batch with low ethanol it would just automatically pull some fuel and timing out.  I AM going to be running BIG injectors.  Paul has a leftover set that he is cleaning for me.  Not sure of the flow on them, but he seems to think they will be big enough.  

As far as rods go, Im going to leave it bone stock for now.  Kinda using this engine as proof of concept.  I plan on eventually finding another donor engine to give a little more love to.  The current engine came out of a VERY high mileage car, so I see it as on its way out at some point anyway. 

I currently have the stock MAF Ill have to double check if it is the Hitachi or not. 

As for the transmission, I really doubt an 01E would survive 800HP at our hillclimbs for long.  Our hills are washboard rough with good grip.  The drivetrain has to handle wheels leaving the ground, spinning up and then slamming back down, all while under full load in a higher gear.  Rabbit Farmer (on this forum) has broken enough "500HP" axles on his 300HP golf that he keeps spares in the trailer to swap out.  I agree that its a tough trans, but we will have to wait an see what it can take.  Having a light car will help though. 

The Shift linkage is far from stock.  The original setup would have the shifter somewhere between your legs.  This has a cable shifter out of...something, who knows.  and custom brackets and linkage to make it all work.  Ill post some pictures of it at some point.

drivendaily said:

Will you be able to run e85 on that engine setup? You'll lose a bit of power as compared to race gas, correct?

Part of what works so well about E85 is its naturally high octane level.  Alcohol burns slower than normal gasoline so you can/ have to start the ignition event sooner (extra advance, high cylinder pressure, etc.).  The other benefit is that it will burn efficiently at much richer mixtures than straight gasoline.  This allows you to cram more BTU's into the cylinder per combustion cycle.  Alcohol, when atomized absorbs a TON of heat from its environment, creating a cooling effect on the intake charge.  All this = POWAAAA!!

Balancer bolts didnt want to come off. Had to break out the big guns. 

Details of the shift mechanism.  Its a cable shifter from something that actuates a modified version of the stock shift rod.  Two slotted, welded on, brackets alow for adjustment of tue shifter to get the right throw. 

Engine is installed for what SHOULD be the final time.  Intake manifold and fuel rail put in place to start mocking up plumbing.  You can also see the exhaust side to 1 turbo sitting on the floor.  The next step for that is to get out the angle grinder and trim that baby down and weld it to the header.  I also started to sort out wiring as you can see in the picture below. 

In reply to Challenger392 :

This car is AWESOME! But then again, so is your Modified.

Do you happen to have any info on SuperChicken2?

Gingerbeardman said:

In reply to Challenger392 :

This car is AWESOME! But then again, so is your Modified.

Do you happen to have any info on SuperChicken2?

Ill try to dig some stuff up for you.  I saw your thread, thats some ambition.  Paul is a great race car builder if your looking for someone to build a chassis for you. 

Pic of chicken 2 at Mt Washington.  Mid-mounted Audi 2.7 with a transfer case to send power back to the front. 

Challenger392 said:

You might want to remove the viscous fan clutch from the front of the engine. You'll need to pull it to do the timing belt (which you should do in any event) and it's probably not doing you any good other than adding another coupla pounds on the nose of the car. If you need a serpentine belt for the power steering pump and nothing else, I've got a number for the correct belt at home. Lemme know...

In reply to rdcyclist :

I plan on removing the coupler, its been low priority since its external.  Let me know about that belt.  Ill only be running the PS pump and an alternator. 

To remove the viscous fan clutch and hub, I stick a 6mm hex key in one of the access holes and mate it with one of the mounting screws to hold the hub from turning. The clutch is LEFT HAND threads so it's backwards: Lefty tightie and righty loosie. I think it something like a 27mm but don't quote me on that. The hub mount is held onto the front of the block with a series of 6mm head hex bolts that you access through the holes in the hub. A couple of them are on the outside.

I would strongly suggest at the very least replacing the timing belt, thermostat (test it first) and water pump unless you know for an absolute fact it was replaced in the last 40-50k/4 years. A broke timing belt even at idle will bend a buncha valves. I usually replace the variable cam timing tensioner gaskets and cam seals at the same time. On a street car, an early indicator of time to replace is those tensioner gaskets starting the Audi corrosion protection plan, I mean, leaking oil.

And if you're in that deep, replace the plastic feet on the tensioners. I've had one age out (arbitrarily disintegrate) and cause a timing belt failure with the resulting catastrophic consequences. Since you're going to be driving the ever lovin' sheet outta this one, preventative maintenance is key.

Always loved this thing.  Can you give us some more specs/dimensions please?  I see you mention the wheelbase is 'only' 98.5"  That doesn't actually sound that short to me, especially when you remember the Porsche 935 had a 90" wheelbase with a locked diff and would do well over 200mph, at night, in the wet.  What about width, track, height, length, weight distribution etc?  Anything?

Great build, great progress, wishing you all the best with this.

In reply to rdcyclist :

The timing belt was replaced "not long ago" according to Paul.  This was his daily driver at one point.  Ill have to ask how far that replacement went, if he did the thermostat, etc.  especially since this motor is..... well seasoned....

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I say "only 98.5" mostly because I am moving from a car with a wheel base of 107".  Ill provide more measurements on it once I get it back on its wheels.  Its fairly narrow compared to the Mod.  Hard since the Mod is 7'4" wide at the sidewalls.  There will be time to be gained just from having more line selection.  For weight I assume its around 2000lb but that is just a guestimate, I'll know better once I get it on the scales.  I crunched some numbers, and it will only take 300whp to equal the power to weight ratio of the Modified.  It will take about 400whp to equal the power to weight ratio of Kevins Mod.  All this assumes ~2500 lb and 380whp for my Mod and ~2250 lb and 450whp for Kevins Mod. 

this is a crazy build!   thanks for sharing.

any chance you can post a pic or two of the transmission end of the shift business?  i'm going to use an audi 6MT in my V8 Corvair and plan to use a cable shifter for reduced Rube Goldberging.

In reply to AngryCorvair :

Ill try to get some better pictures for you, its a little buried at this point.

AngryCorvair said:

this is a crazy build!   thanks for sharing.

any chance you can post a pic or two of the transmission end of the shift business?  i'm going to use an audi 6MT in my V8 Corvair and plan to use a cable shifter for reduced Rube Goldberging.

I will add that you should be careful how much power you put through the Audi 6MT if you will be using it just for RWD.  They are a stout transmission but you have to remember that your only using half the drive line.  For instance if I put 450whp through my car im still only putting 225whp through the front axle.  Just something to think about.  Do you know specifically which trans code you plan on using?  Mine is the 01E. 

AngryCorvair said:

this is a crazy build!   thanks for sharing.

any chance you can post a pic or two of the transmission end of the shift business?  i'm going to use an audi 6MT in my V8 Corvair and plan to use a cable shifter for reduced Rube Goldberging.

This website is a good source for Identification of the Audi 01E transmissions.

Turbo housing ground down (flange removed) ready to be tacked to the manifold. 

Tack welded and ready for final welding.

Hey look, 2 of them.  I don't have a very good welder amd don't trust it to do a good job of welding these together.  Ill be taking them to Paul at Supercar machine shop to get them welded up. 

In other news, I removed the timing belt tensioner from the front of the engine and used washers around its actuating rod to act as shims.  I have been told these tensioners can fail, and when they do you can imagine the result.  This way if it fails the tensioner can only back off about 3mm before hitting the shims.  Which hopefully will stave off catastrophic failure.  I used 2 split washers in the shim stack so that it will have a little give and wont be a hard stop.  After that I reassembled the front of the motor, just waiting for the balancer to come back from paul with the trigger wheel on it.  

I also installed the alternator, which still needs to be wired.