VW engines in F3 chassis

[wiking]

Came across the forums and thought I would post up.

For 12 months now Formula-R has been racing a growing
number of Dallara F3 chassis with watercooled VW engines.
It has been very successful and cheap racing.

We wanted to get away from the normal F3 engines which
are expensive nightmare and often run only on $6 a liter fuel
and last only 3000km before needing an expensive rebuild.

So we run a standard engine courtesy of excellent VW engineering.
Its a ABA 2.0 engine with the head of a 1.8 16V which gives
great top end power with low down torque as well.
It runs 'mild' cams and Wiseco pistons but is otherwise completely
standard.

So far the engines are putting out approx 200hp at the flywheel
and are lasting years. We are about ( depending on circuit)
2-4 seconds a lap behind top F3 engines all else being equal.

We arent running ported heads yet but its an option along with
more compression ( only using P/ULP)

Our single biggest problem is a good supply of 16V heads in good
condition, VW want $3000 for new bare castings (yikes!) so if anyone
has an idea please post.

heres a piccy http://www.formula-robertson.com/ima...ace/engine.jpg

Cars sound awesome and have so much potential

[Golf Loon]

Nice to see you on here. Good to see VW engines in Motorsport. I came out to Oran Park to see your cars and they sounded awesome.

On a technical note, most of the engines you run are built from an audi 2A engine with a KR head. Not many ABAs in Australia.

The heads are getting hard to find, although I have a few coming.

I had a close look at Barrys Car at Oran Park and the VW engine is barely recognizable as such after you guys have been at em. they have external waterpumps and big ass carbys and custom extractors. And no pesky emissions gear

Keep up the good work.

Cheers
Matt

[Water Boy]

What induction do u guys run?

[wiking]

Thanks Matt

Induction/Intake is a control intake manifold approx 75 mm long that
carries dual 48 DCOE side draught webers running 175 jets.

The air intake is a simple fibre glass box that attatches to the carbies.
We kept the intake manifolds short to keep down torque and the airbox
has lots of room for improvement, ie: its probably getting turbulence and
needs to be raised.

With longer intake runners and better airbox there is certainly hp to be
gained but its a start. Our main focus is reliability and thats not been
a problem since we got rid of the oil squirters and started using steel head
gaskets. Our Reynard 913 is on its 3rd year of constant racing and is
still going great.

Ideally I would like to get another 30 hp out the engine which would
make the cars very quick and even better to race. The people at F3
have given us a lot of bashing but I think its a sign of the threat they
feel we represent.

Incidentally there was a F3 series in the U.S for a few years, the
did the same thing ( VW control engine) except they ran the 8 valve head
and EFI. My friend Glenn Lynch was talking to the engine builder recently in
the U.S.

[wiking]

By the way if anyone wants some Al intake manifold/plenum for these
engines with the large diameter runners we have some lying around
surplus.

[Jarred]

what kind of transmission/driveshaft are you using? whats the go with that setup?

I'd be very interested to know, along with the suspension set up..?

[wiking]

Hewland make almost all open wheeler transaxle's.

Originally they stuffed their 'crash' gears inside a VW
beetle/kombi transaxle and used standard diff ( 8/33)
It was called a Mk8 and then Mk9.

Later when Reynard and Dallara got serious in F3 they
decided to use the same internals but cast their own case
that had internal oil tanks and suspension pickups, it is
known as a FT200, almost all those are 13/36 diff ratio.

The later transaxle's like the FT200 have 'powerflow' diffs
that can have the LSD set for more or less free wheel.

The suspension's are double wishbone with the shockies
mounted onboard in most designs