The Importance of Working on Your Motorcycle, by Kevin Cameron

[Old Rider]

/quote]

Ha!  I have very little simulator time. I have a fair amount of time for a hobbyist.  A big chunk of my time is either towing or flying gliders. A little of it is flying helicopters.

That's cool i wish i had a plane like yours 

[Waiex191]

Are you sure about it being a Type 1 motor?

It's a type 1 block cast from magnesium down in Brazil.  All of the other parts come from aftermarket supply - crank, pistons & cylinders, heads, cam, oil pump, and so on.  All of the nifty red anodized parts are what Sonex kits up to convert it to an aero engine.  The cam is mild as redline is set at 3600 RPM.  With a direct drive propeller you are pretty much limited by the speed of sound (RIP Yeager) at the tips of the prop.  2180CC is typically the biggest displacement people get out of "normal" type 1 engines.  If this motor didn't end up in my Waiex it would probably be in somebody's classic or hot-rod bug, or sandrail.  What would you call this motor Noel? 

This have tandem seating?

Side by side. 


It has full dual controls.  I taught myself to sew last year and made the interior.

That's cool i wish i had a plane like yours

They do sell them overseas!  Lots (relatively) in Australia, also in Europe. There are 6 completed in Norway and another 4 under construction.  You can find out exactly where here:
https://www.sonexaircraft.com/sonex-builder-database/

[ZOA NOM]

We gotta stuff an FJ motor in there somehow...

[Waiex191]

We gotta stuff an FJ motor in there somehow...

That would be cool.  You would need a gear reduction, and the firewall forward weight limit is 200 lbs.  I have no idea how much an FJ motor weighs.

The beauty of experimental aviation is you can do pretty much whatever you want!

[ribbert]

Are you sure about it being a Type 1 motor?

What would you call this motor Noel? 

0K, OK, I don't wish to be this weeks nomination for "Pedant of the Month", you are correct.

All beetles up to the retro model in the early 2000's were referred to as type 1's by the factory. However, for the obvious reason of identifying the various generations of engines from each other, on the workshop floor they were referred to as Type 1,2,3, & 4 engines, all fitted of course to Type 1's (the cars). So, to a mechanic, a wrecker or a spare parts guy, a Type 1 engine would be 1100cc / 25hp dating back to pre WW2.

VW's (Beetles and Kombi's) were still hugely popular when I started work and to this day there is something I love about driving them, gutless as they are. Along with Model T's and Mini's, the Beetle in my opinion is one of the the most significant cars of the 20th century.

Noel

[T Legg]

My brother in law spent time based in Germany in the early seventies . While there he bought an old beetle to drive. The engine seized one day so he and a buddy picked up an engine from a wrecker and installed it. It ran ok but he couldn't get it to go more than 45 mph. He finally took it to a local mechanic who pulled a head and found they had installed an 800 cc industrial version  of the motor.
           My second car while still in high school was a 64 beetle with the twelve hundred.most of my friends had V -8 American cars so one day I decided to mix a batch of fuel to make it more competitive. I went to Butler aviation and filled up with 110 octane aviation  fuel then added moroso octane booster and five mothballs. I had headers and a glass pack muffler and the people behind me said I was blowing flames out of my pipe. I definitely got a hp increase I was able to spin my tires and my mileage went from 20 mpg to 30 mpg for that tankful. I would grab the front bumper and shake the car each time before I started it to make sure the mothballs stayed mixed up and didn't settle to the bottom of the tank and blow a piston out of the crankcase. My buddies with their V-8's still blew my doors off in the 1/4 mile.

[Pat Conlon]

I grew up in SoCal in the '60's during the golden age of drag racing. There was this aftermarket company called EMPI...or something like that.. the VW guys had these street legal bugs that would turn low 13 second quarters at over 105....some even dip into the high 12's. These little guys would hook up and go..

They would surprise the crap out of the heavy Chevy and Fords....amazing little cars.

[ribbert]

......My second car while still in high school was a 64 beetle ......

Haha, I love that story.

Of my many cars over the years one of the regretful sales (now) was a mint, and I mean showroom, one lady owner, barely used, black Karmann Ghia. At the same time, the automotive engineering shop that did all my work ( and the one that designed and built the Brabham F1 engines) had a just built, hot, flat six Corvair motor (which was never sold in Australia) that quadrupled the hp and was already converted to bolt straight into a VW for a mere $2200. This was in the early 80's and even then that was a bargain. The only thing that stopped me was I would have had to chop the back end of the Karman and it was such a beautiful example I couldn't bring myself to do it.
In hindsight, I should have bought the motor anyway and then found a Beetle to fit it to, they were plentiful and cheap back then and the later models had disc brakes, radials and were relatively stable.

If I could go back and pick the eyes out of everything two and four wheeled I've ever owned, I'd have a very nice collection but of course none of them were classics at the time. There was always something better that required quitting what I currently had to finance the next one. I could retire on what the Aussie muscle cars alone would bring today.

Noel

[FjLee]

EMPI's.......I remember those.    The EMPI equipped VW's were called "Inch Pinchers"....

FjLee

[Old Rider]

Here is a fast Norwegian beetle worlds fastest built on original chassi and body https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU2_AV8u8Vk

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

[T Legg]

He must have put ten mothballs in his tank.

[bcguide]

I will tell you how bad some young men are today
My daughter used the shop at her workplace to change out her starter in her truck and the 3 young men she works with left to go to the bar.
She also comes home and uses my shop to change the oil in her truck.