EA81 into trike VW automatic

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 7:15 am

Debbie is the exception. Yep, should have left the first wife 25 years ago and took up with Deb when she was alone and my best mate.

When Deb first saw the trike she yelled "Great where's my helmet"? That said it all.

This model adorned our wedding cake. I made it by joining two plastic motorcycles from a $2 shop.

bit off topic but I built this in 1993 using my ride on mower. It had a tyre air compressor with a small gas bottle for steam whistles. yes it still mowed the lawn!!!

I also used to build these cubby houses

This was my Mk3 Zephyr I restored

But I dont believe I'll ever sell tweety.

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 7:53 am

I guess you used some sort of licence to make the cubby houses

Gees , they look so neat!

knew a bloke with a Zephyr like yours. It was written off by a truck, he rebuilt it and painted it in a metallic green, so metallic it was like the old Dragstar bike seats - gold fleck? white roof

That was 1983 and he had owned it for some 20 years or so then. I thought you'd be a bit odd to own a car for so long. I've had one for 28 now

Also got talking to a fella sitting in his L Series RX that he described as "goes like a cut cat" - he's had it for 15 years

sven '2' · Post by **sven '2'** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 12:53 pm

Tweety wrote:
This was my Mk3 Zephyr I restored

Very very nice - do you have anymore photos please??

Brumby Kid · Post by **Brumby Kid** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:32 pm

Tweety wrote:ok Andy

I used to fly model aircraft radio control. Had some anxiety at the period and ADHD. Result? I used to design and fly my own planes from Batplanes with swing wings to super futuristic planes. Trouble was I crashed them regularly- reason- so anxious I always forgot to check things before take off. Elevators in reverse etc.

Cost me plenty of money.

The ex sat down one day to discuss this.

Her- "how much money do you think it has cost you on your hobby in the last 7 years"?

Me- "About $11,000"

She said "So are you proud of that amount of waste"?

Me- "not near as proud as you are about smoking $35,000 worth of cigarettes. At least I've got some engines and radio sets to show for it".

She - "oh, it wouldnt be that much"

Me- "one carton a week at $80, $4000 a year, $28,000 7 years.

She- "thats 7 thousand less than what you said"

Me- "yeh, I've saved that 7 grand to pay for the lung transplant and oxygen bottles"....

That was my last woman. But my first wife was a challenge.

I arrived home at Yea after my usual 90 minute drive over the mountains to Melbourne in my old clapped out Ford Zephyr.Up at 5am home at 7pm pick and shovel work. The car needed fiddling and was running crap. I went inside and told her I needed about an hour to work on the car (she was a stay at home mum). I asked her about dinner.

She- "what would you like"

Me- "anything really, baked beans, eggs or sausages, something easy"

I returned to the garage. An hour later I finished and went inside Wife watching TV

Me- "so what happened to my dinner"

She- "I asked you what you wanted, I didnt say I was going to cook it"

So I fumed inside and waited. Two months later

She- My birthday is coming up darling....I'd love a guitar"

Me- "I'll find you one so you can fill in your day while I'm at work and the kids are at school"

Birthday comes. She eagerly waiting for her guitar...

Me- "happy birthday here is your present" I show her a copy of a telstra yellow pages guitars for sale

She- "so where's my guitar"?

Me- its in the shop in Melbourne...I told you I'd find a guitar- I didnt say I'd buy it"!!!

Man that is just GOLD!!!

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:28 pm

Havent got anymore pics of the Zephyr.

I did own a MGB beater in a Datsun 2000 sports-

I sold it to a owner of a concreting firm in 1982. He's married a girl in 1972 and he then owned a yellow one and had to sell it to pay for the wedding. This resulted in her telling him that when he one day became a millionaire he could buy another and have it restored. he did 10 years alter and bought mine. He drove it from sunshine where I lived to Southern suburbs to a resto place and spent $40000 on it (them days).
It became yellow!

This is in 1977. A 175 Russian Cossack bone rattling bike then my near new 750 "water bottle" Suzuki. I had a head on at an intersection in Footscray and was dead lucky to get off with a few cuts and bruises.

Errrr...Yobbo the clown!! guess who?

This was a 550 Suzuki "ram air" bike. note the 4-40 rifle strapped to its side. One of my few attempts to leave the rat race and head for the hills.

I built this house in 1978 at Tallarook (where things are crook!)

that it! the end...

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 6:17 pm

Datsun Fairlady

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 12:45 am

So when's that second throat going to be sorted out on the carb?

And then when's the dyno readout going to be??

Cheers

Bennie

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:48 am

this thursday bennie. it's all going to happen. early ride to Croydon.....

12:45am!!!! you need your beauty sleep....

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:24 pm

Tweety wrote:this thursday bennie. it's all going to happen. early ride to Croydon.....

12:45am!!!! you need your beauty sleep....

Nah, I needed my ausubi fix! You'll come to know what this is

Thursday eh? I'll be at Oakes day for work, starting at 7am - that's a sleep in! Tomorrow we start at 6am (and currently I'm still at Hotham

)

Cheers

Bennie

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:03 pm

sorry Steptoe- your images dont come out.

I'm pretty sure te Datsun 2000 sports was not called a fairlady. the early ones had fairlady on the rear but not mine. Mine had standard twin delorto carbies, a 2 litre engine easy to work on but one bad fault- heavy, very heavy steering.

Dashboards made of vinyl moulding cracked and went to dust and impossible to get another. a very nice car otherwise.

Bought some 8.8mm plug leads (red) ready for the tune. have to refuel soon so premium to go in. The VW didnt run as smooth on 95 so used 91. I believe if I use 95 then timing will be about 10 degrees?

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 11:10 pm

Tweety wrote:12:45am!!!! you need your beauty sleep....

And I'm almost on par again

But I just had to ask after seeing the latest exhaust pic from your octane tuning thread: Are you going to look into getting the exhaust tips chromed or will you go the WHOLE exhaust?

If you start a poll about it, I'll be voting all chrome exhaust FTMFW!

Ask Toonga, Alex or D_generate if you don't know what WTMFW means

Cheers

Bennie

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 5:42 pm

Err..... thanks for the cryptic puzzle bennie- taking advantage of my age eh? I do know WTF means and that's it!!lol oh, and lol!!!

As for the exhaust I didnt consider at all chroming the whole exhaust but now that you mention it? it would be done in winter cause the sun time is ride time....

Update:

I had thought the second throat of the new Weber was flooding the engine or too much air or had a blockage.

This morning I attended VW performance Centre in Croydon. Within 20 minutes they had assessed:

-that the weber was operating correctly but might need jetting
-that the fault was electrical.
-that they had rang an ignition specialist 5 kms away to ask them to look at the distributer which was also new. Something about "phasing".

I rode to the sparkies and it took them 3 minutes to ask me why a red wire was connected to the negative side of the coil. I told them it was the kick down switch, the only wire I didnt label when the VW donk came out- reason? because it didnt come from the engine- it came from the gearbox. But I should have labelled it positive!!! because it was on negative

The result was that everytime I throttled on to a point whereby the kickdown switch went on, the engine cut out. Charge? no charge.

Returned to vW performance Centre and dyno tune, carbie jetted correctly etc.

Dyno power output result was 76hp at the flywheel (74hp when new in a brumby) and 60hp at the wheels. Daniel told me the auto zaps a lot of power out of the engine. Would I be happy?

Well I had been putting 91 unleaded in the tank and wanted it tuned to that fuel. On the way down I achieved 24 mpg (VW engine 21-22mpg) and that was with the wiring fault and a bit of towing the van for testing. I refuelled to return home through the city, then up the freeway to Euroa. I found that the trike now wants to sit on 120kph so I have to watch it, also in traffic when the transmission kicks down the front wheel wants to go airborne - nice 'wants to boogie' feeling. Above 4000 rpm the engine has a howling note through that exhaust, really pleasant sound. Acceleration is very satisfactory for me.

And the economy on the way home? 29mpg. 190 kms 18.4 litres 9.7L/100kms

VW 22 mpg 13L/100kms (range for 50 litre tank) 384 kms

EA81 29mpg 9.7L/100kms (range for 50 litre tank) 515 kms

or 30% more economical. or $20-24 a tank savings.

By selling the vW engine and the cost of this conversion ($2000 out of pocket overall) it will take, at the rate of my current kms/year around 4 years to recoup the difference.

The towbar now has an added support from the front of the trike ladder bars for peice of mind with the heavy van. Ready for a holiday.

The real test was the mountain from Euroa to Strathbogie. A section of about 2 kilometres. The VW at the steepest bit would slow to 60 or 70 kph, into second you could only maintain that speed to the top. The ea81 slowed to 70kph but at a point further up the mountain, kickdown to second nicely and accelerated to 105kph when I backed off, slowed back to 80 and did the same. ooooh nice!! Could have easily kept it in second and rocketed up but I'm a pussy!

Worth a plug : VW performance centre Croydon Vic 039 725 5366 great service, great coffee,

Post by **TOONGA** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 5:52 pm

A very interesting read and great results.

I'm curious, the carby was it jetted up or down and what were the final jets used.

now you will need to make another video

TOONGA

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 6:23 pm

new jets are primary 145 and secondary 150 cant recall original jets think 135 160 rings a bell

He tried quite a few. The output lines were all much the same until these were used then the new graph was printed because the output was better than all the other jets used.

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:56 pm

May take four years to recoup your spend, I reckon you will have a greater smile for as long as you keep Tweety from the sound of things. Clever sparkys !

Wonder what 98 will do now?

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 8:26 am

Clever experts! they took no time finding the problem and there I was thinking the new EI dizzy was faulty.

Earlier on with this conversion Andy sent me down another coil as I couldnt start the engine. I later found that the problem was my kill switch was "off". But that might not have been the original problem ie that could have been accidentally turned off during work done. the kickdown switch might have been stuck on because it wasnt adjusted at that time on the throttle

I will tow the van down to Apollo Bay soon. AS I climbed a mountain yesterday I thought I could detect a slight pinging. So 95 might be tried. Eventually for interest sake I'll try 98. I dont want to adjust the timing from where the guys set it all.

and yes Toonga- a better video is planned. Maybe a bit of film of it towing the van around the great ocean road bends?

I havent felt this satisfied since I finished restoring that Zephyr. Now for that new space age dashboard build....

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 4:08 pm

Tweety wrote: Maybe a bit of film of it towing the van around the great ocean road bends?

YES!

Must be a very nice feeling, you got what you were after and it's all done and dusted with no major problems to speak of

Nice work.

FROG · Post by **FROG** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 5:33 pm

Tweety wrote:

$20-24 a tank savings.

By selling the vW engine and the cost of this conversion ($2000 out of pocket overall) it will take, at the rate of my current kms/year around 4 years to recoup the difference.

No no no no no no ........
already paid for - the smile when you first accelerated away with the EA on board

well worth two grand

and love that Zephyr - what a good looking car I can remember drooling over a dark red one in my early teens but settled for a MK2 1970 1600E Cortina as a first car (with a full length leather/vinyl sunroof )

Tweety · Post by **Tweety** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 7:24 pm

thanks Silverbullet. can only imagine what a sweet engine it would be with 5 speeds in a car. I'm sounding as if it is the best engine around and its not but yes, got what I set out achieving.

Andy me first car, at 17, after I joined the RAAF and was in Edinburgh near Adelaide, was a Cortina mk2 GT. without the body black outs. While waiting for the finance to come through I'd ride my 110 Suzuki to the car yard and I knew the drivers door wouldnt lock...and sit in the drivers seat for 2 hours or so late at night. oh that leather smell!

a while later I found out it was two halves of two cars welded together..drat!

anyway yes am very happy. you wouldnt know its a flat 4 engine, so smooth. I am not experienced with Subaru engines in this regard. I'll try to get that howl from the exhaust on film!!! was to be this week coming but rain delays it the following week.

There is few better experiences than riding a trike (towing or not doesnt matter) on the great ocean road. Exhillerating! leave it in second gear (which is now good for up to- well beyond the limit of 100kph) and just ignor the advisoy speed signs.
but never go during school holidays

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 11:12 pm

the more gears , the more you seem to lose that torque - just think of the old 327 Chevs in old Holdens with the 2 speed Powerslide auto (was it really 80mph in first?)