ShopTalkForums Ghia on the Salt

[FJCamper]

ShopTalkForums Ghia on the Salt

Some forums talk the talk. ShopTalk walks the walk.

Britt Grannis, Bonneville record holder (139.9mph 130mph Club 2011 in a Ghia) and Hot VW's celeb is at it again. This year he's going for 150 mph (up to 159.9).

Co-driving is Yodogg from Coldsource Racing (who normally races a '73 Super Bug in LeMons and ChumpCar, and RetroRacing, an-all Ghia shop, helping out for this forum.
For aerodynamic control, Grannis is using a new prototype Porsche RSR-style "ducktail" provided by PCP. This design was developed by Porsche to improve stability but not
increase drag.

On Saturday, 08 September, the Bonneville Ghia qualifed at 120+ mph. Sunday is the record run.

FJC

[doc]

So sweet! Check those STF decals.

Oh, pretty nice ride, too.

doc

[2jmotorsports]

Badass.

[sideshow]

I say with the proper bullet signal, it will go faster!

[Devastator]

Sweeeet!
Does he have to run that front bumper?

[silkvw]

Bumpers are not required for the 130mph or 150 mph club. Take a look here for more info: http://www.saltflats.com/I30_Club_2009.html . I didn't have bumpers on my Ghia last year, and passed inspection. The car must be safe, but not required to be street legal.

[FJCamper]

Gentlemen,

The bumpers are not mandatory, just there for appearance. A fairly street-looking Ghia. We had an airdam for the car, but by the photos, I see it wasn't used in qualifying.

Yodogg reports:

Tom Simon made a run of 156mph on Monday morning with the Ghia and became the first person in the history of Bonneville's World of Speed to pilot an air-cooled VW into the 150 club! He'd made a run of 150.5 on Sunday morning but due to minor mechanicle issues and then weather wasn't able to get another 150+ run in the rest of that day. Monday's run made it official though. Then it was my turn. My "check out" run went fairly smoothly, I topped out at 126 and then backed it off to 115 through the timing gates as you aren't supposed to go over 125 on that run.

But next time out I lost about a quarter mile of speed build up trying to find 2nd gear. The Ghia was a converted autoshift car and still had the auto shifter and coupling hooked up to the manual transmission. The damned thing kept trying to go into reverse! A more experienced driver would have handled it without too much issue, but for me , it was both frustrating and embarassing. Still, once I found 2nd gear, I managed to pull out a strong 145 mph pass. Alas, that was all she wrote. Next time up the engine was hard to crank and I stalled out. We even tried a rolling push start but the hi-compression motor would have none of it. After taking it back to the pits we eventually found that we had two really tight intake valves (1 & 2) and adjusting them made it purr like a kitten again. No one was ready to risk bending a valve stem on another run so we shut it down.

Dissapointing, because I think I could have beat 156mph. Frustrating, because my relative incompetence with even a normal VW transmission cost me the chance to do it the first time out. Embarassing (a little) because it's never fun to do something to make those around lose confidence in you. But mostly, it was a blast! We did something nobody else had ever done, I got to go fast, met a lot of very neat air-cooled people and saw a lot of fantastic cars in an amazing setting.

Yodogg (newly christened Bonneville veteran)

[Steve Arndt]

He went 156 Mph!

[Steve Arndt]

http://ultimateaircooled.com/simplemach ... .msg231227

[Ian Godfrey]

are there any more details or a better picture of the 'RSR-style "ducktail" provided by PCP'
Who is PCP?
It would seem this worked well so I would be interested where I might get one?

[FJCamper]

Hi Ian,

PCP is a company that produces plastic and light metal items, and custom made the Bonneville Ghia's ducktail. This World of Speed event was the field test of the ducktail design. At 156mph, it worked. Stability was so good it was not an issue in the driver's minds.

In the photo above, the prototype ducktail is mounted a little farther to the rear than it might normally be, an estimate (that worked) for the speed. I'm advising that the ducktail be made adjustable, so the deflection angle can be changed.



The no-frills LSR Ghia under the sunshade.

FJC

[Steve Arndt]

2332cc Geoff Hart engine. Tom the driver said it had plenty of power. 3.44 ring and pinion too, which have been a forum topic of late.

People would call me insane for having similar power in my baja which is unsafe above about 65 mph in any kind of windy conditions. They are correct.

Steve

[Marc]

...my relative incompetence with even a normal VW transmission...

Don't be too hard on yourself - an Autostick shift rod is not compatible with a 4-speed transmission; besides being shorter, it also mounts the shift coupler at a slight angle. There's not enough adjustment range in the shifter to compensate so problems like you had are to be expected.
The right way to fix it obviously to replace the shift rod. An alternative that works is to chop the front end off another shift coupler and weld it onto the coupler, offset slightly to correct the misalignment problem - the added ~½" of length compensates for the short shift rod too.

[Fiatdude]

Congratulations to Brett, Tom and the rest of the Team on the record --- Wish I could of been there to battle it out with you guys --

[Roadcow]

...my relative incompetence with even a normal VW transmission...

Don't be too hard on yourself - an Autostick shift rod is not compatible with a 4-speed transmission; besides being shorter, it also mounts the shift coupler at a slight angle. There's not enough adjustment range in the shifter to compensate so problems like you had are to be expected.
The right way to fix it obviously to replace the shift rod. An alternative that works is to chop the front end off another shift coupler and weld it onto the coupler, offset slightly to correct the misalignment problem - the added ~½" of length compensates for the short shift rod too.

We did start to try to chop off another shift coupler but found another way to fix the problem by re drilling the urethane blocks on the sides of the coupler in 2 planes. 1 a 1/2" back and 2 at a bit of an angle. This fixed the shifting problem. Hindsight is always 20/20 and it was my fault that the shift rod wasn't changed prior to the event. I had no idea of the differences. I had installed a new shift bushing and new coupler in preparation but had no idea of the different rods. Johan coped well and got to run hard and fast. I was amazed with his 145 mph pass.