Andrew Burton's 63 Notchback

The car

One of the problems we were up against was building a hot 1776 but at the same time, keeping the engine cool enough to be driven regularly. The big problem was the T3 cooling system and tinware - we looked into this, and the consensus of opinion was to keep the compression down (8:1 maximum) to avoid overheating problems. This did not fit into our plan for what we wanted from the engine.

To get around this problem, we decided to convert the engine to T1 upright tinware. The problem this created was sealing the engine bay from heat rising up from underneath the engine/exhaust area. To get over this, we fabricated a sheet metal engine bay surround that would allow us to use a T2 foam engine bay seal. The only problem with this, was the foam engine bay was above the exhaust when using the standard breast plate tinware. To overcome this, we extended the breast plate tinware to move the seal out of the way of the exhaust header.

Another problem we were up against is the rubber mounted T3 subframe, our concern was movement in the rubbers would possible cause wheelhop, and as Andy wanted to use his stock gearbox for a while, any gearbox movement would probably prematurely end its life. To stop any movement, we used a Bugpack solid mount kit at the bell-housing end of the gearbox, with Funkenblitz CDS brace bars bolting to the area behind the notchback rear seats. This area was reinforced. We also welded a steel bulkhead in this area to isolate the passenger area from engine noise.

A solid front mount was fitted, along with a VW Speedshop intermediate mount, fitted with Funkenblitz aluminium blocks. The idea was that hopefully even though we had solid mounted the gearbox in places, the rubber subframe mounts would isolate some of the noise from the inside of the car. It seemed to work with the back seat in place, and sound proofing filling the space behind the rear upright. The noise was vastly reduced, and the car was not unduly noisy.

We also fitted a full set of Autometer gauges (rev counter, oil temp, oil pressure and cylinder head temp). Avo coil-overs were fitted to the rear of the car to help launching.

The end result was very satisfactory - the notch was fast (15.1 1/4 mile), very driveable (would cruise at 80mph) and even though it had compression ratio of 9.5:1, on a hot day it would run at 95°C. The only thing we had to do was to space the front edge of the boot lid open, to get more air into the engine bay.

Engine specification (1776cc)

Gearbox specifications (Stock)

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