My Beetle TDI + CNG = Wicked Fast Road Racer

Wrong again !! Never banned. If you have any thing to add to a race build step up I am shore every one here would like your input.

I would gladly hear your take on the car build good or bad.

Update
Got it running last night. After spending a full day tracing wiring ( No check engine light and no DLC to Vag Com) Found a bad ECU chip!!

I am racing to get it ready to show at the New England Dust Off show at Thompson Speed way May 31.
http://nedustoff.com/
With some luck I will move it under its own power this week end.

This car fought me all the way. Ran the other night badly then it got worse. After checking every thing found the tank full of some home brew junk. I used the same injector pump it was junk too.
After flushing it out and install another pump fires right up now.
Did drive it around the neighborhood now to move on to the CNG system install.
Gave it a wash
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And you're going to make this street legal in MA? Right...

That,s the plan next week.
Its to old for the OBD test so where good there.

1854sailor said:

And you're going to make this street legal in MA? Right...

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Here is the CNG system installed

Here is the Gas pressure and temp sensor with the MAP installed
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The regulator installed with pressure sensor
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CNG emg shut off
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CNG valve with hood closed
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All most there.
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First day on the track kind of! I did the Dustoff show at Thompson Speed way over the week end. Got to drive it down the back stretch to park it at my booth. Now to push to get it race ready for June 13 for a private test day there.

Just to update on the car. Have done one track day on diesel ran good needed to do some work on the handling. I do drive it on the street daily to help dial it in . I think we got the handling much better.
Just got the CNG system working, Its like adding another engine to the mix.
Here it is getting filled with a new pump we build.

We will be track testing on Thursday with both fuels and a few good drivers to help dial it in for the day.

That CNG system is pretty neat. Nice build.

Update for track day. Got the handling part dialed in very good so far.
But a few laps on it with just diesel then turned on the CNG and the race was on. It pushed the EX up a bit high but pulled wicked hard.
After a few laps I pulled in to check the car over. On pit road it was very noisy like a Mack truck??
In the pit it was Loud . So that was the end of the day. Back home on the trailer I started it up and it blow off the front pulley sheared off the bolts??
In the shop still noisy like a broken crank but after a bit I found that all the powered from the CNG added it loosened up the SB flywheel and crushed the disc springs .
In all my years I have never had any of my motor wrack this many part in a short time. I installed a new SB kit stage 2E and upgraded all the bolts. Will de-tune the CNG for now.

CNGVW said:

Update for track day. Got the handling part dialed in very good so far.
But a few laps on it with just diesel then turned on the CNG and the race was on. It pushed the EX up a bit high but pulled wicked hard.
After a few laps I pulled in to check the car over. On pit road it was very noisy like a Mack truck??
In the pit it was Loud . So that was the end of the day. Back home on the trailer I started it up and it blow off the front pulley sheared off the bolts??
In the shop still noisy like a broken crank but after a bit I found that all the powered from the CNG added it loosened up the SB flywheel and crushed the disc springs .
In all my years I have never had any of my motor wrack this many part in a short time. I installed a new SB kit stage 2E and upgraded all the bolts. Will de-tune the CNG for now.

Click to expand...

Welcome to the wonderful world of diesel tuning

The amount of torque a well tuned diesel engine can put out will snap all kinds of fun stuff


Loving' the build man! Keep up the good work
Looking forward to mode updates

Her is a GOPro of the car on a street test drive
https://youtu.be/9TsMBLu-sCU

After breaking all those parts we de-tuned it bit on Boost and CNG.
It is a fun car to drive with or with out CNG.

CNGVW said:

Her is a GOPro of the car on a street test drive
https://youtu.be/9TsMBLu-sCU
After breaking all those parts we de-tuned it bit on Boost and CNG.
It is a fun car to drive with or with out CNG.

Click to expand...

Looks like it is running well in that video!

For future track days will you be running diesel or CNG?

My next track test day is Monday at Thompson Speedway CT from 12-5
I have it in race trim and removed the CNG tank and pas seat.
Our first Chump race is 20-23 at Lime Rock CT.
We are still looking for skilled drivers to drive it at Lime Rock .
We will be at Thompson Speedway the end of September for a 12HR race We are working on getting the OK to run CNG too. Refuel both fuels under a green flag in pit-lane should be a sight.

Track Day Up Date.

The track day ended good .
The car is fast and very easy to drive fast.
Things that I think need to be adjusted on the straightaway it runs out of power on the top end ( It may need a fuel tank pump now that I think of it)
I 4th it takes a long time to climb to 5K .
It pulls off the turns hard and very little smoke.
I had my friend lead me around in his race corvette for a hand full of laps. Got down to 1.34 sec witch they say is fast for that kind of car.
On the last lap came on to the back short track front straightaway at about 70 MPH and lost it slide about 60+ FT I have it on Track addict Smoke and all.

Hey Bob,

It looks like you are running a VNT 17 with the CX Racing intercooler kit is this right ?

If so, can you tell me a little more about the modification you had to do to make it fit onto the turbo? It looks like a 90 and (45?) hard pipe added to the kit from your pic

Getting ready to do a similar setup + would like to get the extra parts on the way at the same time

(build looks great!)

Hello
Yes it is a VNT 17 and on the beetle it is tight with the snail intake.
I found some 90 and a 45 silicone for the intake side to turbo and add a few 2 1/2 bends to the kit . clocked the compressor so the boost side comes up the top. This way I did not have to deal with the piping hitting the tire and the front of the pulleys.
I think I ordered 2 base kit it was cheaper that way then buying one bend at a time.
Here is the base kit
.5" UNIVERSAL TURBO INTERCOOLER PIPING KIT+BLACK HOSES
( 150804795184 )
siliconeintakes
2.5" (64mm) Silicone silicon hump hose coupler black 2 1/2" intake piping
( 191556707599 )
2.5" to 1.75" Silicon 45 degree reducer elbow black
( 400898372031 )

Hello we finished Lime Rock Chump race, We where running in 8th over all, most of the day today.with a bad engine shut off at speed in the one left hand turn ever lap ??? We came in 2nd in our class to day it was a 4 hour race.

We did a 4 hour on Thursday, and a 8 hr on Friday .

CNGVW said:

Hello we finished Lime Rock Chump race, We where running in 8th over all, most of the day today.with a bad engine shut off at speed in the one left hand turn ever lap ??? We came in 2nd in our class to day it was a 4 hour race.

We did a 4 hour on Thursday, and a 8 hr on Friday .

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Are you bringing this car to TDIFest?

Yes I am . I think I will bring it with the dirt and all the sticky rubber on it and few bent rims from some hard wheel to wheel banging.
We showed that the TDI ALH can run up front all day long .
https://www.flickr.com/photos/76215724@N03/20628687710/in/album-72157657627079952/
Day one we where running hot very hot 250F to 270F we had to start cutting the nose up to gets some air in we still ran the 4 hr.

over night Mat made up the ankle killer to scoop up some air off the track for day 2.
We got the temp down after a few hours it started to cut out or over fuel only on the one hard left turn??? He came in and we saw that the ALT was on its way out so we pulled it out back pulled the belly pan and swapped the alt and found a coolant leak. Keep the belly pan off and relocated the ankle killer took 1.45 hr.
back on the track we did not fix the left turn of death.
So it was my time to drive slow after 10 min coming down on to front shoot the shook the wheel right out of my hands at 60 MPH like I was losing a front wheel it would come and go at speed.
came in found loose tie rod and ball joints out I go it was good for a few laps. them it came3 back bad I asked for 2 front tires


good for a few more than bad again in I cam so I can get out to check. they looked at me Like I was making it up.
I could not fine any thing wrong. I put like in the Mike in the car he is very fast after a few laps he all most lost it coming to front shoot down the hill. he said I was right HUM.
we only had 20 min to go so we pulled it out back.
jacked it up and found we killed the left new CV axle .
So I worked all night .

Here is a link to some great racing shoots of the DR.Volks TDI Racer Beetle in action.
https://flic.kr/s/aHskj3kE6t

Race season is over and track test-days we have fun and broke a lot of parts. One of the great things is my wife now drives the car on track days and loves it, sits in every training session.
We dynoed it and it make great power

194HP 319 Torque on 20% CNG
I will be posting more on my suspension setup in the coming weeks
And what we plan for next year.
visit my website for some cool videos pictures

Ok The new year is hear and a bunch of new parts for next year.
I have been spending a lot of time on the front end buy a bump steer tool and spent a lot of time testing the stock beetle front and I upgrades to the TT spindles. Then re did all the testing over.
What I have found is the stock Beetle,Jetta,Golf front end on bump steer is wacked out.
On a 2 inch compression ( hitting the brakes going in to a turn ) the tire steer them self's .120 th inward per tire!! Very bad news but I have found how to fix it to .020 out ward very good. and with the TT setup comes the big brakes too I did test bump steer too and got it just right.
Adding a nascar removable front sway bar for testing and can be mounted to the rear too.
I got my brother to help this year to setup the car a bit he runs a Nascar Modified and has over 30 years of chassis setup skills.
Got a 2260 turbo for it and manifold and a D24 for it and a P130 for dyno testing too.
Mike owner of Star engineering how helps on the car and drives , we picked up a 2008 ford F450 bus from Logan airport that runs on CNG and are converting it to a car hauler .
I plan on removing weight from the car and move the drivers side bars out a bit and lower the top a bit. This should make it a lot easier to get out and in on driver change pit stops.
With some luck we will run a hand full of Chump and do some Lemon races too.
We do rent the seat at some races to those that have some racing experience .
They just show up and drive for a fee and help out at the track it has worked out well so far.
show what bump steer jig looks like

Raced against you at LRP back in August '15. Pretty quick little bug, definitely had some legs on the straights.

This from Mike on this year of racing and thank for the kind words Axxe hope to meet up again.
Happy New Year everyone. After 9 hours of driving in 5 stints during the PBIR 38 I'm excited about putting together a 2016 schedule for our VW.

What's your pleasure? I will go anywhere we can figure out a way to haul the car to. I absolutely want to do Palmer June and Watkins Glen Memorial Day weekend. Chump and LeMons have races at Thompson. Chump is July 1-2 Friday Sat. If at least two of us commit we can find rental drivers I've got a pretty good list of very qualified guys to fill in, most are instructors at their home tracks. There's a race in Nova Scotia which would be a cool destination event and maybe VIR?? just toying with ideas. Are there any events at NJMSP?

I'm doing Road Atlanta in Feb, Daytona in April and maybe mid-Ohio if I can find a ride. Anyone want to haul the VW out there? Also planning on Sebring in Sept and on New Year's eve.

Michael Coleman, CFO

On the race car I started to check the ex manifold BWM using the Darkside flange it does not work out How I would like.
So I cut a stock manifold and will make up a new flange and weld it to it so I can place the 2260 a bout in the stock location.
This will keep all the pluming in the same place.
I got a 130P intake to test and I have D24 all modified on its way too.
I am talking with someone on a T4 111kW modified too but I will only go to $170 EU for it
I hope to dyno them all .
have 205 SPEC - this is the 520 nozzle with a hole size of 0.21mm to test
Thing I need to get ready new tune for the socket ECM for this upgrades so a few chips to test.
Can we make a way to manual adjust boost on the 2260 from inside the car or under the hood?
On the long runs to dial it down for a driver change??

I will change the ecm And harness to a 2000 Jetta later so we can do the Tuning too from the OBD port.
So we can do some dyno testing with a hand full of tunes.

The TT spindles and big brakes are on found a nascar 37 inch 7/8 sway bar that will fit the bug under therear part of the subframe .
This will let us change swaybars at the track in minutes and I can move them to the rear in minutes too.
I will have few sizes on hand to test.
We are getting ready to start to scale the car my brother will help on this 35 years of racecar chaises work should work for us.

I have seen a very clever boost control device with remote "control". It is a Dawes device but it has a long cable attached to the adjusting nut. That way the controller is right next to the turbo eliminating possible lag, but the boost can be dialed up or down from a distance: it might be 2 feet, or it might be 3 feet. All I saw was a picture, but I thought it was a great idea.

"The Hallman Boost Controller Cockpit Cable" is the name of the one I found.

That was on the lines of what we where thinking.
Thank you for the name I did look it over will work .
I did talk with Mark at TDTUNING.com on it the plan if so we can back off boost in a race to save the car.
I may just buy one to test in my loaner TDI to see if it works it is designed for boost/pressure line to a wast-gate. So we need to test on the N75 vacuum control or bleed port.

Nevada_TDI said:

I have seen a very clever boost control device with remote "control". It is a Dawes device but it has a long cable attached to the adjusting nut. That way the controller is right next to the turbo eliminating possible lag, but the boost can be dialed up or down from a distance: it might be 2 feet, or it might be 3 feet. All I saw was a picture, but I thought it was a great idea.

"The Hallman Boost Controller Cockpit Cable" is the name of the one I found.

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here are few shots of the front end done
TT front spindles with TT control arms
I made up the hem end and adjustable sleeves with 9/16 bolts so we can adjust bump steer.

We are setting up for LRP snow race date 2-24-16 should be fun.