Zink Formula Vee

vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:

Like heating up the tubes and pushing a steel ball through to open up the radiuses in the curves without splitting the pipes open? Haha

Yup, exactly what's done.  Much of the power FV race-prepped engines get over stock is in the carb and manifold.  Removal of metal from the interior of the manifold is also permitted.  All that's specified is the outside diameter of the manifold, so they run a steel ball through it to hit the OD and chemically etch the interiors as well.  Carb venturis are also machined out.  And then carbs and manifolds are tested in different combinations on a flow bench until a winner is found.  A competitive intake and carb is worth about the same as the rest of a fresh engine.

Berck said:

vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:

Like heating up the tubes and pushing a steel ball through to open up the radiuses in the curves without splitting the pipes open? Haha

Yup, exactly what's done.  Much of the power FV race-prepped engines get over stock is in the carb and manifold.  Removal of metal from the interior of the manifold is also permitted.  All that's specified is the outside diameter of the manifold, so they run a steel ball through it to hit the OD and chemically etch the interiors as well.  Carb venturis are also machined out.  And then carbs and manifolds are tested in different combinations on a flow bench until a winner is found.  A competitive intake and carb is worth about the same as the rest of a fresh engine.

And this is why, on a national level anyway, I believe Vee is no more cost effective compared to Miata or BSpec and other series. The leaders find ways to work the rules to their favor then get their cheating legislated into the books. I do think however switching to discs should be done. Yes drums provide less resistance, but discs and pads are easier to come by. Especially if converted to actual beetle parts and not some one off creations as some are making. Some of the stuff going on in Vee is ridiculous. The local guys and the club guys are at least having fun. Especially in the northeast.

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

Disagree.  You can buy a nice vintage Vee for $6,000 with an already-prepped engine including carb/intake.  $9,000 for a really, really nice competitive one.  And you only have to do it once.  The intake/carb modifications have been with FV from the beginning, and were in the books in the beginning. So, 58 years now--not like this is new "cheating".  I only race vintage, so I couldn't switch to disc brakes if I wanted.  I hate drum brakes, but parts are not a problem.  New drums are readily available for $75, shoes are $150, and I get a couple of seasons out of them.  I just don't think the cost is anywhere near what it takes to run a Miata at any level. 

There's no such thing as cheap racing, but I haven't found anything cheaper than vintage vees yet.

It's nice working with FSAE guys as they know how to build things.  

Jack made up new links for the Z-bar in the back and also built up a spare set of tie rods out of 5/8" x .120" tubing.

He also replaced the rod ends on the rear trailing arms.

He replaced the rod ends in the original tie rods as well.  It took a lot of heat to get the old ones out, and one rod end was bent.  We'll put jam nuts on after the dry build.

Meanwhile, Theo worked on getting the dual Wilwood 5/8" master cylinders in and made up some spacers so the balance bar would work nicely. 

The car had Girling master cylinders, but the Wilwoods were about half price and we thought we might like the remote reservoirs better.  We're not sure anymore as it was a bit tricky to find a place to put the reservoirs.  Jack made two brackets like the one above, one for each side as we couldn't find enough room to put them next to each other. They will probably be less messy to fill than the Girlings, which don't have remotes.

It's a bit tricky to get good photos, but we're trying to put a lot of detail pictures in for the next person who's building a Zink so they'll have a little easier job.  This shows the pedals, the balance bar, and the master cylinders, plus the reservoirs in place.

We have the steering box mounted so the steering arm is centered, which makes the shaft a little diagonal, but that's how most people do it.

I like the rear trailing arms , any adjustments where they bolt to the axle tube ?

I put my remote reservoirs on the forward side of the beam.  The tubing that came with mine was not, in fact, brake-fluid safe.  They didn't leak, but turned the fluid black pretty much immediately as it started to eat through.  After I replaced it with some clear Tygon 2375, I found that there's often bubbles in there that are tricky to get out if you can't see them.

My steering arm has also been modified so the tie rod mounts are symmetrical.  This is desirable so that the toe change under braking is the same on both wheels. Some folks extend the steering arm to get a quicker steering ratio, which is nice, but I don't think the feedback is as good.  In my case, I moved the pedal box forward 1.5" from the forward-most stock holes, and the extended steering arm block put the tie rods in the way of the pedals...

californiamilleghia said:

I like the rear trailing arms , any adjustments where they bolt to the axle tube ?

They're only adjustable at the front.  It's a bit of a pain as you have to take the nut off the chassis, pull the rod end off, and then turn the rod end in 1/2 turn increments to put it back on.  Some racers make a different setup that is more easily adjusted as  shown below. 

The "nut" at the back is actually a long piece of threaded hex that is turned to the inner diameter of the tube in the trailing arm. The front nut then serves as a jam nut.  With this setup, there is the arm can be adjusted by loosening the jam nut, plus it can be adjusted in less than 1/2 turn increments. 

Not a great picture, but you can see an arm in progress here.  The tub and "nut" are in the ears of the bracket.

This shows a finished trailing arm in this style of construction.  It's not on a Zink, but similar setup.  It's also got nerf bars to hopefully deter locking wheels with another car.  These are all pictures from our visit to Bob's shop.

Berck said:

My steering arm has also been modified so the tie rod mounts are symmetrical.  This is desirable so that the toe change under braking is the same on both wheels. Some folks extend the steering arm to get a quicker steering ratio, which is nice, but I don't think the feedback is as good.  In my case, I moved the pedal box forward 1.5" from the forward-most stock holes, and the extended steering arm block put the tie rods in the way of the pedals...

Thanks for this tip.  We've been looking at that asymmetrical steering arm and also have seen the packaging issues in that part of the car.  Things are tight!

We have some family in Southern California and we timed our visit to coincide with the Pomona Swap Meet. Before heading there, we found another FV guru and stopped as his shop for some parts and advice. 

We also looked at some cars (mainly Beetles) in the San Diego area and saw some cool stuff as a result. 

Always interesting to see other people's junk. 

I've been to the Pomona Swap Meet a couple of times before and it never disappoints. There is a VW section,  an everything else section, and a huge car corral. 

We got a carb, a couple of 009 distributors, and some other bits. 

A lot of the car corral cars weren't for sale and the whole area was much like a tailgate by lunchtime.

Which wasn't a surprise since this was the line at one of the bars at 9:00am.  

Things open up at 5:00am. We arrived about 6:00am and the swap meet shuts down at 2:00pm.  We got nearly 28,000 steps in, had a great time, and picked up some cool stuff.  Highly recommended!

Very cool. Seeing these old FV's takes me back to crewing on an SCCA D-Prod Datsun 2000 in the early 70's. They had huge fields in those days, much like Spec Miata now.

One of my instructors in 1974-5 at Navy Aviation Electronics school in Millington TN, claimed to know Ed Zink and had a number of stories about him. How I remember that I have no idea; I don't remember the stories though. We spent a lot of time talking about race cars when we were supposed to be talking about electrons.

Quick update:

We bought a fuel cell liner from ATL.

 We've mocked up the enclosure for it in CAD. 

The cell is a little taller than a Zink fiberglass seat, so we're making our own out of aluminum. 

We're using .063" 3003.

Theo finished the seat.  As mentioned above, it's .063" 3003 aluminum. We probably should have used a harder alloy but that's what we keep at Eclectic for panel beating work, so that's what we used. 

Theo has gotten pretty good with hard rivets and is shows.

Here's the backside.

And here it is in the car. Next step is to put some Dzus fastener tabs in place to hold it.

For reference, here are two other seats we had in our parts stash.  We think the cut up one is out of a Formula Ford.  The solid one is a proper Zink seat, but it won't fit with our fuel cell as mentioned before.

Side views for reference.

I think the softness of 3003 is a better choice for the seat. It has more energy absorption in a crash.

With a pile of 1-1/2" U Bends from Speedway Motors and Summit Racing, Jack built the exhaust.  He test fit and tacked most of the pieces with MIG welder, then finish welded them with TIG.

One tube was especially tricky as it barely fits around the rear bulkhead and starter.

It seems like it could cook the starter, but all the other cars are like this so we're assuming it will be okay.

Getting pipes in and out is a tricky business and has to be done in the right order.  Maybe we'll write that down.

We had the collector and tailpipe in our pile of parts, so that saved a bunch of fab work.

Out of the car, it's easier to see what's going on.

One issue was that the Z-bar and exhaust really wanted to be in the same place.  We thought about lowering the exhaust to be closer to the transaxle, but that would have created even more packaging issues around the starter (we didn't think we'd be able to get the starter out without pulling the exhaust).  So we decided to raise the Z-bar a little bit to make it all fit.  We'll detail the new mounts for that when they're done.

It was my turn to actually do some work on the car, so I tackled the front spindles. I pulled a set of spindles from another front end so we could keep the car rolling if need be.

They were full of crud, but came off very quickly.

I had to make a stepped drift to knock the link pin bushings out of the spindle assembly.  A lathe is a handy thing to have.

I used the drift to knock the link pin bushings out.

The hot setup is offset bushings to get more negative camber.  We got these from Dietmar Bauerle at Quixote Racing.

The kingpins and bushings looked like they'd been replaced and there was no play whatsoever, so I got out of a full rebuild for these spindles.  I just needed to install the offset bushings, and I knocked them in with the same drift I used to get the old ones out.

I made sure to thoroughly clean the grease passages and check that grease flowed to the kingpins.  I see a lot of old cars with rebuilt front ends, but grease won't flow because someone was sloppy. 

It's a bit hard to see in the picture, but the link pins are now ready to add a couple of degrees of negative camber.

In reply to adam525i :

If you need any photo's of the shift linkage or dimensions of where rods go through bearings, let me know. I just went through what you are doing.

Ralph Olmsted

adam525i

I am enclosing some pictures of the shift linkage. Later I will photograph the  other end of the shift linkage  including the shifter. I was going to write a parts lift for my Zink C4, so this has gotten me started.

RMOCFO

1. End view of transaxle and shift linkage fitting.

2. Side View of rear end of transaxle and shift linkage fitting.

3. 

3. End view of shift linkage support bearing. This is a standard bearing from McMaster-Carr. The same bearing is used for the steering shaft support. 

The transmission shaft is is 0.625 diameter for the transmission shaft. We bored the bearing I.D. to 0.630 diameter. The steering shaft and support bearing are the same. 

4.  Additional view of shift linkage support bearing.

In reply to RMOCFO :

Thanks so much!  Jack has the shift linkage working fairly well, but we would like it to be a little better. If you can share those photos, that would be wonderful.  If you can post them to this thread, that could help others as well.  I'm trying to get as many details and photos on this build thread since FV details are fairly hard to find (see page 1). I'm going to post our shift linkage photos and details soon, too.

I'd highly recommend crack checking those spindles.  Spindle failures are quire common on FVs (especially on the hollow left side) and I try to do a crack check once per year with some spray-on penetrant.

Additionally, many of us run a spacer/shim kit that allows bearing preload to be set with shims rather than torque on the axle nut.  This means you can add to the spindle strength with a column of spacers all the way out to the nut and torque it down tightly without applying preload on the bearing.  I assume they're available somewhere (my car came with it), but a quick search didn't turn it up.

The z-bar/exhaust clearance on my Zink was obtained with a ball peen hammer on the exhaust:)

In reply to Berck :

Thanks for the additional tips.  We're planning on crack checking the spindles as you suggest. Are there other components you regularly check?

When we get to coating the frame and other parts, we're planning on one or two coats of gray epoxy primer and two coats of clear rather than powdercoat.  We like to keep the paint really thin so we can see cracks in those areas.  

Please keep the tips coming, very helpful!

Carl Heideman said:

In reply to Berck :

Are there other components you regularly check?

Brake drums, especially the cheaper ones, are also well-known to crack.  Especially around the inspection/adjustment hole.

I putting up three posts with some photodumps of the past few days.  We had an especially productive Saturday today.

We bought this engine from a FV racer on the East Side of Michigan who was switching to Formula Ford.  He had recently freshened it and it only had dyno time on it. 

It's not very clean on the outside, but the oil looked very fresh and he showed us a video of it running on the dyno.

The heads show us it's a good kit of parts, so we're hopeful.

We're still looking for a prepped intake manifold, so in the mean time, Bob loaned us one.  It was so light, I had to weigh it.

This is the manifold that came with the roller Zinc. Someone had removed the heat risers from it, but it clearly wasn't acid dipped, nor was any porting done to it.

Here's a stock manifold with the heat risers.

I put tin on the engine and got it ready to go back in the car.  We're going to do a shakedown run of the car in a parking lot and then blow it apart for some painting, so I didn't do much to pretty up the engine.

We pulled the mockup engine out of the Zink in preparation for putting the proper engine back in.

While I was assembling the long block and dealing with several other things, Jack and Theo did a bunch of work on the back of the car while things were apart.

Theo worked on the firewall and finished the fuel cell installation.

Jack put original-style tubes back in the rear. I keep telling him to wear gloves when he welds but he doesn't listen to me.

We'd rather have the bottom of this tube go to a node, but it hits the fan shrowd if it's done that way.  This is exactly how Zink did them from new, so we're going with it.

Jack added a harness bar as the seat belt tabs were a little low when we test fitted him to the car with his gear on.

Jack also finished the steering quick-release.

Our rear coil overs just came in.  We're using QA1 DS303 that we got from Summit Racing.  These are 125lb/in springs, but we're told 100lb/in springs are better.  We've ordered a set but they're not here yet.

We also have the throttle and clutch cables working.  We used a stock Beetle clutch cable and a bicycle cabe for the throttle.  We did have to modify the clutch arm on the transaxle.  I'll post a picture of that later.

Another view of the clutch and throttle cable. We need to remember to finish weld the throttle cable tube...