VW Trends Dyno Day

What about the date? As many Volkswagen addicts vacation in SoCal for the Classic Week (see last month's issue), it seemed wise to give them one more reason to cruise the West Coast by organizing the event on Saturday, May 31, the day before the Pomona Swap Meet. It comes as no surprise that we had guests from Florida and Europe at our lil' shindig!

So here we are, early Saturday morning and the place is already starting to get busy... Many contestants and spectators began their tour by checking the booths set up by some of our advertisers, as well as VW Paradise's incredible six-second dragster parked close by. We were hoping to see it run on the dyno, but as the distance between the rear tires was too narrow, the team from Magnaflow couldn't quite fit the rail on the two rollers of the machine. Bummer...

Of course, the crowd eventually wound up inside the building where Dyno Don Chamberlin, the "Voice of the Volkswagen" since the '70s Bug-Ins, kept everybody entertained. Kudos to Dyno! A crew from "Super 2NR TV," a show about fast cars aired on cable by TNN, filmed the action and interviewed a few people. The segment about the Dyno Day was first broadcast on Saturday, July 5, and allowed millions of viewers to discover the amazing high-performance potential of our small German vehicles. We also supplied all partakers with complimentary sodas and hot dogs, cooked to perfection by Rudy Serna. Did we take good care of everybody or what?

Now let's get down to business, and see how our contestants performed--all were given the opportunity to make two or three pulls. The friendly team of Magnaflow first started by strapping Taylor Walton's silver '64. This 19-year old enthusiast has already built a 13-second street-driven '65 Sedan, which was unfortunately stolen last year. His second project is another Bug, built solely for the dragstrip. It runs 12.80s on the quarter mile. Taylor built and painted the car himself, and he even assembled the screaming 1776cc motor (69x90.5, Rimco VW Super Rods, Engle FK-89 camshaft, CB 044 42x37.5 heads by Shawn Moore at MSR, 12.0:1 compression ratio, Weber 48IDAs, Bosch 009 distributor, 4-Tuned 1-5/8-inch header). It packed some healthy horsepower: 146hp (no torque reading available).

Things started to heat up with Darren Koenig's yellow '56 Oval sponsored by Proformance. Now we are talking about real horsepower with this true race car, powered by a 2332cc Type I engine (84x94, JE pistons, Autocraft cylinders, Scat 5.5-in. H-Beam rods, Webcam "Turbo Grind Special," CB Comp Eliminator 46x38 heads by AJ Sims, 9.0:1 CR, Turbonetics 62-1 turbo, Holley 800cfm carb, MSD7AL ignition system). During two different pulls, it delivered respectively 330hp and 290 ft-lbs. of torque with 25lbs. of boost in third gear only (most competitors used fourth gear)!