VWBUS T4&5+
http://www.vwbusmagazine.com 87timing slip. James did head up the
table for a little while, but his glory
was short lived, as after his first race
with Doug he got relegated to second.
As new members joined, he
slipped a little further down the field,
upgrades were definitely required.
His original engine had a charge air
cooling system and had an uprated
turbo added. Unfortunately, the lump
had a problem which turned out to
be catastrophic. James was aiming
for low 16s or high 15s, and as any
drag racer will tell you, it takes a lot to
shave a whole second off your time,
he was willing to have a go and so
the van was taken to Stage 3. Sadly,
that didn’t last as the charge cooler
gave up, the engine hydro-locked,
which means that water had entered
the combustion chambers, a total
rebuild was required as the con rods
were bent. So, James moved to StageIt currently sits at 223.8
bhp and puts out 389.9-
foot pounds of torque at the
wheels, but has yet to have a
remap with the larger turbo
Much modded frontdrag racers find after their first
shot, they either break their car,
or they become quite addicted.
Needless to say, as the T4 stayed in
one-piece James had indeed been
bitten by the bug. Thinking other
Transporter owners may also like
the experience James decided that
he’d set up a club especially for drag
racing Transporters. As he’d set
the benchmark time, to join they’d
have to beat that, the T17 club was
born and has been supported by
VW Bus ever since. It didn’t take
much to convince fellow T4 owner
Doug Chivers that his van might be
a quick one, as it had been modified
with a petrol fuelled 1.8 turbo lump
from a Seat Leon Cupra. There are
a few rules, as you might expect,
in essence you need to use a water
cooled VAG engine and run down
a pre-approved track to obtain yourVan Gear kitchen pod