Meet the new member of our household, Porter. Porter works tirelessly with us out in the garage, never whining or complaining about how HARD it all is (unlike some OTHER family members I can think of!). Snuggled up next to Porter you can see the 2 liter block that is soon to be high-horsepower motivation for Phrankentruk, our other (faster) Volkswagen.

Well here's the Doctor himself measuring the deckhight with dial calipers to determine the swept volume of the cylinders. This number is used in a brain-cell smoking formula with the cubic centimeters of the combustion chambers and other measurements to arrive at the compression ratio (Thanks goes out to the Gene Berg technical manual for helping me figure all this out).

The result was about what I expected. The builder had just assembled the motor without concern for the balance or amount of compression and I recorded levels from 8.3:1 to 8.8:1 in the various cylinders.      Using Gene Bergs recommendations, I calculated what we needed for a 7.0:1 c/r and found a supplier in nearby Raleigh, NC that actually had a clue what I was talking about and had the cylinder shims we needed in stock, or so we thought...

After removing and wire-brushing the cylinders Tracy applies the first layer of Rustoleum high-heat paint. Tracy got out her special John Lennon-Whirrled Peas hippie shirt for the paint sniffing session.

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