yesterday I completely rewired the trailer lights and the connection on the truck. it brought up a question. instructions say if the trailer is over 80" wide it needs 3 more marker lights on the back. . . my trailer isnt that wide but the load on the trailer is. wonder if the state patrol would ticket me 
In reply to 2K4Kcsq:
Technically you would need the three center lights I think.... Luckily its easy to add, just tap the running light circuit.
You should be able to add them with 3m tape and some LED's from Pep Boys. There are better ways to do it, but cheap and simple is available for this particular issue.
yeah seems simple enough. i have 2 led round lights i could put on, just need to get one more
got the dome light going a couple days ago
today I built this cold air intake to somewhat resemble what they had stock only with an air filter. turned out ok. tomorrow i will make it pretty and paint it.
how much air can you ram at 20mph?? 
The factory really had it running exclusively on cold air? Weird. The long runners in open air make the VW engines with a single carb like warm air and heated manifolds to keep the fuel from dropping out of suspension. I guess it exhausting all the heated air into the engine bay probably helps some.
In reply to BrokenYugo:
sometimes when it warms up there is a little frost on the manifold under the carb. . but with this particular engine bay the carb just doesnt get that cold. infact you can tell that over the years, kristi kept adding more ventalation to get the heat out of the engine bay. never seen a kristi kat with heat risers either. all were chopped off at the factory as far as I can tell from old pictures. easy solution if it gets too cold, just remove the hose 
what surprises me is they didnt feel the need for an air filter. I suppose on the snow there isnt much dust but still
Airplanes don't have air filters either.
I can see a VW logo on top of that intake...
RossD wrote: I can see a VW logo on top of that intake...
hell yes. possibly a "1384cc high output" around the side
today I did alot of wiring work. added a power bank for switched 12v needs along with some inline fuses. when I got this machine there wasnt a fuse in sight. atleast now it has some electrical protection. also added a low oil pressure light using a vw pressure switch and an LED from autozone. it will work till I can get a new gauge.
took the cat out today because I couldn't care less about football. put about 30 miles on 'er. overall it ran well but there are still some issues to work out. on the drive back it developed a fuel pressure issue. had to stop and let the 50 year old electric fuel pump cool off a few times. still wasn't enough of an issue to leave us stranded but I think it's time to find a replacement. its a low pressure bendix pump from the 60's, would like to find a direct replacement because I like how it mounts. only other issue was the low-high-reverse shifter is still poping out of gear on occasion. will need to look into that.
a local named Tom met up with us, brought is beautifull factory restored Tucker 443. it is quite a machine and was a pleasure seeing it roam across the powder. I can see why people love tuckers. I bet it rides like a cadillac compared to my humble little kristi
Beautiful!
Wow!
alright guys, need some help. the other issue I forgot to mention above, even after fixing my throttle linkage I still can't drive the thing in 4th gear high range unless im going down a decent hill. according to GPS we hit a max speed of 17mph. starting to wonder if I have enough carburator on this engine. currently running a solex 28 pict, not sure exactly what jet is in there but its likely to small. I went from an 1192cc to a 1384cc and I put in a bigger cam, engle W-90.
you guys think I should step up to a 30 pict or maybe bigger?? or just re-jet what I have? power is only an issue in 4 high but with the bigger engine it should be able to push it i think.
next time out I might take some jets and a wideband to see what I can figure out. it spends most of its time at or above 10,000ft elevation so its hard to tune it at a home base of 4,600ft. plus i deffinetly need snow to even think about top gear 
A wideband will definitely help with jetting. I'm guessing you may need larger
I thought you needed less jet for the thinner air at high altitude?
Is the distributor advance working correctly?
BrokenYugo wrote: I thought you needed less jet for the thinner air at high altitude? Is the distributor advance working correctly?
your right, but I increased displacment by almost 14% and installed a bigger cam, still running the same carb and jet that was in it so i figure its probably lean. the advance does work but its only got mechanical, no vacuum. not much advance on the industrial distributors which I believe it has.
Could the new cam need more ignition advance? It'd be good to know what your total advance is (find with a dial back light), base timing at idle doesn't tell much when you start changing out parts.
Have you looked at the plugs to get an idea of current air/fuel mix?
Since you have access to a wide band definitely put it to use, and see if re-jetting the current carb will get results.
An automotive HiPo cam might not be happy with a limited advance industrial distributor. As a guy that works with industrial engines, I can honestly say that all engines that I've worked with that didn't have a vacuum distributor were gutless slugs. I've never worked with an ACVW, so they could be different for all I know.
I wonder if it would be possible to adapt a mixture adjustment set up from a small airplane?(like the whole carb from a Pipper or something similar). Since this machine runs in temperatures from regular cold to nearly polar cold, and over many different altitudes, it has similar problems as an airplane engine. There are already a lot of aircraft-esque features in it.
The lack of any heat on the intake has me scratching my head too. Carbs can ice in above freezing temps in the right conditions easily, playing in the snow seems like ideal icing conditions.
What kind of fuel are you using? E10 might add the carb icing issues.
I'd probably ruin it with all the upgrades I'd put on it, so don't feel like you need to listen to anything I have to say. 
This is a really cool thread, keep up the posts and pics!
In reply to HappyAndy:
I think I've seen adjustable jets for the stock carb, just add a cable.
Or can megasquirt do on the fly altitude correction? Just plop a 80s crapcan 1 barrel throttle body injection unit on the stock manifold.
thanks for all the input guys. I dont think it would be difficult to adapt an airplane carb. could help alot with low rpm velocity if they are similar to say, a street bike carb. I havent played with airplanes enough to know what they have.
as for the intake heat, the engine bay of the kristi is a very very warm place. I have been having this conversation alot lately but have yet to see any ice forming on, in or around the intake/carb even after adding my cold air intake.
yes megasquirt can do on the fly altitude adjustment with the addition of a second map sensor. after running this machine, Im worried that all the vibration would be hard on the ecu. this machine shakes alot. if I do go ms, it would need to be mounted on some insulators in the back of the cabin, away from all the heat.
im going to ask a few aircooled experts about the industrial distributor. I think your right about the lack of advance for my cam choice. a little more timing could go along way for this engine.
Don't have to use an airplane carb. The fuel/air mixture adjustment screw on an airplane carb has a cable attached to it an ran to the cockpit so the pilot can adjust mixture in-flight. There was a guy in Seattle in the late 70's/early 80's selling a kit that did the same thing on cars claiming it would better MPGs. Claimed something around 50 mpg on a big block Chrysler Newport. Ran a coil of fuel line through the upper radiator hose to preheat fuel going into the carb. Adjust mixture while driving. Also had an additional gage, I forget if it was exhaust temp or vacuum. Set Cruise control and lean mixture out and mpg would get better. Something similar would help for altitude since that's why aircraft use it. Aircraft has an exhaust manifold temp gage to aid in mixture.
sounds like it could be quite usefull. are these on the fly adjusters still available anywhere? never seen one before.
In reply to 2K4Kcsq:
IMHO, the cost and complexity of adapting an aviation carb is going to be almost the same as going MS. And it will still be less robust.
As for the heat- I can't imagine that the under hood temps your vehicle deals with is any more than a typical car- especially given your cold weather environment vs. many people running their cars in really hot weather.
And I bet mounting an MS into a good spot would be easy. For that, I'd consider doing a Microsquirt, and them mounting it in the jel that Toughbooks use to isolate their hard drives. Done.
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