Expecting our third child this August, not sure yet how this is going to affect 2014 racing season. Luckily the car itself doesn't need anything.
East coast super beetle drag car
This car really isn't a "project", but since I am always changing it, it's kind of always a project. Like most cars I think! I think I will use this more as a logbook for myself than anything. Because I am always changing it, it's tough to remember when I did what. This was my first car I got when I was 13, drove it all through high school and college, than kept making it faster and faster. I've now had it for 19 years. It's a 73 super, all steel, all motor, I built everything including the engine, trans, chassis, and I do all my own bodywork and paint. The only 2 things I didn't do on the car is balance the tires and bore the block and heads, and I was standing next to the guy that did the machine work. I also intend for all of those criteria to always be that way. Nothing against people that go other routes, this is just the way I like it. The car weighs around 1540 lbs right now with the fuel full and without me in it. Personal best times right now are 1.60 60 foot, 7.80 1/8th and 12.48 1/4 without enough 4th gear by quite a bit. The last 2 years I have finally found my groove and won a few races, and unbelievably this year I made slightly more than I have spent. No engine or trans failures helps that statistic quite a bit.
I'm not the fastest guy out there, but I get a little faster every year and that's what matters. My current goal is to get down around 7.55 or 7.60 so I can stay in Pro, but be one of the fastest guys in Pro. I don't want to be the slowest guy in Super Pro! My plans for this winter are more cam and compression, I am moving some weight around, I am removing around 50 lbs, and more gear. Now here's some pictures of the car in it's current state.
I'm not the fastest guy out there, but I get a little faster every year and that's what matters. My current goal is to get down around 7.55 or 7.60 so I can stay in Pro, but be one of the fastest guys in Pro. I don't want to be the slowest guy in Super Pro! My plans for this winter are more cam and compression, I am moving some weight around, I am removing around 50 lbs, and more gear. Now here's some pictures of the car in it's current state.
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Nice or not, I do my own work. Right now there are 2 things I DIDN'T do on my 3 VW's: machine the heads and case, and balance the tires. And I was very active in helping on them. When I went to spindle mount wheels I figured that my regular balancing guy couldn't do them on his machine, so I bought a motorcycle balancer and it seemed to do a very good job. With some spare time (at work, AHEM) I decided to make a hub so that I could balance my own rear tires on the drag car and also all 4 of my street bug tires. It was pretty simple, I took a front drum, cleaned the grease out of it, sandblasted it, and chucked it up in a big lathe. Then I took off as much material as I could without fear of losing integrity. Threaded 4 lug bolts into the holes, and marked them so they would stay in their own holes from now on. Then put just the hub on the balancer. It was pretty close, but I did have to do some work on it. I just grinded on the heavy side until it balanced. Then tried one of my old wheels and it worked great. One less thing on my list of "**** I can't do." I don't see myself buying a Bridgeport any time soon though.
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Got a couple goodies, a new cell and upgrading from an 1 5/8" header to an 1 3/4" with a big flange.
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Alright, I have had primer fenders for long enough! These are steel fenders that I widened around 2 1/2".
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Yay!
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Car ran great all day, many mid to high 7.60's, got runner up and best first round reaction time earning me a little extra money plus my class winnings. I am also now points leader for the year.
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I was keeping it quiet Sunday but on my bye-run I bent my hockey stick and was having serious trouble hitting gears. Dropped my dial from 7.61 to 7.71 and granny shifted the rest of the day and limped into the finals. Just got in from the garage and found the bent hockey stick, but also found that my nosecone bushing was shot, had .025" slop. Rooted through my spare parts, picked out the best of my spare sticks and nosecones, found one combo that had .001" slop if you REALLY look for it, reassembled, and back in the game. With my mid mount and access panels in the firewall I can easily do it in place without dropping the engine and trans. It shifts with 2 fingers now! I'll have to make this a 3 year pm. Good thing I have a few spares. And Charles posted this picture of me waddin' up the tires with 15 psi in the tires.
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Now that I have one race under my belt I decided to start tinkering on the new, bigger exhaust. Of course it needs a lot more work than just bolting it on. The shape is totally different than the old one. For starters, I had to clearance my wheelie bar mounts for the different shaped J tubes to fit. The welds inside the primary tubes at the flanges were terrible and needed some "porting" to not look like crap. Both oil lines hit and will require rerouting and new fittings. Had to cut off the bottom hood pin. The brackets for mounting the rear bodywork are NOWHERE NEAR anything now, I'll have to make some struts for them. When I tighten the flanges down to the heads, in the middle they are not clamping the gasket tight. I will need to get squishier gaskets, or chop off and replace all of the flanges with thicker ones. The apron doesn't clear the new, bigger stinger flange. I roughly chopped that out, will have to clean it up and repaint. Lots of work foe something I don't even know for sure if it will help.
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**Post got split up, as I said in the previous page, this is the new exhaust fitment.
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Got the exhaust mostly done. Chopped off and welded on 4 new flanges, and I also had to cut off the stinger flange and realign that. Only thing I have left is to find a way to hang the fenders, there is nothing there to attach them to! It sounds amazing and shakes the garage, things were falling off the shelves when I first started it. I hope it makes some power. I'm not even going to paint it until I know I am going to leave it on.
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On my old car I used a simple frame made from 1/4" bar with tabs welded to the ends. It went from tbe heads to the wings and across to the header and bottom decklid mount. Everything was solid mounted so no worries about flexing.
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Progress is slow but I finally made it somewhere. I ended up using a modified version of Neil's brackets, very similar though! I ended up just scrapping the stock apron and making a new one from aluminum. The steel one didn't have much left and it was starting to get a little cobbed up. I am also fiddling with filling in the gaps between the fenders and the decklid where I chopped off the back of the car. It has always bugged me seeing that gap in pictures and videos. I decided to do the best of both worlds, make it so I can pull the engine straight out without taking off the carbs or anything, but also fill the gaps. So I riveted the filler pieces right to the fenders so they come off with the fenders. They look ok. Problem is, ok isn't good enough. I am going to go on a hunt for VW filler pieces that will line up EXACTLY like stock. All I need is a sawzall!
Only thing I have left is to figure out how to hang the bottom of the decklid, I will probably do something similar to the fender brackets.
Only thing I have left is to figure out how to hang the bottom of the decklid, I will probably do something similar to the fender brackets.
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Got some goodies today, a rear clip so I can make new filler pieces, and some things for the "Someday List." When I start having trans problems I will build the 091 box. I will use the bell housing and output shaft from the 002 box, and I got a steel ball that replaces the plastic one that goes bad in the nose cone. I want to keep it simple, a spool, folts axle kit, cromoly 3/4 hub, aftermarket 1rst through 4th gears. Yes, I know this is big bucks, and no, I'm not going Mendy. All of this is most likely WAY down the road because I have never blown up a type one box. I know it is coming someday though as the car gets faster.
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