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Fri Jun 12, 2020 12:21 pm

Curious about the Brazilian Puma.....

Does the body fit on a beetle frame?
Does an IRS trans fit?
Does a standard 1600 sp fit? I’ve seen ads for fan housings that look a little flatter than the regular 1600 doghouse .

More questions to follow as I think of them....

Fri Jun 12, 2020 4:34 pm

IMO the Puma is the best looking of all the "kit cars" [ I know it's not really a kit car". It was styled by Pininfarina in a roundabout way. If you look at the early Ferrari 365GT 2+2 you will see where the styling for the Puma came from !!

They don't use a bug pan. You can use Ghia floorpans as replacements but I think they takes some mods to work. Swingaxles. I have heard that to convert to IRS you have to cut up the underside of the body.

Not much headroom like all most all the swoopy kit cars. The VW pans have the bottom of the floor pretty much inline with the axles which is where the problem lies. That and the 15" wheels.

There are several yt vids with some puma footage.

Mon Jun 29, 2020 3:31 pm

The VW based Puma started life on a cut down Karmann Ghia floor pans. Later the Brazilia, not really any difference. Plenty of people do the IRS conversion pretty easily but they all started life with a swing axle. The seats are flush with the floor and allow for plenty of headroom up to about 6' unless you have a convertible then its unlimited :D

Most Puma's had a dual port 1600 with dual carbs and a Brazilia fan housing which is commonly referred as Puma fan housing in North America. Puma supposedly modified the standard 1600 to get 75 hp instead of the factory 65 hp. They also offered an 1800.

Of course all of those brought in the US carried the moniker of "Kit car" to get around crash testing requirements. So some of those were sold with out transaxles or engines leaving it up to the buyer to source. When I bought my GTC they had a 2110 in it but offered it with the original 1600. After a test drive I elected to get the 1600 so I wouldn't end up in jail or dead.

A lot of the mechanical are interchangeable with North American/ European parts but a few items like the Master cylinder has to be sourced form Brazil.

Fri Jan 15, 2021 5:47 am

Petfisheric wrote:

When I bought my GTC they had a 2110 in it but offered it with the original 1600. After a test drive I elected to get the 1600 so I wouldn't end up in jail or dead.

So, what are you saying here?

Was the car insanely fast? ...or were there other problems such as handling that the higher horsepower engine exacerbated?

Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:57 pm

The car was fast and I knew I would get in serious trouble.

Thu Apr 14, 2022 5:58 pm

Had some neat OG Puma carbs and manifolds, does anyone know WTF I am talking about? Steel, Tall, DP OG VW part numbers, barn was cleaned out while i was in Thailand.

Thu Apr 14, 2022 6:31 pm

I think Pumas originally got Kadrons on their 1600s, right?

Puma is one of the three kit-cars I wouldn't kick out of bed. The other two are the Manx SR and the Sterling.

Make that four. SP2 is right sexy.

Max

Tue Apr 19, 2022 3:56 pm

Max Welton wrote: I think Pumas originally got Kadrons on their 1600s, right?

Puma is one of the three kit-cars I wouldn't kick out of bed. The other two are the Manx SR and the Sterling.

Make that four. SP2 is right sexy.

Max

Nope, they used Solex PDSIT carbs with tall VW (upright engine) manifolds.

Fri Apr 22, 2022 7:26 pm

Here are the pictures I have of my Puma's carburetors

Fri Apr 22, 2022 10:17 pm

Buggeee wrote: Here are the pictures I have of my Puma's carburetors

Many thanks! I had two complete sets with oil bath upgrades... with parts almost to build another set. Can you please give me the part numbers on the side of the manifolds?
:D

Sun Apr 24, 2022 8:55 am

I will look to see If the part number on the manifold is accessible

In the meantime, the K&N E-3205 filter fits the paper filter housings for my Puma. These type were stock on mine, and the housings are marked with the Puma logo. I could see replacement filter on a Brazilian parts web site but could not navigate that. So I searched K&N filters by their dimensions and found these.

Thu May 19, 2022 5:56 pm

[quote="VWFIXER"] Buggeee wrote: I had two complete sets with oil bath upgrades... with parts almost to build another set. Can you please give me the part numbers on the side of the manifolds?
:D

I can't read numbers on what I can see from the engine compartment. Doing one better, here are the parts diagrams and lists of part numbers for the carburetors and related fixings. If my maker is willing I'll scan the whole book one day and send it to Everett for the archives.