My project Doom Buggy

[cdnltded]

[joescoolcustoms]

Those "H" cases pushed millions of Beetles down the road for hundreds of millions of miles.

In stockish form, they are OK and do very well.
_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[cdnltded]

[joescoolcustoms]

[oprn]

Nothing wrong with what you have. If it has good oil pressure and compression and is driven with respect it could very well out last you and I used as a fun occasional driver. With the lighter body it will keep up with the traffic around town just fine and hold 100 km/hr on most highway hills. The only time you will feel you need more engine is when the traffic gets heavy and fast on long weekends.

Just personal experiance here, I have never felt the need to case saver a stock engine and have never even seen a pulled stud. But then Dad and I have only been into VWs since '67. I presently have 8 stock aircooled engines in our yard and none have case savers or pulled studs. As the HP goes up past stock though it could be a different story.

When it comes time that you want more power consider a turbo. With a properly sized turbo and mild boost you will spend about 1/3 of the dollars for the same HP increase, do it at the same or lower rpm than stock, have a very nicely manored, drivable engine to boot and not even have to open your present engine up!

Just a suggestion...

[cdnltded]

[oprn]

After I did my first turbo install on my Rabbit I swore off ever going back to the old school "cam, carbs and header" route. I spent $800 on a new properly sized turbo and built the rest myself. A friend of mine did the cam, Webber, header thing on his Rabbit about the same time. I drove them both, his car had crisp low end throttle response but no extra power until it got above 5000 rpm then made what felt like about 20% more than stock up to 8000 rpm.

Mine on the other hand had some noticeable lag off the hop but by 2500 rpm was feelings pretty strong and by 5000 rpm was getting into about double the stock HP. I never took it up to the factory 6250 rpm red line after the turbo was installed as it was making huge power around 5000 and I was already getting into the "Holy Crap!" zone, smoking tires and burning up clutches!

This Buggy came with a stock 1600 DP with Kadrons and Dual cannons. Ran like crap. To make a long story short, an with exhaust change and a lot of tinkering is runs ok now but for the $800 or more it takes to buy new Kadrons... never! Throttle response is better than a stock Solex but the increase in top end power would be in the single digits at best. Total waste of money in my view.

So here I am years later not taking my own advice and already regretting it even before finishing this engine! The whole idea behind this new engine was to retain the classic "Manx" look so I wanted to go with the classic dual Weber/Cannon exhaust appearance. Then I got on this site and learned:

#1) This Buggy from the back end is nowhere close to a real Manx in looks.
#2) Dual Cannons look cool, sound cool but run like crap!

So If I was to start over on this engine it would be totally different than what I am doing now. Oh well... never had dual Webers before so want to try that.

They may be up for sale by fall though...

[cdnltded]

so since this buggy is not a true Meyers i feel i can cut it up a bit and modify as i see fit. I cut out half the spare tire well and closed it back up as well relocated my battery to under the rear shelf. but looking at it i was not liking the very different opening for where the spare tire was and the battery was, so i decided to fill the battery opening a bit to look more like the pare tire well.

i will post updates as i go.
i am almost ready for paint too

[cdnltded]

got the old battery well filled and the first coat of high build primer on the body. feels good to see it at this stage

[oprn]

Looking good! What color do you have in mind?

[cdnltded]

[oprn]

Sweet! I love colors that stand out in a crowd. Enough already of white, gray and black!

[slalombuggy]

[oprn]

I hear ya! Three years ago we took a trip through the Rockies and made a game with the kids counting colors other than black, white and grey. There were only a hand full of other colors in 10 hours of driving. I began to think we had all gone color blind!

Good to see a few colors showing up on the Dodge dealership lots the last year or so.

[cdnltded]

Got the final primer coat on tonight. Next step color

[oprn]

I expect the weather just put a kink in your painting plans!

[cdnltded]

[oprn]

I hear ya about set backs. My engine slid in place nicely and the carbs clear the body but the carb linkage hits the body on the right side. Need to rethink that.

[cdnltded]

Got the color on tonight. Not the best but with what I am using I guess it turned out ok. As always picture really don’t help how it really looks. Gonna get another can of top coat and hopefully there will be more shine.

[oprn]

I like it!