This 62 was originally bought by me at the
age of 16 for $200. Just needed a few tweeks and it was on the
road for about $1. The sketchy front end (pulled leaves to
lower) and all around age of the car made its daily driver duty
short. Around 2 weeks. Took it to the local VW shop I worked at
and pulled the engine (sold it for $200) and it sat for a bit
while I decided what to do. The owner of the shop gave me a 69
pan so then I detailed that pan, got an adj disk beam, put
Porsche fuchs all the way around. lowered the rear and put the
body on it. Was back on the road. With a 1641 I put together out
of parts that were laying around. Cost me $50 to build. Did
daily duty for a few months. That’s when I got the itch to go
drag racing.
Soon
I decided to change it to swingaxle. So at first my new KCR
swing trans with short gears and a few tricks went onto that
pan, until I came across a NICE 66 pan that was powdercoated,
adj beam with drop spindles etc so my body went onto that. Still
had the same ol 1641. Did a pass of 15.3 and it was still a
daily car. I got a 57chevy stepside truck and the bug was done
being daily from there on out, but would still be driven all the
time. Now it was just a play car and started to get wild. I had
a 1915cc engine in the works from the time I was 16. I had been
collecting parts and now was in a better job that would let me
have plenty of play money to build it up. After a broken R&P in
that trans. A new trans was built using weddle gears, spool, etc
etc from Jeff Newcomb at NorCal Speed in Redding, CA. Jeff was a
long time friend of mine and helped me select alot of the parts
for both my motor and trans. That wasn’t enough and thanks to
Jeff I put a NOS fogger kit on the car as well. So there I had a
close ratio, 1915cc with nitrous, and a set of slicks that were
handed down to me.
Car without nitrous ran a best of 12.82@105 and got into the
high 11s before I turned 18. Now that I was in the 11s I put in
an rlr bolt in cage, And more nitrous. Best pass I ever got out
of it was 11.17@119mph. Ended up being "sponsored" by the
members of cal-look.com to bring my car to Las Vegas Bug-In to
compete in the new Unlimited Street class, only to have my spool
break on me during my first pass. I felt aweful for the
lackluster showing. After that event the car was deemed unsafe
by me. It was unstable and unpredictable on different track
surfaces. But still a hoot on the street. So the car was
stripped down and most everything sold off it. All I kept was
the shell, shifter, and tach. The money from all that was used
to buy a rolling race car project from Kevin Richards. It was
supposed to be a SS car. It already had the roll cage, and
raise/narrow done to the rear torsion, and tinwork completed
The makings of a perfect street car
J. So my 62 body
was put on that car, and a ragtop clip added with a black
Stayfast canvas top (yes another pan this time a 67). I also pie
cut the front bulkhead which added 12deg of caster and raised
beam into car 2" for increased ground clearance. The steerings
setup now uses a stock steering box with a universal joint and a
quick release grant steering wheel on my own fabricated steering
column/support. Car also features a modified stock gas tank that
was sectioned to clear the new raised beam, and sumped and
baffled with two -8AN outlets and two -6AN inlets for fuel
return and a breather. Entire car was rewired with a GM style 18
circuit harness and every bit of it works. Front end sports a 3"
narrowed adj beam fabricated by me. All the SAW goodies for the
rear suspension include 29mm torsion bars, adj springplates,
3"narrowed axles. Etc. Car has spindle mount front rims/disk
brakes and Jamar 5lug 4 piston rears with a 2lb residual
pressure valve. It is rolling on CMS star cutout front and rear
rims, with 22x3.5 M&H dot frontrunners and Hoosier dot QTP
26x9.5 rears. I use lineloc for staging which is activated via
a switch on the shifter which is on a custom 3/16 steel shift
box I fabricated on top of the tunnel. Gene Berg 60% shorter
throw shifter was moved towards the rear of the car 5" for ease
of reach. Kennedy clutch is activated via a hydraulic master
cylinder from Tilton, which activates a CNC slave cylinder. A
newly geared (tall turbo gears this time) trans was built by
Jeff Newcomb at NorCal Speed. It has a weld in intermediate
mount and a scattershield/bellhousing mount. It is mounted at
stock height in relation to the frame horns for a total of a 3"
raise. A setrab oil cooler with fan fits nicely in-between the
narrowed torsion housing, and is the only means of oil cooling,
but keeps it in check nicely. Temps never get over 180deg.
Engine is a 2165cc based on a new aluminum "pentroof" case.
78mm bugpack wedgemated crank, wiseco 94mm pistons in cima
cylinders. CB H beam rods. Magnum straightcut gears turn a matt
davis racing turbo cam and scat lube a lobe SLR treated lifters.
Pushrods
are manton dual taper design and rockers are 1.4:1 pauter
rollers. Compression is at 8:1. Heads are DRD racing heads
based on a cb 044 casting. They have 44x37.5 SS valves, dual
springs, and Ti retainers. Induction is 100% fabricated from 304
stainless steel, it has tapered intake runners and dual plenum
design with a 2" T section connecting the turbo to the heads.
Turbo is a to4b 58mm turbo from Matt Davis racing. Carburetor is
a 48mm dellorto sidedraft that I fully prepped for turbo use, it
is activated by a morse throttle cable that is linked to a stock
pedal assembly. An aluminum 3" tube acts as a runner connecting
the carb to a large K&N filter located under the car to draw in
fresh air. Exhaust is a 4" downpipe with a dynomax "bullet"
muffler that was shortened to an overall 6" length and exhaust
exits under the car by the #3 cylinder.
Car has an LM1 wideband with 3 channels of
datalogging. AFR, MAP, and RPM for playback after a pass to make
tuning corrections. Car has JVC cd player with 2 6" jvc speaker,
and an 8" sony subwoofer and 800w amplifier. Driver and
passenger are seated in two Beard seats, on the door panels are
switches for the power windows. Gauges include autometer monster
tach, oil pressure, oil temp, and head temp, along with the
Boost controller/gauge. Stock speedometer is still in the car
and works.
The body features a steel shell with CCC
front fenders and W vert decklid. Glass windows. Total weight
with driver is around 1850lbs.
Future plans:
Mendeola transmission
SCAT based engine
Intercooler
Fuel injection
62mm turbo
paint
more fiberglass body panels.
Keep the car roadworthy at all times
VolksTalk.com was set up to
help promote and inform new VW people coming in to the
Street Car and Drag Racing industry. We will strive to help
inform you of the best products on the market today as well
as inform you of products that are defective coming from the
manufacture and suppliers. We are not in any way trying to
bash or down grade any parts, manufacture or suppliers. All
we are trying to do is help inform the general public of
defective parts that may be out on the market. All the
information in our forum comes from people who have ran into
problems with parts they have purchased as well as parts
they have had problems with.
Call
me crazy but I was hooked. These little cars amazed me with 100
plus MPH passes in the 1/8th mile. It was'nt long before I
needed a tranny upgrade and ended up meeting Sean Dowdle and the
guys at Peek Performance in Lanham, MD. I've forged a pretty
good friendship with those guys over the years. The 1641 soon
took a back seat to a new 2276cc with dual weber 44's. I still
raced the car but thoroughly enjoyed the street aspect of it
also. I can remember people telling me "You can't have a race
car and a street car at the same time - you have to choose
eventually". I guess I'm hard headed and kept doing both. I
took the Super Beetle to race at my first Bug Out in 1997 and
ended up taking 2nd place in Pro losing to Mel Shealy (arguably
one of the most consistent VW Pro Class racers on the East
Coast). The 44's took a back seat to 48 IDA's. The Super
Beetle was running 12.80's in the 1/4 mile. I stuck to my home
track (MIR-Budds Creek,MD) and raced a few local VW events. It
was then that I befriended Dunebuggy Dale and his son Kurt with
there Turbo Powered Pro Mod Dunebuggy. The Turbo's were the
ones that were hauling the mail and I wanted to try it. I just
did'nt have the money at the time. I started saving and then
started looking for another Pre 1969 Bug (mainly due to Swing
axle vs. IRS). I had converted the Super to a swing axle due to
the strength and ease of a swing axle. In 2003 I purchased the
1968 Bug that I now have, it had been in a collision and had a
Fiberglass Front end installed. I swapped the engines and
tranny's and started racing. I ended up selling the Super to my
Brother-n-law who is now VW convert. He's in the military and
has
driven
that car up and down the entire East Coast. He's now working on
his own turbo "Street" setup. In 2005 I went to a turbo setup
and have been improving the platform I have with this car. I
still drive it on the street (though not as much as I used to)
and race it. I was approached by Troy Sellars this year about
the Unlimited Street East class he is heading up here on the
East Coast and until then really did'nt have a true
class designation for my Bug. Before that it was just a Super
Pro bug but in Super Pro there are only a handful of licensed,
tagged and registered Bugs. I look forward to the Unlimited
Street East race this year and hope it turns into a full fledged
class eventually. I've been racing alot of events in the SEVWA
and a few import races. I plan on racing a few NHRA sport
compact events this year along with some SEVWA and maybe a NOPI
event. I have not committed to a true racing class because I
like the mix of different enviroments. I like racing other VW's
and I LOVE spanking a V8. My best ET to date is 10.50 @ 127MPH.