Aircooled VW South Africa

SO I was about to comment on the paint choice...... However, I (luckily) thought twice and read the topic again..... "Wasserboxer".

My point being that AC motors should NOT be painted chrome/silver colours. Instead, It should rather be painted like Matt Black. But with water running through the engine, you wont have (over)heating issues (by this I mean Oil getting too hot, not radiator-related overheating).

So, it looks nice and clean. well done.

just my opinion/thought.....are you gonna be getting enough cool air through the radiator in the back???
why not put it in the front? theres a notch on here(cant remember whos) that has this mod...and you can barely notice it.
what an awesome looking ride it is to.

but ja...just a thought.

Matt. We know the ideal place to put the rad would be in front. Just a mission with all the pipes and bleeding stuff. Had a look at some conversions with the rad at the back, and well, we wanna try and see if it is going to work. You see some guys driving around in Bajas with wc motors, and the rad mounted just behind the motor.

water cooled bugs-----?

Why just not buy a GTI

True, but driving around in a beetle kicking some ass is way better than driving a GTI and get your ass kicked

Be real.
If you think a bug can kick a gti's arse the whole way up the scale, think again - I am not talking about robot drags here i am talking top end, handling, cornering, and braking and stability, on a sustained run.

And of course, if you throw your bug down the road, chance is that you will get very badly
hurt.

Just in case you didnt know, bugs are one of the most dangerous cars ever built.

When there were thousands of them on the road, years ago, they had a terrible reputation for non -survivorability when crashed, especially front end prangs and rollovers.

They didnt get the name "hitlers Revenge " for nothing.

Having said all this, I must say that we love our bugs dearly.

Another irony is that a standard beetle had the best stopping distance tested by Car Magazine for a very long time

Although I will probably get shouted down here, I have always said that a bug with good shoes, drums all properly adjusted, stop very well. Certainly as well as my 67 with new discs and all. The only thing is that drums fade out long before discs do. Even on my 55 oval, I could lock the front wheels if I was too heavy on the pedal. - but it would not do that repeatedly.
I just wish that one could fit a remote booster to a bug. with discs that would give you the big toe pressure that we have become used to on modern cars. What it would take is for somebody with the right kind of hydraulic design know -how to spec the master, slave and booster sizes , along with the pressure limiters to stop rear axle lock, that you get with C of G shift under hard braking.
Cheers
Bill

s'pose it depends which GTI? the mk2 only had a top speed of about 195k/h(my mate had a very neat one at one stage-no mods-just a free flow).
you might have a chance there.

i also reckon if the right person builds the car, alot of the nasties cud get sorted...namely stopping and handling.
ive got a 40 mm drop and that helps with handling, reckon down to 80 mm and she'd be pretty stable.....the 2.1 motor shud hold the ass down.
i reckon you gonna have quite a mean ride when its done.

good luck

Bugger's Fly also does over 200km/h,handles well and stays on the road.

But then again he has done a helluva lot of mods to be able to handle the power.

Thanks guys for all the input, - and +. We are building the car as a daily runner and not so much a drag car. The suspention will be dropped and braking will be sorted. I had a 1.9 in my beetle and the power it makes is worth the efford. You can put foot in 4th and any uphill becomes a pleasure....

Early seventies, coming home late one night in my friends Viva GT. Met a scruffy beetle at 5th ave in PE (Would be called a rat bug today I suppose) Anyway by the time we made 6th ave the beetle had already turned off and all we saw were tail lights disappearing in the distance. The SHAME of it. Thats why the hot beetle will always have friends. Turns out the beetle had a well modified Ford 1600 in the back, including a dry sump in the space reserved for the back seat. Legend had it the next step was a rotary motor and when that got boring the rotary was fitted in a Berry T. Sanity and reason had no place with this.

The motor will be fitted this weekend. Hope to start aswell. Exhaust needs to be sorted too.
Friend of mine had a Audi 100LS motor in his Bug, back in the 80's. N/A and fast as hell. Pity he never sorted the braking because somebody died in that car because of that. My personal opinion is that the Rotary is one of the best conversions for a bug. Power to weight ratio and all that..

The motor was fitted without any hassels. The 411 FW works hundreds. Connected all the wiring, thanks to Bugger and myself for marking everything. Started it up. Now for the exhaust and cooling and then back under the body. What is looks like now. all wiring still needs to be made tidy.

That looks like a super job.