Actually, the grills vent the air that the tire produces and the air that gets trapped in the fender well.Wally also has a spoiler and splitter and that helps minimizing air getting into the fender well and on the tires.At high speeds that trapped air can lighten the front end...

Yeah Mark, your already posted before me ;-)
Wrt the 'dump': I am so fanatical that I try to 'shave' 5 kg's from myself as well before Action! My wife was happily amazed and surprised I'd do that for racing, but not for my health LOL! I said you see racing is healthy, proved my point haha!

For brake cooling (don't really need that with these brakes though), the vents would have to be on 'the other side' of the fender I think?
The fender vents are to lessen the air pressure build-up there. I think there is some pressure there, probably mostly from the fender end acting somewhat like a 'scoop' if you know what I mean?
Hoping this will reduce lift from pressure inside and therefore also lessening drag at the same time.
Hmm, yeah, your right but I will try to keep the original beetle look as much as I think is a good compromise versus performance.
Not sure my replica (thin) running board will be much of a weight saving, but if and when I do replace it, it should be the original look as much as possible.
The door mirrors and trim will definately stay, but I still have a Kerscher GFK front bumper I may try out for drag racing as the weight saving of that is considarable. The Kamai air dam will probably be easy to swap over temporarily (I hope), but for track/circuit driving the original front bumper weight is 'in the right place' so to speak and stronger. Maybe strength of the original steel bumper is important for the front spoilers (air dam, splitter) too, I dunno yet how critical that is.
Thats also why its an ongoing project I suppose ;)

Oh man....I sure hope you are talking about fat tissue when you say "shave" :D
You can tell your wife not only is racing healthy but it improves your sex life aswell getting all excited about speed and plummeting lap times!
Why me so horny? Because Race Car! :D

LOL! Good one for www.becauseracecar.org :lmao:

My CNC-wizzard friend made a cool adjustable caster top strut bearing housing (what a word..) so I could finally set the caster equal left-right and give it some more at the same time :)
Had a full alignment afterwards and car is sooo ready for Spa and I am looking sooo forward to it!

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...p.jpg~original

Nice!! That should improve grip and corner speed quite a bit! Isn't there something missing though? Nuts? Another plate?

Nope, its just an other, simpler design just made for me by www.mebejo.nl
I only needed a small adjustability range (1cm which aquates to about 1 degree) to set left-right equal as I knew I wanted maximum setting in general anyways. With the small range and the bearing holder having the edge at the underside, only two small bolts are needed to prevent movement as all the car weight already is on the sliding part. The thread is in the alu plate itself which is from extremely strong alu (7075-something I believe).
Only downside is I need to lift the front at the alignment shop to loosen the bolts from the underside. I have a friendly alignment shop over here, so that was no problem ;)

Back from Spa-francorchamp and it was sooo cool to be there and even more to drive with all the german-and mostly pure race orientated bugs (and one T2!) on the track.

Since a speedo isn't there atm, just a quick reference of rpm-speed.
In 4th gear:
6000 tpm = 185 km/h (116 mph)
6500 tpm = 200 km/h (125 mph)
7000 tpm = 215 km/h (134 mph)
In 5th gear:
5500/5600 tpm = 220 km/u (137.5 mph)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEiwO_ZGVa0

Unfortunately I heard a weird noise after 40 minutes and in looking at the above video myself, you see the back pressure gauge not reacting anymore at about 30 minutes. I just checked and indeed, the hose has been blown off from the connection at cylinder no.1 exhaust header pipe and in hindsight probably causing a pretty good imbalance that took 10 minutes at WOT to take my main bearings out.
Drove home without problem though with still good oil pressure and even made good milage (25 mpg or 1 ltr per 10 km)
Today let off the oil and there it is indeed: nice shiny flakes of alu...:(

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...analyse001.jpg

This sucks pretty good as I was just as exited to go to VW Action in 2 weeks as I was to go to Spa.
Hopefully I can have things repaired in time but I fear that that much bearing remains may have done more damage to other engine parts too. Its going open asap to determine total damage.
Two weeks and counting...

thats bad luck mate, hope you can get it sorted for Action. see you in a few weeks hopefully.

That really sucks.

For all the power and use you put in you car, might some steel backed bearings be in order?

I think all engines should have steel backed bearings btw ;-).
Originally only the center mains are steel backed as you know and the Mahle bearings I ran have steel center main backed bearings.
Unfortunately, there isn't much choice either. You use what you can get. Only the first main (flywheel thrust) seems damaged and even though I ran 0.015mm (max factory), I think for circuit driving like I did (regularly 7K+) even a little more end play should be considered with the 'new' Mahle brazil bearings.
Everything else seems fine as the filter and the soft first bearing layers seem to have taken in most debris.
Cam looks unused still (Tool steel lifters) and rod journals are super smooth as well still.
Tomorrow crank will be inspected. Barrels have some scorings, but maybe a light hone can help some if they don;t go through the nikasil layer...

Hope you get her buttoned back up in time!

Sorry to hear that Wally... you will come back better than every! (as you always do):)

It was good to see you there Wally! I showed up just as you were on your last lap. Sorry to hear about your bearings! I really enjoyed the video! After about 17 minutes you discovered the racer in yourself and seemed to be pushing the Mythbuster harder than ever before! it is really,really fast! Ulrich Eckstein sells steel backed mains from Glyco (Glycodur in Europe),maybe he has a set in stock for you? You asked me about my mains...I looked at the box again,and there is no brand mentioned.IIRC though they were Kolbenschmidt from Brasil,then coated by Calico.I have a set of unused GOP (Gen O Parts Germany) mains in STD,center main is steel backed that you can have for free if you want.I had gotten them from Remmele.However the forward main that fits under the cam gear is oversized in outer diameter,it did not fit in my case.That´s why I didn´t use it and went with the mains I bought from Jake.