Hi

I've been a bit slack with my bug, no excuses but frankly after the setbacks I had with our local registration people I lost interest.

I'm back into it now, I took the car out for an inspection by an accredited engineer. He only had verify that my brakes were OK.

Just a reminder of what I was using for brakes, I was using a stock 19mm master cylinder with, 996 rear callipers on the front with Porsche 930 rotors and 944 rotors on the rear with Boxster rear callipers.

I had used these very same brakes on my old 1302 and they worked fine. The accredited engineer found that my brake pedal was spongy when stopping from higher speeds, I've never driven the car faster than 80 kph, he was doing his tests from 100 kph.

There was two issues, he felt a bigger master cylinder was needed so I fitted a CSP 20.64, this improved the pedal dramatically, the other thing he pointed out was that at the spot where the brakes were meant to operate the pedal pivot point was going over centre.

This was caused by the master cylinder being slightly further away from pedal cluster owing to the thick plate I welded to chassis when I moved the master cylinder 25 mm away from the clutch pedal so that I could fit clutch master cylinder in next to the brake master cylinder.

I remade my brake pedal and pointed the pivot point a few degrees further back towards the driver.

So I took the bug out to have it rechecked, it passed with flying colours and using his very sophisticated testing equipment it recorded 1 G reading under brakes. The engineer will post me the report and then I can get this thing on the road.

Steve

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...c.jpg~original

I fitted much larger reservoirs

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...s.jpg~original

i just looked thru your build thread. awsome build. where can i get one of them rear spoiler/ whale tale wings? and how much?

Hi

Thanks coming from you that's a real compliment. I think I paid about $800 for the whale tail, you can get them hear http://www.beetleracing.com.au/home.html

Steve

A couple of camera phone pics

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...3.jpg~original

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...1.jpg~original

thanks, im no one special tho. just a young guy that loves tinkering with VW's. thats not a bad price for the wing. i just got done putting in a WBX 2.1 into my super. im soooo happy i did it too. now if i can just get the megasquirt issues i have figured out, id be really stoked!!! lol heres a pic of mine as it sits now. future plane are to put a suby wrx turbo on it, and intercooler, this winter will be body work and paint, then drive the hell outta it.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...a.jpg~original

Congratulations on getting through all the red tape Steve! Now get out there and scare yourself silly!

Rich

You would not believe the rings of fire they make us jump through to get modified cars here legalized but it does have it's good reasons.

Helps to ensure that the cars on the road have been modified in a safe manner.
It would be hard to feel safe out on the roads with some of the aborted backyard hacks I've seen people driving around overseas :shocked:

Hi

Well I finally have the green light from the powers that be.

The car is having blue slip inspection on Friday, this is a bit like an annual roadworthy inspection but a bit more detailed, then I pay about $1000 to the insurance company for 3rd party liability & the RMS (roads and maritime service) and then I can drive the car.

I have been trying to get the car passed since April this year, the car has undergone another two inspections by the RMS one to check that all defects have been cleared, over track, wheelbase too long, only one catalytic converter etc then an almost 2 hour inspection to make sure the body wasn't a Mexican one, they suspected this as I fitted new wind-up Mexican windows in the doors even after I pointed out to them that the other 6 windows contained Australian and German glass.

I cant wait to finish the car but I found a noise in G50 which will need to be attended to very soon before too much fun is had.

Steve

Hi Steve, man that sounds like a headache, and a lot more dollars, cant wait to do mine now. What did you change to overcome the wheelbase and track issues?

I am glad we do not have to not have to jump thru hoops like that here. Great to see it ready for the road.

Hi

I fitted caster bushes back to front and fitted K=Mac strut tops to fix the wheelbase issue, I was 30 mm over.

The rear track was the issue, it was only slightly over, I bought some $400 18x8 57 Et Porsche Cayenne alloys on eBay, these reduced the track by 34 mm.

Steve

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...3.jpg~original

Hi

I was going to leave my car overnight so it could be checked for the blueslip, the owner of the shop was worried about leaving the car overnight so he did the inspection on the spot.

Tomorrow I'm of to pay my money and then I can drive the car.

I've driven the car 50 or 60ks when I had to get it checked, never a problem, I was pulled up by the Highway Patrol on the way a home a few ks from my house.

I said to him I suppose you want to know why I have no number plates on the car, he said that and I wanted to have look at it.

I explained that I had just been for a blue slip, when he saw my name it turns out we knew each other 35 years ago and he was a VW head back then, small world but I live in the biggest city in Australia, not as big as other cities in the world but still freaky.

Part of the blue slip process was a brake test, the blue slip station is supposed to attach a special machine to car which measures speed, pedal pressure, deceleration etc.
Most guys can do this test sitting in their office chairs by swinging the machine a certain way. The place I took my car to has a floor mounted machine, you can see the plates in the photos.

Steve



http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...p.jpg~original

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...1.jpg~original

Looking good, you must be very happy.

I don't understand this. Mexico never manufactured or assembled a 1303 (or a 1302). :idunno:

Hi

oasis I know that VW Mexico never made 1302s or 1303s, I think most VW people do as well but the bureaucrats had to be satisfied, I had play their game. It all stemmed from me fitting 2 new wind up windows that were marked "made in Mexico"

The car is now legal to drive, so I'm tweaking a few suspension things at the moment.

Steve

I thought that was just something for us Yanks. ;)

I went through similar nonsense when registering my VW Pickup (Golf-based Caddy in other markets) several years back. The kicker was the stinking thing was actually built in Pennsylvania -- a neighboring state -- and they wanted to tag it as a special case working class truck as if it were some heavy duty 2-ton affair. After a crapload of documentation going back and forth, I finally got it registered as if it were a Ford F-150. Luckily, my insurance company still recognized it as basically being a Rabbit (Golf).