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Old January 13th 2010, 22:02
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volkdent volkdent is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Santa Rosa, CA, USA
Posts: 1,685
1.8t Mid-Engine 1960 UBRDUB

Hey there, my name is Jason. I'm originally from B.C., Canada, but after schooling I now live in Santa Rosa, CA

These are pics as my baby came together. All these shots are in our barn or outside my parents house. In retrospect, I should have been more thorough but this was back in '87 and I wasn't as smart as I am now. Kind of rough but it worked. I completely stripped the pan, sandblasted, primered, sanded and painted it in my barn. Had the bodywork done by a stoner and the paint done by a place in Aldergrove. It was single stage and I have to say I think it turned out OK! The color of the pan is from a 60's British Cortina, if memory serves.



Did I mention it was the '80's? The color was a sort of pastel green that matched one of the Maui and Sons symbols colors... I was a wanna be California surfer dude living in B.C. There was a really cool blue bug in England that was just monochrome that I thought was awesome too...










It looked like this until about 2002, when I got tired of trying to keep the aircooled motor going, I started thinking about reliable big power for a reasonable price. I started thinking about how a big powered bug would need to handle better, so I started thinking about f/r balance. Mid-engine would make that better right?I bought an old GTI for $100 and started taking measurements off of it and some pictures. I scaled them and a picture of the top of a vw pan and did some measurements and found out a VW watercooled motor would fit in the back of a bug. I didn't want to just open up massive holes in the bug, I still wanted it to be mostly bug, so making it fit without a ton of cutting was really important.

Once I knew it would fit, I ordered a 1.8t and an O2J tranny from a now-defunk place called Ron's Parts Incorporated (RPI). The guy I worked with there had actually amassed some parts to do something like this himself, so he also had a Porsche Boxter shifter linkage and was able to get me some G60 hubs and some big brakes that would be used for the rear. Then the cutting began, and the jig from the GTI fitted. This is all very complicated, but this was my first attempt at something this large, I would have done it much more directly if I did it again.

I also starting thinking that all this power would need to be controlled, so I knew the stock suspension setup wasn't going to handle it and the wishbone suspension idea was born:





The wishbone buildup forum is here:

Wishbone Suspension Bolt-On Kit

The 1.8t buildup forum is here:

180hp 1.8t in a Bug

And the Brake buildup is here:

Let There Be Brakes
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1960 VW Bug UBRDUB
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Dyno Run
Oval Ragster-'57 Rag/'04 Boxster S

Last edited by volkdent; May 31st 2013 at 20:38.
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