180hp 1.8t in Bug

[Panelfantastic]

Walked up to the neighbor's yesterday, he's got a Noble M12... with get this- 115 miles on it! Says he's about to sell cuz who needs a silly car like that !!! said his brother talked him into building one because the brother had one on order too. There are actually 3 here... kinda funny, we've got more Nobles per capita than anywhere in the US. Anyway, neat car. Still, eighty grand is a lot of cheese.


Jeff-

[volkdent]

mmmmmmmmmm cheeeeeeeese........

I think mine might be more fun. The trouble with high performance cars like that is where to drive them. It doesn't surprise me he only has 100 miles on it. It's sad. I'm going to thrash my bug as often as possible until it begs me to stop. That's fun. I went for a few laps in a couple of other older M3s, still E36s, but '95s. They had springs and shocks and R compound tires. OMG, it was insane. I could barely hang on. There is very little guilt in thrashing an older, not that expensive car. When the Ford GT was out on the track, do you think he could stomach giving it 9 or 10 10ths? I don't think so. Thats why I want to build a car that is relatively inexpensive and very unique.

My 3 cents for the day.

Jason

[Panelfantastic]

I'll back up your 3 cents and raise you 3! Bang for the buck is what we're sayin'. As my wife and I were walking away from the Noble, she asked if I would build one of those... same philosophy as you, for 80 g's I could build a couple of fun cars and have a blast doing something different. There's 3 Nobles here, but how many Eco powered panels?

[volkdent]

It's over at Walt's Custom Services now. He has a nice trailer and was nice enough to come over an pic it up today. Having the rear steer right now makes for easy moving around.

Walt's Custom Services

He'll be making up the rear strut mounts. They have to be removable from the main superstructure so the whole think can actually come out of the car without splitting the body from the pan.

He thinks it will be done pretty quickly!

Jason

[Panelfantastic]

I'm thinkin' you need to incorporate the rear steer as a permanent option!


Jeff-

[volkdent]

I went down and talked to Walt on the clock today. In a way it's nice to see him sweating over the details. I was just not getting anywhere, and I think he'll be able to get us a great result. I can breathe easy for a bit till it's done. Apparently the wiring harness(now from another source) will be arriving tomorrow and the radiator this week as well. Things are starting to move along.

Here's the plate that may be used for the strut mount, but the whole idea may be scrapped due to spacial issues



Jason

[volkdent]

Well, she's back home now. Walt did a great job on making these strut mounts. There is adjustment for strut angulation front/back and then there is camber adjustment. Everything is tacked up, so I'll need to pull it all apart and do the final welding, throw on a coat of paint, then get the motor back in and see how she looks.



The hole got a little bit on this side, but when your doing things for the first time, a little elbow room goes a long way to keep the nerves settled!