There's been a few veedubs on the race tracks lately posting very fast times. You could say they've raise the bar. In response I've lowered the rear end of my oval to improve the handling.
It's no longer a california look stance. Does it look better or worse?
Thanks for the feedback. I guess 6 hours work on Saturday was worth it and I don't even know how it handles.
Here's some extra information for those who are interested.
The suspension was set at 78 degrees from verticle with Type 3 torsion bars (23mm I think). Now the suspension is set at 89 degrees from verticle with 27mm thick sway-away torsion bars.
The right hand guard is a little tight but I'll just pull it out by hand to give it about 5mm clearence.
The exhaust is a 1 5/8 berg header that I rewelded to have a thick 2 inch, 2 bolt flange. The muffler is just something I picked up at the local muffler shop, it's a two inch single chamber item. I chose this one to get rid of the beach-buggy sound the straight through muffler makes.
I will now lower the front a little but I will still keep it a tad higher than the rear.
I like the stance it is starting to look like Jak's car. The fact that the wheels used to be his also helps.
Cheers, it looks better I'll tell you next week if it handles any better. It should be a little more tail happy, less nervous and stop lifting it's front wheels. Ideally!
nice oval full noise, i just dropped mine also a few weeks ago and it looks better, am just sourcing some wheels for it as it scraps at the front...hehehe i like yours, what size are they????
full noise,
i was going for 356 chromes in 15x5.5 as i want to keep some originality in the look of the car.... they should look good on it but still with the vw hubcups... don't like the nipples (on the rims anyway 🙂 lol)
The colour is called Polar Silver I've got the code written down somewhere. It's a factory colour for '56 and '57 ovals. It was used in Europe and America but not Australia.
I was inspired by Rich Kimball's '57 which features in Colin Burnham's book "Classic Volkswagens". Rich is the proprieter of BYF Obsolete parts in California. My car has US-spec bullet indicators and a motometer rally dash just like his car.
I found the engine lid at the VW nationals about 10 years ago. It cost me $60. It had no rust and it was straight. It had the wrong numberplate light though. I had it modified with the grills from the front of a bay window kombi, so it looks like a cabrio lid.
Brookvale Body Repairs deserve all the credit for the way the car looks. They sourced the colour and did all the tricky body work like making the brazilian guards fit, rolling the lips, putting Kombi bullet indicators in using pictures, making the custom engine lin, putting an extra bonnet support in and painting the car as well inside and underneath as it is on top.
Tony Pallas at brookvale body repairs does lots of classic cars. He was building a Mk2 Jag at the same time. He races that in supersprints and historics. The beetle is faster though.
The back end definately looks better with the arch gaps matching the front! The 16's look awesome too! I thnk 17's would be over doing it just by that little bit... buy thats my opinion.... I looked at your other pics on your site.... the depth of the paint is sensational... great to hear that you stuck with an original hue as well!