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'71 super beetle
boersch - June 24th, 2004 at 10:27 PM

ello fellow dubheads,
just bought my first volks (and my first car), a red 1971 superbeetle and i'm in love. Fixing it up a bit on the interior and soon to be fitting a sound system but I'd like some peoples' opinions. She runs very well, purrs beautifully sitting at 65 miles on the freeway but can push her more for overtaking with no problems but I'm looking for some more performance. I have around 1-2000$ to spend but not being mechanically minded I don't know what to do. Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks

ben

ps. there's a 5 inch or so gap between the fenders and the wheels, would lowering it ruin my ride or anything?

vanderaj - June 24th, 2004 at 10:50 PM

Performance mods... :)

Well, weight is the killer of performance, so don't make the car heavier.

After that, try EFI and electronic ignition. Fairly cheap and increases reliability.

Then go for the big $$$ items - the 1641 conversion or the (gasp) 1916 jobbies. Have a look around the Buy and Sell - occasionally the bigger motors come up for sale.

Then port and polish the heads, go for different cams, and the other tricks.

Lastly, exhaust makes a tiny difference, but don't go too noisy, you'll be canaried.

The best bet with suspension is to get good tyres, decent camber / toe in, and new shocks, and thinking about increasing the stiffness of the springs or torsion bar (if you're still running them... I think you're IRS) before going down. Lowering looks good but rarely helps ride.

Andrew

lugnuts - June 25th, 2004 at 05:17 AM

I reckon you should leave it alone and put the $1000-2000 towards a subi conversion,AND STOP CHANGIN NAMES,because your freekin me out man,and before you boil over this is me being sarcastic ;)

Bizarre - June 25th, 2004 at 09:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by boersch
ps. there's a 5 inch or so gap between the fenders and the wheels, would lowering it ruin my ride or anything?


Your torsion bars have probabally sagged at the rear.

You can get then turned up a notch and this will lower the front a bit.
As for the front - you can put struts with lower spring cups on and the front sits 1 - 2 -3 or 5"lower.
you need to decide first what wheels you want to run.
Standard or wide. I use to run 16" x 6" Porsche under stock guards. My mate has 18"x 7" under stock. But you need thin springs for this.
New struts with just the cups lowered are like $100 each or thin spring adjustable with new springs and inserts are $1000.
Both plus fitting.

There were some 3 bolt (what you need - not late 2 bolt) for sale. Think it was Bix??

barls - June 28th, 2004 at 03:08 PM

why not just go a straight t4 2 litre motor conversion it will have what you want the only down side is that you need an engineers certificate but that no biggie i did it to my 72 sbug and it had all the balls it needed as it would cruse at 110km between taree and sydney in about 3 and a half hours. if you have any questions about the conversion i can help you as im about to do a second engine change

boersch - June 30th, 2004 at 10:53 AM

thanks for the suggestions, going to have a talk to me local vw mechanic and see what they can do.

barls - how much $$ is your t4 2 litre conversion costing ya?

barls - June 30th, 2004 at 11:02 AM

it ended up costing me about 2 grand but it was worth it. have a spare set of tin ware conversion pieces. where abouts are you from any way cause my father is just about to do another one in taree for my little brother. in NSW there are a few things that you have to do for the engineers. the first is upgrade the brakes which i did by putting a brake boaster on this is a good idea for most cars cause lets face it they are not the best brakes on a 71 sbug. and if you going to get an engineers you may as well put inertia seat belts in as well cause it is not going to cost any more. the hardest part is getting a good 2 litre:cool:

boersch - July 7th, 2004 at 08:34 PM

Thanks for the ideas, for now I'm just going to get her lowered and get my stereo installed. Bought it with some strange 10-spoke mags (15"x6") and I don't mind them so I don't think lowering the front a few inches will be a problem.. might leave the engine conversion until later for now, it's a beast already anyway :)

barls - July 7th, 2004 at 08:48 PM

sounds good mate just make sure you get a decent set of tyres. i have a set of turenza on my 1302 but then again ive got wide guards. be careful about the fact that the tyres may be outside the guard due to the offset of the mag.