not sure if i was directed to this site from A.V.D or not, anyways, this page has been sitting in my favourites for quite a while and it is a fairly comprehensive "how to" on an always hot topic.

http://www.btinternet.com/~aircooled/wolfsburgeast/home.html 

cheers

[ Edited on 7-11-05 by dumone ]

Very good info! I ended up with an airspeedparts show tower conversion and a 3" narrowed front instead, but given the opportinity to do it again, I reckon this would be better.

There is another good way to do this without relocating the frame head mounts.

God I love being held in suspense! Come on drag bug are you gonna tell us how?

Didn't Ultra VW do it dragbugs way, cut on the outside of the frame head mounts on each side so your leaving the centre section intact. Either way its a lot of cutting, welding & grinding. But if it was easy...
Will be doing this to my 64 as soon as I get some time, think I'll do it the same way as this article, less welds on the tubes. You put this up in good timing for me, thanks dumone

Yep,
I cut either side of the frame head mounts.
I also do it The og way aswell.

Have learnt that if im going narrow'er than 2.
Lets say 4 or 6 inch,then i generally go out side the mounts.
You can work a side at a time this way.
Trimming and refitting becomes easier.

Keep a look out for one of my cars when i finish it.(after the new house and workshop is finished)..she will be a 57 running a 6 1/2 narrow beam.
Lots of camber at rear,and funny little switches that make air noise's.
Nuff said.

Apologies for the moronic noob question, but what does this mod achieve? Is it part of the lowering procedure for the front end?

gets the wheels further under the guards. this gives too advantages, if you use drop spindles, wider wheels or a front disc conversion narrowing can make up for the extra width in the front end. If you are lowering the car, the wheels have more room to go up into the guards if they are further in. However, some people just think it look cool. Warning though, some people (Richard Hoszl?) reckon it effects handling adversly, I don't know about this not having had a narrowed front end myself.

I pretty sure this modification is illegal in QLD. The QLD modification regulations state that narrowing the track of a vehicle is not allowed and you can only widen the track of a vehicle by 26mm.

Yeah Mike there are some restrictions in QLD - I know Wes posted a link to the draft vehicle modification rules somewhere in here - it may be changing but not sure.

I narrowed my front beam 80mm, however this was to regain turning circle when using my 17x7.5in ET52 wheels. To get the wheels away from the trailing arms, I then used spacers (bolted to the discs with studs for the wheels) - thereby regaining the track width (ie. narrow beam but space wheels out). Spacers/adaptors in themselves have to be approved, and because I worked with the engineer throughout the design of the suspension and braking system I had no problems having them passed - however you can't just bolt a pair of spacers on without the proper authorisation. I know some late model porsches come with them equipped from the factory which is of course an exception.

Back to the narrowed beam though - yep that is a good link (I've had that in the favourites for ages too!).

so you could narrow the beam to compensate for drop spindles then

or run massively wide wheels with a very narrow beam.......

U can actually narrow a LP beam up to 4" without moving the framehead mounts, modifing the body or sectioning the torsion tubes.
I had Adam Debasi do a 2" narrowed beam for me last year, but it wasn't narrow enough for me, so I have made a 4" beam to replace it. The way I have done it, is to cut off the shock towers to the width you require (2" per side), them cut new towers out of 10mm plate, weld this flush to the torsion tube, fit a set of the long nolathane torsion tube bush kits and refit your trailing arms...
On a BJ beam you can narrow it up to 3" using the torsion tubes section method and stock towers.

Of course you will have to shorten your torsion leaves and tie rods to suit. I haven't tried it yet but I would think you could mod a narrowed BJ beam buy making new towers as per a LP beam...
If want to go any narrower, you'll be looking at modding the inner guards and in extreme cases you could mount the shox in-board of the inner guard... But I would think you ride would be getting a little choppy with that sort of extreme narrowing... I do know of a few guys in the US that are running 6-8" narrowed beams... Pretty bloody hardcore!