SNEAK PEAK!

Well the build of my new race car is starting to come along now. I thought I would give you a little look.

After a few false starts due to my children being in and out of hospital because of illness and some prick stealing my ute, burning it out and me having to fork out coin to buy an new one. I now have had some time and saved some MONEY to devote to the new race car.

Phase one was to pull it apart. I completed this a couple of months ago. The shells has been sitting in the shed waiting to be worked on. Well the bug has got some love and now Im onto phase 2. Roll cage.

I just finished assembling it and Im a little excited so I thought I would show you what it looks like.

Nathan,

Are you going to up spec your engine as well?


Regards


Craig

Its going to be an all new car, so why not add a few new mods in the go fast department as well while its apart.

Looking good Nathan,

Can,t wait to see you in it at a hillclimb, maybe if we both get our shit together that will be first round next year.

Cheers Col

Good work Nathan!! Keep it coming.

Roll cage is lookin cool Nathan... especially having B pillar reinforcements - don't think I've seen that in a Beetle cage before !!!

What sort of side/door bars do you have in it, and will the window winders clear the front legs with the padding on ??? Mine didn't, so ended up having to go power windows, but I definitely would've preferred normal winders.

Also interested to hear what the your plans are for the go fast department.... esp considering how I know you want to stay under the 2000cc, so it'll be a hair-dryer free zone !!!

Considering I would like to use the beetle for a mixture of circuit, hillclimb and rally stuff, I thought the B pillar bars were an essential part. It just adds that extra strength over the the drivers/co drivers head in the case of a roll over, especailly a big speed one. Having had a few big stacks in rallies I thought Id better add it in.

In relation to door bars. They are just single straight bars running on an angle from the main hoop to the front legs. Winders clear without padding but wont with. Im not really worried about winding down or up the windows when Im racing it. Go fast bits are only bolt ons and yes, there are no hair dryers. I like the sound of a roaring N/A car.

Quote:

Originally posted by bat69 Its going to be an all new car, so why not add a few new mods in the go fast department as well while its apart.

Look forward to seeing the finished product and more video Nathan

It'll have nice brakes

Quote:

Originally posted by VWCOOL It'll have nice brakes

Well, if you were planning lots of really punishing high-speed circuit work, you could choose a set of my vented and slotted front 290mm discs with the big calliper matched with a set of big 290mm rear discs, or you could choose my smaller 260mm rear discs and big fronts, or standard VW-sized slotted front discs with a set of the smaller rear discs (slotted) and good pads all round and then, maybe, upgrade you fronts to vented if you need to. I reckon for hillclimbs, go for slotted standard VW-sized fronts and the smaller 260mm slotted rears for now, so you can 'super-size me' later, if you need to

Loking good Nathan.
Has John done anything with the sports sedan or has that been moved on?

Hey Jase, Thanks for that. Good to see other people thinks its looking good too.
Yeah we still have the sport sedan. Its sitting in the shed waiting to get looked at. Its the next project car after Ive finshed with the sedan. There will be a shed swap later in the year. We spent a little time on it last year when the oldies moved, bolting a few bits together. We are just at odds deciding if we turn it into a car dedicated for the strip or keep it for the circuits. We are more leaning towards the strip as we all ready have one to go around corners.

Good to see he didn't sell it. I think you guys should build it for the strip. The way the VW drag scene is growing at the moment, there will be plenty of opportunities to race it through out the year.

So with the new engine combo are you going down the injection path like durie & cooky , Heath & christine in their garfield bug?

lookin good.
just a quick one about the cage,is the cage finished.
if so ,please don't take this the wrong way,but why would you run a diagonal bar from the floor to the roof on the passenger side, which realy would be safe for the passenger.or is it left hand hook please feel free to call me an idiot.i don't mind.
cheers

See 'Getting closer'!

yeah some pics would be great as im in the middle of finnishing my cage and any help or guidence is always welcome regards mac

Nice job

I'd give side support to the b hoop with a horizontal bar behind the seat. It doubles as a good point for the shoulder harnesses to mount at the expense of some more weight and rear access, but the gain in strength is worth it IMO.
m2c.......ka ching

Quote:

Originally posted by Craig Torrens Apparently the new Haltech has launch control..............although that would be cheating if you use it

After being asked a few times and now having a few minutes to actually post up some pictures with out children interupting I thought I would post about my roll cage build.

The roll cage build was phase II of the new race car rebuild. I have built a few roll cages in the past so I though I would give this one a go as well.

The steel Im using is CDW 44.5mm (OD) 2.6mm wall for the whole cage. The reason why Im using this is because its the only steel allowed to be used by CAM is bascially CDS or CDW or molly.

Im using these diamentions becaase of added strength. The main hoop has to made from 44 x 2.5 and the rest can be made form 38 x 2.5 (CAMS regs). I thought bugger it and just make the whole cage from 44.5 x 2.6.

I think the extra weight from the thicker OD tube is not an issue when safety is involved. In comparrison the 44mm 2.6mm is 2.7kg a mtr and the 38 x 2.6 is 2.25 kgs a mtr. So in very simple terms its 475g a mtr heavier to use the thinker OD steel. There is nearly 16 mtrs of pipe in the new cage, so you can do the math at how heavy it all weighs.

MY roll cage buildling skills were taught to me about 15 years ago by a bloke from my car club.(i.e notching etc) I dont profess to be an expert in the cage buildling depart ment. Not at all. Its just the way I was taught and I love just playing and putting stuff together. The welding of the cage will be completed by a very good friend from M & J Fabrications here in Newcastle. I dont trust my own welds when it comes to roll cages.

First part of building the cage was getting it bent up. To save some man hours I had the main hoop and front legs constructed by Bond Roll Bars at Mulgrave in Sydney. They are Australias premier roll cage buildling company having built 1000's of cages (and race cars) for a variety of differnt vehicles around australia.

The rest of the tube is basically straight (with the exception of a slight bend in the 'b' pillar bar and side bars, so its pretty much mark, cut, shape, fit and weld for the rest of the cage.

Here is a couple of photos of the main hoop being bent up.

After that is a matter of placing in the main hoop and marking out where it will go in the car as well has fitting the front legs and marking out where they will go also.

When I figured out where the hoop and legs go I marked their positions on the floor. I also mark where the floor plates go

When the position for the main hoop and legs have been sorted and marked. I then go about drilling/cutting a hole in the floor.


The reason for this is when you the cage is notched together (basically put together), you can lower the cage down through the holes in the floor and weld the top half of the cage in the hard to get locations against the roof etc.