Rebuilding my 68 Beetle Hillclimb/Circuit race car

[bat69]

A good friend of mine and long time forum member (greg ward) introduced me to this forum so I thought I would share my race car with you guys here, so I thought I would post some photos and videos of my hillclimb/circuit car.

I race in the Improved Production car class (1601-2000cc) in the NSW (State) Hillclimb Championship over here in Australia. There are a number of other cars which race in this class including Isuzus, datsuns, escorts, hondas, toyotas and the like (any small cars really). The class is basically race modified street cars with only miminal modifications allowed to the body/engine/etc. There are a few Beetles which race in this class and infact the Beelte actually dominates this class in NSW and has dominated the Australian Hillclimb championship for class as well. Which is good to see the datsuns and escorts being buzzed by the veedub.

My car is a 1968 Beetle BJ IRS.
The body is pretty ruff but I really dont car about that as long as it goes hard. Has roll cage, race seat, belt etc.
4wdisks. T3 front Skyline rears
adjustable sway bars
4speed box with albins gears (all 4)
ZF LSD
Engine is Built by Stan Pobjoy of Stan Pobjoy Racing Engineering
VW counter weighted and balanced crank by Stan Pobjoy
VW rods balanced by Stan Pobjoy
044 wedgeport heads, vw rockers & pushrods
Stan Pobjpoy camshaft
all producing 128 rwhp.

Here is a video of me at a recent State Hillclimb. I managed to win the class this day as well as break the existing class record for the Imp Production (1601-2000ccc) class.

Enjoy


http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c365/dumone/?action=view&current=M2U01178.flv


Nathan

[Jim Gillum Racing]

That was really kool, Nathan.  Looks like you've got that baby set up pretty good, I didn't see hardly any lean in the corners.  Engine sounded sweet too.  Not to many of us here in the colonies that do lateral G- loads.  There's a group in New Mexico called Slug Bugs that do oval racing, google them to see their site.  Good luck and keep the shiney side up.

[vwracer]

Very Cool Nathan! That thing sounded sweeeeet and cornered like a Porshe!!

Cool to see something a little different!

Good Luck!

[ALB]

Hi Nathan-  Are you running Stan's dual plug set up? I've talked to Craig Paton about  Stan's work and he claims it's one of the
best mods you can do. Pretty cool.................and great car!!!!!!!!!Al

[bat69]

Yes I run Stan's twin plug heads and they were one of the best performance mods I could have done. It really smoothed out the power curve. It starts producing power from a little over 2000rpm all the way through to a tad under 7000rpm and pretty much maintains power to the high 7's. Max power around 6800. Stan really knows how made a good all round race cam and heads. With a bit more tuning on the dyno we should be able to pull some more hp out of it.

Thanks for the comments too btw. It does corner pretty well. I spend a lot of years racing datsuns and subarus in rallying and circuit and I would have to say my Beetle out handles all of them. The handling I have devolped a lot this year, with a bit more development left in the suspension tuning it should handle even better. BTW I also think it sounds cool. 1" 5/8 merged exhaust with a straight through hot dog/ modified stinger

Ill post a few more pics and vids later when I get round to down loading them.

Thanks guys.

Nathan

[KAFUR1]

yeah man you bug is bad ass for sure.  sounds like aa music to my ears.......   i like .....

[Eric Ellis (57HotrodVW)]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing the video of some VW racing that is of a different type than most of us here on the CLF are used to seeing.

Who is this Greg Ward guy, and what does he know about running VW's in hillclimb events??

[bat69]

Gezz. That car looks a little familiar....ha..ha. My car is pretty much the same as gregs apart from different heads and mine has 4wdisks. Gregs car also has all the mod cons of a street car like carpet, two seats and the like. Mine has none of that. Only the bare essentials. I still cant get over he drives that thing (C/R box and all) 800miles across 3 states of Australia, races it then drives it 800 miles back home. Just goes to show how strong the Stan Pobjoys engines are.....

Maybe when you are over in October you might be able to catch the last round of the Hillclimb Championship in Newcastle NSW (about 2hrs north of Sydney). There are always about half a dozen beetles running at this event as well as some very fast supercharged vw powered open wheelers.


Here is a photo of mine at the Newcastle Hillclimb. Just as this photo was taken I was clocked at 118kph. If you look up king edward park hillclimb on google or you tube you will be able to see some in car footage of some other cars (none vw from memory but it would give you and idea of what the event it like). Sorry if the quality is $hit house. I had to shrink the photo to get it to fit on here.

If you want to read about some vw racing action going on here in Australia. Including drags, hillclimb, supersprints as well car shows and anything to do VW's then have a look at one of my sponsors web sites. VWMA - VW magazine Australia

http://www.vwma.net.au/

[Farmer]

Yes good to see.
I should get something done to my own. but cant find the time.
T

[68Rally]

Im actually looking to make mine more of a rally than the typical drag bug. what tire combinations are you running? Something about the thought of being on the tail of a WRX and honking the horn whle zipping through the canyons, I find really inspirational!! any tech info would be greatly appreciated since the only Rallies ive seen are from AU and Europe.
Thanks again

[bat69]

Im actually looking to make mine more of a rally than the typical drag bug. what tire combinations are you running? Something about the thought of being on the tail of a WRX and honking the horn whle zipping through the canyons, I find really inspirational!! any tech info would be greatly appreciated since the only Rallies ive seen are from AU and Europe.
Thanks again

What type of rally are you thinking of doing?? Tar or dirt? Yes there is a good feeling when you are sitting right on the arse of a wrx whilst hammering around a track. The funny thing is the Beetle is even closer on the wet track with some of the wrx's ive raced against. Who needs 4wd anyway.

I have recently changed tyre company this year from Dunlop to Toyo. Over here we are limited on what type of tyre we can use in the improved production class.

The specs can either be 60 series tyres - with a max wheel diametre of 15 inches (7 inches wide). So you could run 14" or 13 " rims if you wanted to or you can run a 50 series tyre on a 15 inch rim only (7 inches wide).

My rims are 15 x 7 front and back and Im running Toyo 205/50/15 in the R 888. I recently went to the Toyo after running dunlops for years. The main reason was the rules changed in order to allow us to run 50 series tyres and the Toyo tyre is only $270 AU in comparision to $330 AU for the Dunlop Formula R (205/50/15).

The Dunlop is proberly the ducks guts of tyres (heap different compounds) but I think the Toyo is great value for money and even if it is a slower tyre then the dunlop is 60 bucks a tyre cheaper, which gives it the nod in my books.

As far as suspension goes it is no real secret in how to get the bugs to handle. Greg Ward wrote an excellent article a few years back which is on the aircooled.net web site. The lnk is

http://aircooled.net/gnrlsite/resource/articles/handling.htm

This is a good starting point. Most Beetles I have raced against have a similar set up. It will all depend on what you want to do with it and how you drive.  I have fine tuned my car over the years with adjustments to suit my style of driving and the race track I race at.

BTW Greg is also a guru when it comes to webbers and tuning a car on the dyno.

Any further Q'S mate I will be more then happy to try and help.

[KAFUR1]

that link is sweet info......

[John P]

Sweet ride, and welcome to the Forum. I've always admired the HP and reliability Greg gets. What is your displacement? 1600 cc? If so, 128 HP is amazing! You must be running some serious compression (dual plugs must help) and some great heads.

Are you allowed to remove the bumpers (and other stuff) to reduce weight?

I used to do some light autocrossing with a Super Beetle I had a few years back, and had a great time. It's amazing how well these cars handle with a bit of work.

Cheers,

John

[bat69]

Displacement is 1916cc. 69mm (standard but counter weighted) crank and 94 slugs. Heads are your off the shelf 044 Wedgeport heads and yes, it does run some compression. BTW Gregs engine is producing more HP then mine and he drives his is a daily driver (and races on week ends). There is still a little more Hp development in the engine too. 

No we are not allowed to remove the bumpers to reduce weight. The car has to stay pretty much like they come from the factory. You can use brasilan bumpers etc which will reduce the weight. At the moment my car has all the factory sound deadening, german bumpers and over riders, so there is a far amount of weight that can be pulled out of it.

And yes they do handle well. Im just trying to refine the handling of mine at the moment. There are a few little things that I need to iron out before I can be 100% happy with the way it handles. ... The funny things is when I reach 100% I will proberly change it again becuase there is something else I think I could improve...ha...ha Dame motorsport.

Nathan

[gangforward]

KEWL!

[Dan green]

hey, are there any events happening in nsw at the moment?  Im in sydney at the moment, and will backpacking around for a year or so....

[IN RANGE inc.]

That is truely awesome!!!! I like any fast VW, drag, street, hill climb, anything!!!

[Dominick Luppino]

That is truely awesome!!!! I like any fast VW, drag, street, hill climb, anything!!!

Troy, you forgot one thing, EATING!

[bat69]

There are events happening all the time, either supersprints, hillclimb, circuit events, rally/rallysprint, motokhana etc. Have a look at the CAMS web site and look up the NSW calender. The link is below:

http://cams.com.au/content.asp?PageID=Calendar

As far as hillclimb goes, the next NSW State event is in Tamworth over the 13 / 14 September at Oakburn Park (gokart circuit) and King Edward Park Newcastle on the 5 / 6 October (long w/e).

There are a few NSW State supersprints at Oran Park and Eastern Creek this and next weekend if you want to have a look. Otherwise pop into Newcastle over the Oct long weekend for a bit of a look see for some racing action. There is generally about 60 to 70 cars entered and about 7 to 8 VW Beetles entered as well (some are double entered so there are 3 to 4 Beetles running with two drivers) as well as some Formula Vee (open wheelers) and some very fast VW powered (supercharged) open wheelers as well.

Cheers.

Nathan

[Eric Ellis (57HotrodVW)]

Nathan, the grapevine says that you bought a new Super Beetle that you're planning to use to whip up on the competition next year. Any truth that rumor??

--Eric

[Colin M]

Superbeetle? who would try and pedal one of those up a hill Nathan.
That would make two of us, i wouldn,t be so lonely then.

Cheers Col

[bat69]

Hey Eric, hows it going. It has taken a few days to get back on line after having changed my service provider but Im back now.. I loooove rumours so I will neither confirm or deny such a henious rumour....lol

It doesnt take long for word to travel considering you live on the other side of the world Eric.. Man I hope your stay in Oz was good and I hope you enjoyed the local hospitality.. BTW thanks for the cool stickers and the shirt. Shirts been worn very often....

 
I will confirm how ever I am doing a full ground up restoration / rebuilt of including new pan halfs, body rebuilt/respray, guards, wheels and pretty much every thing else. This rebuilt will focus on building the beetle as a purpoes built race car and not a road car converted for race use like the last one was.. Im very exicted about the rebuild as I have a few ideas running around in my head from building and running various rally cars over the past 15 years that I have always wanted to do for the beetle and now I will get the chance to do it.

Ive pretty much started striping the beetle down to the bearest for the process of rebuilding and putting back together again. I will endevour to try and post photos and keep the other side of the world updated to the rebuild. Im planing to take 12 months for the rebuild but that may take longer (or less I hope) considering my family will be extended by one early next year so I hope to have most of the hard work done by then (I dont think my wife would like to hear the grinder going at midnight when she has to boobie feed the bubs at 2am........ha.....ha)

And Col, I wounder who would peg a super beetle up a hilll.... Wouldnt be you would it... ha... ha.

BTW maybe we might be able to convined Colin to post some pictures of his super beetle hillclimb/drag race car.. Colins car is one of the best examples of a race car I have seen for a very long time. The attention to detail in his car is first class... And not only is it one quality race car it is also one  very neat and well present beast as well... And to top it all off. It is a real 1915 rocket ship as well. I just love his car....

Cheers all.

[Eric Ellis (57HotrodVW)]

Hey Nathan,

My trip to Oz was great all around. Was in AU for almost a month this time, and I'm plenty open to coming back again any time that I get the chance.

Was up in northern QLD for a while (Port Douglas, Cape Trib, Daintree, Palm Cove, and Tablelands), as well as the Sydney area again (Rocks, Watsons Bay, Manly, Blue Mtns, etc), when I met up with my wife for a holiday, after my biz trip was completed. I've got plenty of pics (>2000!), which I'll edit and post some of as time permits.

Rumors? Are there any left, now that you've spilled most of the beans?? Congrats on both of your new additions!

Glad to hear about the plans for the new car. While you're at it, see if you can get "Larry" away from his bling-bling bits and garage queen, and out to the track! He now knows that he's in good hands with The Captain should problems occur... . Tell Glenn that I said hello too (along with some smack/piss talk ).

I'd defintely would like to see pics of the new car build-up, and bet that others here on the CLF would as well. How about starting a related blog?? It's easy -- details here...

Colin, I'd also like to see some photos of your car - please post 'em if you've got 'em. If they are not hosted online somewhere, feel free to email them to me, and I'll get them hosted and posted.

--Eric

[Colin M]

G

[Colin M]

Hi everyone.
Thanks for those kind words Nathan, i do take alot of pride in making sure my car is as well presented as possible.

I recently raced at Warwick in the 1/8 mile drag racing. There were 44 cars in my class and i was lucky enough to take the win in the final. I like Nathan have built and set my car specifically for tarmac hillclimb events but the occasional drag race is heaps of fun.It,s a good oppurtunity to test and tune.

As Nathan said the car is a 71 Super witha 1916cc motor, that combo is popular as we race in under 2litre class. The motor knocks out 134 at the treads last time i dyno tuned it. I have made some small changes since then (thanks for the help Nathan) and expect around 137hp now.

Here is some footage of the car racing at Warwick.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WhuBgGkTy0

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1P5WqQ-P0Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHKlbT1ztPA

My fastest run for the day was 8.75 at 79 mph.
Turn the sound up and enjoy.

Cheers Col  

[bat69]

The time has come to start on the rebuilding process for my circuit beetle. After having 40 years of normal wear and tear as well as a few years of abuse as a race car, it appears the 'factory' VW rust as well as stress and fatigue of being thrashed and crashed have finally taken hold.... In simple terms lets just say its F#%KED.

I've decided to make this process a 'body off' rebuild. A more time consuming method, however I will be able to focuss on the beetle being a purpose built race car insted of a road car modified to be a race car. i.e. No things like sound proofing etc.

As far as performace goes, there will not be much changed from the old car to the new. The engine, braking, gearbox package will stay the same. Suspension will be slightly changed, mainly to the fact I have discovered I have never really had any suspension travel. I always said the beetle was like a gokart with a roof over it!

There will be a weight rduction. I have weighed the beetle and it is over 870kgs. Which is pretty heavy considering the other beetles are in around the 800kg mark. The german guards, bumpers, over riders, sound deadning, widened steel rims and 14 mts of steel roll cage all take their toll. The steel tims weigh 12 kgs each so new rims alone will save over 20 kgs
 
After pulling the beetle down I noticed some fatigue and stress cracks in the body. The funny thing is after racing and rallying various other brands of cars over the past 15 years, they all seem to fatigue in similar areas. So with that in mind I am going to add various extra bars to the roll cage to stiffen the little f#*ker up and make it  safer for the driver. You know what they (women) always say, "the stiffer the better". ..... The extra weighted gained I can live with if it is going to add to safety.

I've started pulling the beelte down to almost a bare shell.

[bat69]

And another one from the front.

These photos are a little old. I took them in early November when  I was on annual leave and got stuck into the beetle. I got jack of it for a few weeks, not evening looking at it but I have got some motivation back and I found my way back to the shed. The beetle is a little more stripped now, pretty much a bare pan. I missed a few processess in between mainly because I didnt have a camera, due to mine sh#tting itself. There is not really much to the pull down process as Im sure most of you have all pulled down a dub before at some stage so it wouldnt be all that new a process.

The pan is now at the sand blasters which I should have back before christmas, so I dont think there will be that much more work on the pan before christmas. After that, pan halfs, rust repairs, seam welding, paint then add the suspension/brakes and other goodies. Now I have a camera I will take photos of the processs.

And before I go any further I will like to give a massive thank you to Glen for lending me his shed and for all his knowledge and workmen ship in this new build. He is a guru of all things motoring, especially VW's.

[bat69]

Off topic a little. ... ..

If I ever get bored I could always do some work on my fathers L bug sport sedan project he has been building for the last 10 years or more..... Nice.

[Eric Ellis (57HotrodVW)]

...40 years of normal wear and tear as well as a few years of abuse as a race car, it appears the 'factory' VW rust as well as stress and fatigue of being thrashed and crashed have finally taken hold.... In simple terms lets just say its F#%KED...

Greg, Glenn, and I were the first to view the CARnage that lay underneath. If you hadn't have been in such a hurry to get to your sewing class after bumping into a curb in the parking lot at King Edward Park, you could have seen our reactions first hand...

Glad to hear that things are coming apart and will be going back together even better, and I'm looking forward to seeing more pics (get ones with Toey's cans in them next time).

Take care,
--Eric

[bat69]

After a few months on the back burner Ive finally started again on my circuit race car rebuild.

First phase was to pull apart the old race car and autopsy it. I foud a number of issues with rust and fatigue as a result of years of abuse as a race car and just old age. From my experience of running various race cars on dirt including datsuns 510's, 120ys, skylines, 200B, ford escort M2's and subarus. I have found they pretty much all fatigue in the same areas. So with this in mind I went about constructing the new car.

The rust in the channels was pretty bad once I pulled the car apart (as you can see).

What I found in th floor pan was a fair amout of cracking aroud the front where the two large bolts that hold the body down and around the head. Eric saw first had how rooted the car was. Be beam could move up and down when fasterned in.

[bat69]

I managaged to get hold of a new pan. I kept the old one for a spare (and a rainy day). I sent the new pan off to the sand blasters. When it came back there was a little bit of rust that needed repairing. Even the though the pan was in top nick to start with, the blasing bought out the small holes not visable to the eye.

[bat69]

After spending a crap load of time on the new pan converting the 68 semi auto pan(BJ front IRS rear) to manual. I started looking for a new body. Finding a good body that was in reasonable enough condition to turn into a race car was a rather hard task. I didnt want a body that was top notch, after all its not a show car its a race car, so as long as it looks good at 50 metres at 100mph then I was happy.

Why is it that when you are looking for something you can never find it. Its always after you stop looking or buy something that things start to come out of the wood work. That was sort of the case with this one.

After about 6 months of looking, I finally gave up. Then a pretty neat 68 semi auto (BJ front Irs rear), in the process of being turned into a rally car came out of thewood work. It had already had some work done to like seem welding and converting to manual. It was just a matter of completing some body work, cage paint etc. Only if it was that simple.

I had to pull the new bug apart so I could work my magic at turning it into a full blown circuit car.  First part was getting out the glass. Not as easy at it seems at times, but none the less not that hard a task. I just use a special tool I made up to pull the rubber out on the inside. One Ive done that, basically I just kick out the glass.

[bat69]

I then started on stripping the inside. All in an effort to reduce weight and have a neater looking inside. To be honest it was hours and hours of work that I could have been spending on other things as it only reduced the weight by about 2 kgs. Whether it makes the bug look neater only time will tell when I splash on some paint.

[bat69]

The next phase. PHASE TWO was the roll cage.

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 44mm (OD) 2.6mm wall for the whole cage. THe reason why Im using this is because its the only steel allowed to be used her in Oz is bascially CDS or CDW or molly. Im using these diamentions becuase of added strength. The main hoop has to made from 44 x 2.6 and the rest can be made form 38 x 2.6. I thought bugger it and just make the whole cage from 44 x 2.6.

MY roll cage buildling skills were taught to me about 15 years ago by an old bloke from my car club. 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 Lozjzczyk fabrications.  

First part of building the cage was getting it bent up. The main hoop and front legs were constructed by a compay here ins OZ caled Bond Roll Bars. They are Australias premier roll cage buildling company.

After that It was a matter of placing the hoop and front legs in and working and marking out where they go.

[bat69]

Here are some more. After marking out where the cage will sit. I cut a hole in the floor. The reason for this is whe nyou the cage is notched together, you can lower the cage down through the floor and weld the top half of the cage in the hard to get locations against the roof etc.