Before the powers that be decide to can this thread, I'll set ya in a good direction if you wanna seriously look at this. Using the V-8 front wheel drive tranny is one of the best methods. Once you have the mounting & rear subframe out of the way, you can bolt up the beefy 944 Porsche rear suspension arms (a direct fit by the way, 2" wider per side tho) that come with good disc brakes vs. drums, and have a set of custom stub axles made to drive it all. Rear engine is harder to hide and too light in the nose, but a mid engine is the way to go for a driveable machine. Get on the message boards over at VolksRods.com, and there's tons of info on VW's in general aswell as off the wall conversions on ShopTalkForums.com. Look under the Conversion Perversions page and you'll find alot of neat items. Someone to talk to on the specific engineering of such a project, try Walt Letherman in Santa Rosa CA. Guy is a car nut to the core, with a serious penchant for doing some just wrong things with VW's, check out the 34 Ford truck powered by a Porsche 914 drive train he's makin and tell me thats not a hot rod,... Anyway, poke around, there are people who have done it on those sites, and people that are doing it in new ways. Hope ya find whatya need.
Now that little truck is pretty neat, and done well. I know that there are alot of bug haters on here and thats ok, whatever. I'm not trying to piss anybody off. Why is a Fiat or a Morris or a Crosley or an Anglia better than a vw. I've raced vw's off road since the late 70's its a hell of a car.
I am a 60 year old rodder. Been building cars since I was 16 and having a ball. I am finishing my 31 5 window as I write this email and it is a legacy for my son. I am also a VW freak as that is all I drive on a daily basis and own 4 right now. Call it a cult or wahtever, but once you get bitten by the bug.....well you get it. My next project is a 28' Ford RPU built along the lines of the closed cab A pictures above. I have done the mental and some physical engineering and collected some of the parts. My son and I will build this legacy for my second son. The point is, hot rodding is hotrodding and passing the torch to the next generation, spending quality time and keeping them occupied with productive projects, while teaching them skills is what it is all about. Thanks for letting me vent. Kermit
To get back to your original question...do you intend to drive this car? Do you plan to turn the wheel or just run in a straight line? It might be attractive as a show car, but even when placed in a Ford econoline van...a built 392 can overpower the vehicle with ease. Sort of like putting a VTEC 2.3 Honda into a Quad ATV, or an iron V8 into a bike frame, you have all the likelihood of creating an ill-tempered beast. The platform "footprint" will not allow you to control the application of the throttle...and I assume you are talking about street use? Some the most evil handing apparitions were the altered class drag cars...I'm thinking of the AA/FA class. Picture yourself going down the road at 50mph...on a card table w/slicks on all four corners...fun, maybe, scarey? Definitely. If you have to, then keep the CG as low as possible, make it hard to pull the oil drain plug! Then maybe you'll slide instead of rolling.
It's the kitcar/dunebuggy craze that made vw body shells so cheap and easy to get.One yard here at one time had vw shells stacked like cord wood.You could buy a very mint shell for as little as 35$.Now while i agree that it may not make the 64 cut off for here I'm not exactly sure of the body's age a young fellow near me took an early honda civic shell mounted it to a 2wd jeep frame and ran it with both an Olds 455 and a Blown 354 hemi from a 60s rail!The engines were set back into the front seat area and the nose tilted forward and the rest of the body could be tilted to the rear the doors were still functional .this is however a drag only car and it was built for under 2 grand complete
Apparently you've never "run the numbers" on this, if $1,200 scares you away from a body, wait till you see what the Hemi and the rebuild will cost ya. This build will never happen. HOWEVER, if I was inclined to try something like this, I'd look into a fiero setup with a sbc grafted to the VW, then I THINK you'd have a shot at speed AND handling.
Are you talking still street driven, registered, insured, license plated, cars, or all out drag machines? Fastest Street car, door-slammer, is in the high 8's in the 1/4 mile. Fastest drag car is running mid-6's. Both cars owned by the same family, <www.vwparadise.com> and back in the late 80's/early 90's, VW Trends Magazine had a Super Beetle with a front-mounted Hemi, on the cover. Don't remember what month or year it was, sorry-
Im not saying it scares me, i just dont have the cash to shell out for it at the moment......this is a plan for the future.
well put and completely TRUE. i have some early 60s Hot Rod mags with Beetles in them. 4 cylinder AND V8 powered. i'm not a VW "nut" but i like em and defend them for the reasons you just stated. i've had dreams of building a late 40s styled early VW (split window) with a mid engine V8 using all early parts. i think it'd be great to build it to race at B-ville. it'll prolly never happen but it looks AWESOME in my head . i have LOTS of ideas for it.
a 60 year old hot rodder friend of mine has been talking about doing this for a long time. i think it'd work out pretty well. i KNOW that if he came across a deal on a decent Bug body and Donor Fiero he'd do it. he's a real thinker and enjoys the "figuring" and engineering part of a car build more than anything.
i had a sbc powered split window scary'buchered and i got smoked by a 2500cc ish vw that was enough to make me scrap it!
My expierience is that you could get a rock to handle better than a old bug. You would be a lot further ahead to do something like this:http://www.v8archie.com/v8fiero.htm
No need for a hemi ... my buddy's steel street-legal 67 runs 10's. 4-cylinder VW power - no nitrous. It's all about the weight. He's left more than a few musclecar owners looking at his tailights in disbelief
Back in '75 I built a '63 bug all veedub power 2180 cc and was able to run what I thought was respectable time of 11.68@126 mph and drove it on the street,I know there are way quicker veedub rides but it was my camaro and mustang killer so I still have fond memories of it.
Why waste the time, money, and hemi. You could build a VW motor that'll run 9's or 10's and it'll cost about a fraction of the cost to build a bastard. There's quite a few good VW forums out there as well, you might want to try and search for some of them, they'll be full of all kinds of info. Besides why segregate yourself like that, you won't get any respect form the VW guys or the hot rod guys. Build one or the other. Just my .02$.
There are more guys runnin these things than i thought...... And i am looking on vw forums, im asking the hamb cus they have more tech threads here than any where else ive seen.
Don't know if this is your cup-o-tea but its worth a look:http://www.rorty-design.com/content/beetle.htm
I saw one at a Connecticut VW show about 12 years ago. I didn't know much about hemi engines back then since I was a juvenile delinquent into "fast" bugs. I did know, however, how strange it looked to see a huge engine in front of a Beetle. There wasn't much room to sit in it either. Probably pretty darn hot too considering the radiator was behind the front seats squished between two partial wheel tubs. I believe the guy was from Bristol or Unionville Connecticut. I'll ask around maybe I can find a pic of the monstrosity.
It's still shows up from time to time at Litchfield, and Terryville....I've got photos from my old VW Magazine Editor days, but I doubt I can find them....
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