WRX RA powered VW 1303 beetle cabrio with a bit of Porsche

WRX RA powered VW 1303 beetle cabrio with a bit of Porsche

Author
Discussion

ricola

Original Poster:

468 posts

276 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
I've built a few cars in the past



but this is my long term project that I initially bought about 5 years ago like this:



It was never going to stay standard, the original plan was to buy a solid car and stick a subaru engine in with some uprated brakes and suspension, staying with an uprated VW transmission to keep things simple...

First up, some decent adjustable struts for the front



and some 996 brakes all round



I then started having a poke around and what I thought was solid turned out to be an incredibly rusty car, these things rust from the inside out!


inside the sill!
front end:

So I decided to do the job properly and take the body off the chassis

New heater channels (sills) and cabrio strengthening panels underneath:


rear crossmembers:


front bulkhead:


Inner wings: I think you get the idea, lots of other repairs too!

As the body was off I thought I may as well go the whole way with it and upgrade it completely to take the power of the scooby lump (starting at about 300bhp). I also decided to go the whole hog with upgrading everything to be futureproof should I upgrade even more. This is all based around a Porsche 911 trans (G50, like the Ultimas use).

As you can see, it wasn't going to just bolt in..


So I started cutting!



There was too much removed from the framehorns for my liking so I started scheming up new stronger ones

which ended up as this:
[pic]http://www.ricola.co.uk/images/cabrio/lower_horn_weld_5.jpg [/pic]

I planned to cut out the sheet floors and build a perimeter frame for new ones which will be substantially stronger


I did not want a roll bar of any kind, I like to keep a stock-ish look


front end of the chassis looking rusty too so that came out!



I also needed to make provision for a hydraulic clutch so went with a fully adjustable pedalbox, I lowered the front section of the floor to keep things tidy


ended up like this:

Made up supports for the 996 turbo sports seats:


and sorted the 911 shifter


engine in to sort out mounts


bought myself a beadroller and made up some new floors


painted!


body needed modifying to squeeze the trans under the back seat


inner body cut away for engine room/access using a vw bus engien access panel that I chopped down


here some may notice the engine has been moved forwards and up in the chassis to give more sump ground clearance and to make sure the big quad cam heads fit under the bodywork



I then found some wheels I couldn't say no to, 19" Porsche carrera sports in Cayman fitment, 8,5J front and 10J rears
they needed the rear wings modifying to fit
by 45mm

front wings were massaged to fit as well as pulling the front suspension in a bit




I also added an air intake for an enclosed cold air feed for the engine


to go with all this, I modified the dash to take Porsche 944 VDO gauges, it will be covered in leather to look OEM


stainless exhaust system made up



Coolant lines made up to run under the chassis

which feed a cosworth Pace radiator and chargecooler up front


That's most of the story so far! I keep my website up to date so if you want to see more details have a look at www.ricola.co.uk

It should end up looking more or less like this:



Comments and ideas welcome! Not finished yet, I plan to do the paintwork this summer when the weather warms up a bit... It's staying the same colour!

Rich

Edited by ricola on Thursday 14th January 21:43

wackojacko

8,581 posts

189 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
LOOKS like a bloody fantastic idear to me GOOD luck with it !!

EX51GE R

1,372 posts

209 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
lovely job

dibbly_dobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
Wow thumbup

Chessers

745 posts

211 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
great work

C. Grimsley

1,364 posts

194 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
Not normally a fan of the old bug but thats a true piece of work, hats off to you!

Carl

LittleSwill

268 posts

211 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
Fantastic work!

Libertine

3,891 posts

175 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all

Lovely car! And the Phantom looked great too!

What engine was in that?



scotty_d

6,795 posts

193 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
Awsome bow

scotty_d

6,795 posts

193 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
Libertine said:
Lovely car! And the Phantom looked great too!

What engine was in that?
Says on the title a WRX Type RA engine 2.0 turbo scooby engine

ricola

Original Poster:

468 posts

276 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
The phantom just had the standard Honda V6 out of the Rover 827...

The Karmann Ghia had a 1.7l Alfa boxer from a 33, The GTM Libra had a 160 VVC K series and the speedster replica had a '98 Impreza turbo engine

AyBee

10,522 posts

201 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
That is awesome, would love to own subaru engined beetle one day!!

Rollcage

11,327 posts

191 months

Thursday 14th January 2010
quotequote all
Fantastic set of skills there Ricola. Amazing what someone can achieve in their own garage at home!

I can wield a spanner, and a bit more more, but I am always left feeling humbled whenever I see threads like this.

bow

Hairspray

6,225 posts

206 months

Friday 15th January 2010
quotequote all
That Beetle is lovely, but your Speedster sounds absolutely amazing; do you have a build thread for that anywhere/any more pictures? thumbupbiggrin

Rollcage

11,327 posts

191 months

Friday 15th January 2010
quotequote all
Hairspray said:
That Beetle is lovely, but your Speedster sounds absolutely amazing; do you have a build thread for that anywhere/any more pictures? thumbupbiggrin
Check Ricola's profile!

ricola

Original Poster:

468 posts

276 months

Friday 15th January 2010
quotequote all
For those cars the whole builds/histories are on my website too.

Cheers for the comments so far guys! I'm self taught in a single garage so you don't need all the toys, they just make life easier...

Rich

markymark1

25 posts

170 months

Friday 15th January 2010
quotequote all
Very cool you are very clever man.

BoRED S2upid

19,641 posts

239 months

Friday 15th January 2010
quotequote all
Wow that was one rotten beetle, fair play to you for bringing it back to life looks awesome and will shift when finished.

Connor_scotland

1,291 posts

197 months

Friday 15th January 2010
quotequote all
thats a briliiant thread mate.

matc

4,714 posts

206 months

Friday 15th January 2010
quotequote all
Awesome project, looking forward to seeing it all finished!