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