Hoopty update

Several folks have asked how the old girl is doing since I got back. Very well, thanks, and Teresa really did give the Hoopty a lot of TLC while I was gone.
For the curious, it's still as bad-assed as it ever was, except that it stops and corners better now:

And a few more. Teresa took the Hoopty to a few reputable shops while I was gone. All of the mechanics involved did their best to make improvements, and it really does handle a lot better. It still doesn't have good manners, but it's a lot less of a PITA to drive.
It will still kill you if you don't pay attention to it at 120 mph. Zero to 65 is stupid fast, same as ever. Difference is, now it's possible to decelerate quickly in a straight line.

I'm sure "White Knuckle" Anderson is glad to hear that........;>)

Hoopty is and always will be a bad-ass Speedster!!!

Cory's promissed me some stick time at Carlisle. I'll probably wear some Depends just in case.

Why bother Lane? Just go nekkid and hose the thing down when you get out.

The Hoopty looks happy that daddy's home! Hey Cory, welcome home!

welcome home !!!!!!

Welcome back Cory. I'm moving from a Miata, with a track suspension, to my old Intermeccanica. Should be interesting. I've already found a site that sells Konis (red) for the IM.
Ron

'bout time old man.

Good idea, John. Of course some of you yankees might not know the difference between "naked" and "nekkid". "Naked is when you don't have any clothes on. "Nekkid" is when you don't have any clothes on and you're up to something.

Thanks for all the 'welcome back' e-mails and posts, guys. It's nice to be back, and Teresa's a rock star for holding everything together while I was out. I can't wait to get back out on the roads with you folks.

When I got back a few weeks ago, Teresa took me to pick up the Hoopty from a local shop. She had said she was impressed with on shop in particular, but wasn't specific with details -- she told me she wanted me to make up my own mind on whether or not I liked the place she had decided to use.

Tif's, in Annapolis, had spent weeks and weeks trying to figure out the cornering, braking and steering difficulties the Hoopty was experiencing; they were stumped because the car is so hugely different from any Beetle or 356 they'd ever seen that they were about ready to throw in the towel. There are a bunch of things about that car that were engineered specifically to it, generally for drag racing, and Tif's is a very by-the-book kind of shop. While we love them for that, they just couldn't sort our little guy out.

Teresa didn't want to drive the car on any runs where she might have had to react quickly, and had done some homework on several area shops. She wanted a race car fabrication facility that specialized in high-end cars.

There's a shop in Hanover, MD, called At Speed Motorsports. Teresa took the car to them in November and asked them to tell her what they saw -- and asked them what they could do about their areas of concern. We're waiting on a printout of all the things they noticed (including changing out the steering rack assembly) and that they'd like to improve upon.

This is the shop: http://www.atspeedmotorsports.com/

Seriously. Look at the site, imagine the Hoopty in that environment, scratch your head ...

It won't be too awful long before that little car stands up on its back tires, wags a tie-rod at us and demands a proper, heated garage to live in. I got the feeling that the guy who owns the shop (who daily-drives an old Bug) really likes the Hoopty. I don't think the rest of the cars they work on even KNOW it gets cold or wet out, and the idea that we really do like to drive the hell out of our little car appeals to him.

Even though it hadn't been deep-cleaned since I left last December, that dude (Rob) and the mechanic (Rich) who looked it over really, really liked the ghetto sled. I wish it could have been cleaner before somebody other than me started poking under its mechanical bits, but they said they honestly enjoyed the opportunity. (I didn't get the feeling that they were after our vast estate, if you know what I mean.)

The best part, to me, is that they invited us to bring it back whenever we needed ANY kind of service. They did an excellent job with what Teresa asked them to fix, mostly to do with the steering and braking problems, and will be providing us with a list of options for other things we might like them to do.

Pretty cool, huh?
They "get it."

Cool shop, Cory! Hoopty will be like the red-headed step child stirring up some sh-t in that house of normality.

Hope our paths cross again soon! Stay well and take good care of that B.E.R.T.!!

P.S. - remember...Terrorists Don't Surf!

Peace - Out!

Cory - can you tell me about the installation of those driving lights (fog lights?). Are they "tunneled in" (like a 49 Mercury lead sled) or are they just set back, behind a hole in the body? Either way, I like the effect.

Jim -- I TOTALLY forgot to thank you for the tee-shirt!
I love it!

David, I used the brackets that reinforce the front clip of the Hoopty. Those are 914-stock, five-inch Hellas. Their mounting brackets are now horizontally attached to the car, at the three and nine o'clock positions of the lenses.
My car has half-inch box tubing up behind the nose, with plates sandwiching the fiberglass of what used to form the front trunk. The whole works is based on that geometry, since the front end of the car opens up and is hinged from a bar between those plates.
The holes in the car's nose are four-and-a-half inches across, between the bulbs and the ideal aim-point of each light. They aren't quite symmetrical from right to left of center for that reason.
If you made some modifications to existing VeeDub bumper brackets, you might be able to do something similar. If I had it to do over again, I would probably do something like partially frenching the housings -- like the Emorys do, or like they used to do on early 911s. I would probably use a mod to the bumper brackets to hard-mount the lights through the nose, instead of cutting holes in front of each light.
It would be a hellish nightmare to return the Hoopty's lines to "normal," but it would be a minor repair if each light only partially sank into the curves of the nose. I kinda went overboard there, but couldn't re-do it easily when I tried.
For this car, it works. For a car that hasn't been hideously modified, I don't know that this is the right answer.
The lights also get really hot, and they're right in front of the fuel cell. I'm counting on airflow to keep things from getting too warm up there, so I didn't cover the holes with Lexan.