Peter's New 356 Coupe

Greetings all, you will recall I posted some questions regarding purchasing a 356 replica in December 2007 and after gathering as much information as possible, I decided to visit John at JPS in North Hollywood to discuss his coupe.
Living in the great northwest, I decided on a coupe as compared to a speedster to try to extend our short summer driving season and while many others make speedsters, JPS at the time made the only coupe.
I was fortunate in being able to inspect a coupe in production at JPS and liked what I saw very much.
John and I reviewed the car I wanted including all options, drew up a contract, and then shook hands as I handed him a check as a deposit to begin production. John estimated that it would take between 12 and 14 weeks to produce, just in time for Oregon

Peter,

Great intro, and your coupe looks very nice. Don't you love the roll up windows?
Please continue with the build details, pics and driving impressions.

Do you have a pan based or tube frame?

Dave

Peter,
With all the flaming and emotionally charged criticism that generally make up reviews on this site, yours is refreshing and eloquent and certainly a welcomed addition.
I hope to see you posting here regularly.

hey Peter,
had the pleasure to sit in your car and enjoy the beauty the day before John shipped it out. It certainly was worth the wait. have fun. When is that car show?
Terry this is the coup I told you about last night

Very nice! Welcome to the "you know what". Al

Peter -

In the end, ALL that matters is that YOU'RE enjoying your car.

NOW, maybe you might consider joining the cruise that Rich Ebers is putting together for next year in Hell's Canyon.

"Welcome to the Madness"!!

Peter--let me also say "welcome to the madness" and say how much I enjoyed your post about your beautiful new coupe. It is indeed georgeous!

I like the seats that John put in your car and wrote to ask him if they could work in my VS.

Welcome aboard and I look forward to hearing more about your car as you start enjoying it. Congratulations!---Jack

Welcome, and congrats on getting in the right mindset to deal with the realities of custom car fabrication. I hope you continue to have good service from your car. Keep us posted with pics and stories from the road!

Congratulations, Peter! That may be the best-appearing coupe yet. Great choice of colors and you've got a fantastic outlook.
You're in for a treat!
Welcome to the madness!

Peter - Beautiful. I have been hungry for information about JPS Coupes ever since I saw Tom D's in Kit Car Builder. I look forward to reading about your experience with your new car. Congrats!

Hey Peter,

Very well written.... that is the spirit of getting this type of car. Glad that you are enjoying yours. I am enjoying my coupe more and more every day.

Eddy

Peter,
You should plan to bring your coupe to LO in the 24th. This annual event is very casual and there is always a fun assembly of antiques and classics. You can enjoy a Lions Club pancake breakfast, and if you get bored with the cars you can stroll across the street to the lake and drool over some mighty fine mahogany boats.

http://www.oswegoheritage.org/events/carshow.html

http://www.oswegoheritage.org/events/woodenboatshow.html

Peter - Congratulations on you new ride. You wrote a refreshing piece on the build wait. You are absolutely right about what these cars are and what they are not. I know your life will be less frustrated if you can wrench a little to keep this car fit. Sounds like with all the cars you've had in the past, that will not be a problem. Hope to see the car soon.

Peter,

That is a very nice looking car. As a fellow JPS owner, I of course recognize many of the small details that would make your car and mine look alike. My Speedster is likewise regarded by me as a work of art, really. The red seats and light color in your new ride remind me of the '61 B Coupe I had a thousand years ago.

You have no doubt read all the posted gory details about the now-infamous Green Coupe (JPS S/N #2, July, '07). I am hopeful that none of those troubles (let's be charitable and call them growing pains for JPS) will surface in your machine. I will offer this caveat nevertheless: be wary of water. I hear that JPS has finally taken the issue of weather-tightness seriously, but I would still have doubts. John lives and works in what must be called an arid climate. 95% of his cars have no water problems becasue they never see it. John has little to no personal experience with it. The nature of the JPS manufactured beast is such that keeping water out in a driving rain is going to be very hard. I expect in Oregon, driving in the rain will be routine. Be prepared to find damp carpets. Note: the original cars were terrible in this regard too. But be heartened: You will have a significant advantage over the originals in this case, being largely fiberglass. The reason I do not still have that '61 coupe, nor the '56 A that preceeded it, is that all that steel turned to ferrous oxide.

And I am duty bound to say:"WTTM!"

Peter,
Congrats! When you have some time, please post more photos. I could only view one shot from your first post. It looks very pretty from that one angle, though! Grin on !

Greetings all
The Coupe now has over 1,000 miles on it and I am gradually finding my way towards getting it in a running condition that best suits the driving environment up here in Oregon. We live in Salem, which for the most part is rural with many nice back roads where the coupe can run at 55-60 MPH without much traffic.
I have spent a considerable amount of time seeking the advice from two air-cooled VW specialty shops, one including a shop in Eugene, 60 miles away that John recommended to do the initial valve adjustment and oil change, which was done this week.
The overall performance of the Coupe has been good with the exception of a minor oil leak, which I still have not found its exact origin. In addition, I suspect one or both carburetors is allowing gas to seep into the intake manifolds when the engine turned off because the bowls are empty soon after the car sits for a few minutes and there is a smell of hot fresh gas.
Adjusting the gas mixture, throttle linkage, and engine idle has been somewhat of a challenge because I suspect the mounting hardware used flexes quite a bit when the engine heats up and then cools down. This dynamic changes settings just enough to make one carburetor get a little out of phase with the other causing the engine to run rough at lower RPMs.
I have taken the coupe to two local classic car cruise ins and most everyone who inspects the car thinks it is an original. Those who know Porsches however are not fooled for a minute, but they do comment on the Coupe

Peter,

What carbs are you running? And how do you know the floats empty out? That would be most peculiar. Webers (and others too, I guess) vent the float chamber to atmosphere and so a hot engine will send some vapors out to the garage after a run. This is just natural, and some here suggest that folks accustomed to FI machines where nothing of the sort ever happens, believe their Speedsters are leaking gas, based on the smell of gas from a hot engine.

Here is another item: My car from JPS a year ago was delivered w/ a faulty carb, that is, the carb body had a crack in it, I suppose just a bad casting. Maybe you have some of the same? This really is the only way I can see gas leaking out of the float chamber, and if that is the case, where is it going? If you see gas out and about the engine, then you may have an unexpected barbeque on your hands rather soon, and I'd be very concerned about that. Please look for wet gas anywhere around the engine, and tell us what you see.

And further: these little pissant things really should not be happening on a properly sorted car, suggesting once again that getting cars properly sorted from JPS continues to be a problem. Get a good mechanic, have him speak directly to JPS and have these things settled properly, on the JPS nickle.

PS: You mention an oil leak -- from where?? My guess would be the valve covers. Do you have the fancy looking Al castings, held down by two shoulder bolts to the heads? If so, I'd say these are really POS and you should opt for the less glamorous but ever so much more utilitarian OEM VW steel covers w/ bales. Insist on using the rubber gaskets. JPS can supply these OEm covers; I got mine from him after chasing leaks for several months. I'm not sure what your real leak problem is, but just sharing my experience. FWIW.

kelly can u post a pic of yours vs peters

Thank you Peter for another fine post. I really enjoy reading your thoughtful accounts of your new coupe. Also, I appreciate the technical issues discussion and the great follow up postings by the other members of the forum.

I live in Seattle so I am naturally interested in your coupe's weatherproofing as well. Here's hoping that you stay dry. Also, I apologize for bringing up the subject of rain when it's a nice 75 degrees and sunny today in the Pac NW.

Kelly -

Man you are good. I sure wish I could diagnose a problem without seeing it, throw the blame in the proper direction and then take a shot at the vendor that supposedly caused it. Think what you are saying man. Up until that point, you were giving excellent advice as to what the cause of the leak MIGHT be. I certainly agree that there MAY be a hazardous condition here, but the rest of the mindless rhetoric was unnecessary at this point. Don'tcha think? JMHO

Hey Peter,

Did you change your email address. I sent you an email and it bounced back saying "Mailbox not found"

Hope you are on the way making your coupe "your own"

Eddy

Love that car. That's coupe Porn!

I LOVE CORN!

Beautiful car!! Will you be at the rod run in Ocean Park, WA?

P.S. Here is a link http://www.funbeach.com/events/cars/RodRun/index.html
I would love to see the car in person. Weather permitting I will have my speedster there.

RE the gas smell, if it's only one carb, the float could be hanging up and/or level improperly set. No fault to anyone really, but Webers need to be disassembled and cleaned/adjusted before putting in service, NO EXCEPTIONS! They are never set right, throttle stops and floats, and are always DIRTY when new. FYI.

Greetings all,

Today the coupe received the

congrats Peter
it is a beautiful car

Congratulations, Peter. It makes all the waiting worthwhile, doesn't it?

Great job, Peter! Congratulations on the trophy!

Peter,
Congrats as well.
Definitely install a breather box.
I forget what size engine you have, but anything bigger than stock needs a breather box.
Make sure you vent the valve covers as well as the oil filler. The bigger the engine, the more you vent.
Also, if you have a remote oil filter then you probably have an aluminum pump cover. Remove that and replace it with a Gene Berg iron cover.
Just a few things I have worked on since I brought my JPS home.

Peter -

Very COOL about the trophy from the show! The enjoyment of driving these cars comes in all forms. As long as you're driving with more smiles than frowns, its all good!

Peace - Out!

Peter, so where was your car imported from?

Vince, I hoped someone would ask that question here because the knuckleheads I hung out with yesterday hassled me all day by asking the same question about how the 356 Porsche replica coupe built in North Hollywood, California could possibly be an import.

It wasn

HEY VINCE/PETER
I LOVE THE IMPORT FROM MEXICO
ILL HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT THE NEXT TIME SOMEONE ASKS

What? California isn't foreign enough for them? ;-)

I guess I could tell folks that about 80% of my car comes from Brazil.

Peter,

Congratulations..... on winning the import class

Peter -

FWIW, whenever I take my VS to a car show, I have a placard that I place on the windshield.

That placard says;

1957 Porsche Speedster Replica
Manufactured in 1995 by
Vintage Speedsters, Inc.
1835cc w/dual carbs
Front Disc brakes
No rust / Daily Driver

...it kinda takes the steam out of all those 'experts' conversation!

Peace - Out!