Phil IM356D posted:Before I got my IM I was seriously considering building another spyder. That's exactly the powertrain I was going for. FAT 2.6L Type 4 with a 3.44. About 200hp. At the time I think the engine was going to cost about $12k. A lot cheaper than a Raby.
Phil that would be crazy fast in a spyder. Scary... but I like scary.
Phil IM356D posted:Before I got my IM I was seriously considering building another spyder. That's exactly the powertrain I was going for. FAT 2.6L Type 4 with a 3.44. About 200hp. At the time I think the engine was going to cost about $12k. A lot cheaper than a Raby.
Yep. Fat Performance definitely knows race motor criteria. Lawsh if you go in that direction you could contact Curt Emory at Emory Motorsports. They had just completed a 356 outlaw with that motor in it and he could tell you who did the exhaust for it. Here's a pic of the car. It looked to have a replica 4 cam exhaust. It was nice.
You guys ever wish you had a "do over"?
In 2008, I wanted a big, nasty air-cooled flat 4, and I was willing to pay for it. I considered Jake, but my inner tight-wad won out as what I was after probably would have rung in at about $25K (that's not a joke).
I called Greg and discussed a dry-sumped 3L Type 4. It was going to run about $12.5K at the time. The price didn't scare me, but I had a LOT of custom Type 1 stuff that I wasn't ready to walk away from and redo.
Anabel Chico had a 2332 Type 1 he called his "chocolate motor" that made 200 hp on Jaycee's dyno, and some unearthly torque at 2000 RPM. He had me hypnotized.
... but then I was me. I asked for (and got) Chinese nickies, and asked for 9.5:1 CR. Then engine rang in at about $10K, and threw oil from the day I put it in. I sent it back to California (from Illinois) becasue my leak-down numbers were terrible. I got it back with Total-Seal rings, and it was no better. I dry-sumped it myself, and drove it to CA. On my way back, I stopped at Art Thraen's, and left the car there. Art (Justin) built me a 2276 with some/most of the parts I had.
The Nickies were split, there was a hole in one of the heads, and I was another $5K lighter. I redid the engine again a couple of years later, so I could twin-plug it.
If think back sometimes on the FAT 3L I never had, and think about how I've spent RAT Type 4 money on what I've got. Then I try to think about something else.
.93 4th gear in the 4 speed tightens up the 3-4 gap appreciably. With a 3.88 R&P you have a boulevard boss. With a 3.44 R&P you have a highway screamer: 100 mph in 3rd gear, and then 4th for walking away from S2000s. Depending on the engine, of course.
I am quietly very content with the low bux that I've spent on my conversion....Yeah, I know..... :-)
I saw a VW Bus coming towards me near a quiet intersection last week and pulled over and shut off my engine just to hear him go by. He stopped and asked if I needed help. We had quite a nice conversation and checked each other's stuff out. We both agreed that you can't have it all.....unless you're Jay Leno or somebody.
edsnova posted:.93 4th gear in the 4 speed tightens up the 3-4 gap appreciably. With a 3.88 R&P you have a boulevard boss. With a 3.44 R&P you have a highway screamer: 100 mph in 3rd gear, and then 4th for walking away from S2000s. Depending on the engine, of course.
Of course. Bags of torque solves a lot of ills.
But with a medium-powered Type 1 and a four-speed, what you gain somewhere, you always give up somewhere else.
A .93 top does narrow the gap some (although not as much as the 4-5 gap on a five-speed), but then you're buzzing along at 3500 just to do 70 mph. If you keep the .93 and go to a 3.44 R&P you do get nice, relaxed highway cruising, but again at a price.
With the 3.44/.93, a 2-liter type 1 runs out of breath on a hill pretty quick and you're forced to downshift on much less of a grade than with the 3.88/.89. And with the four-speed, downshifting to third at highway speeds is my worst fear.
Bam, my fancy sports car is whining along at 4000 rpm up the hill and all the Corollas passing me, with the A/C on and bubble gum music on the bluetooth, are staring and pointing and wondering why.
Gene Berg I just met you, and this is crazy, but five's my number, so call me maybe.
A do-over?
A Raby type IV with the Porsche 5 speed, IRS rear, 911 or 914 front , and the wheels and brakes to stop it. That's all.
Carlos,
I hadn't even moved forward from the clutch-plate on my "do-over", but a full 911 front suspension and a low mounted 20 gal fuel tank and big trunk would be right there.
"I just need to find a builder. I used Ken Porter for my 4 speed. May use Ken, Gary Berg, or Sebastian for my 5 speed."
Ted- Have you thought of calling mcmscott (on the Samba and posted on your thread)? From what I've read over the years he's very knowledgable and has built transaxles for a number of guys on that forum. Check out the comments on the feedback forum. I don't know how close he is to you, but he did express interest in your thread. I'd be interested in hearing what he said after you talk to him. Al
I try to look at the broader picture when I contemplate how much money I have thrown at my car. Come on, guys. We aren't able to lavish these heretical amounts of money on our cars because of trust funds or dotcom hidden treasure.
We can spend money because we kept working at whatever occupation/profession we had, putting away funds for that rainy replica day. I don't regret having a tiny portion of my life that makes little financial sense. The car is mine, not ours, not a shared asset, no company ownership, and the decisions I make about my car are mine alone.
Since I don't smoke/drink/gamble/runaround/drug (insert vice of choice), I have little remorse for my replica habit. Drive on, Jeeves, drive on!
Personally I prefer many vices.
"We can spend money because we kept working at whatever occupation/profession we had, putting away funds for that rainy replica day. I don't regret having a tiny portion of my life that makes little financial sense... Since I don't smoke/drink/gamble/runaround/drug (insert vice of choice), I have little remorse for my replica habit."
I agree with most of what you say, Jim, but I have to admit I drink a little (for medicinal purposes only, you understand 
).
ALB posted:"I just need to find a builder. I used Ken Porter for my 4 speed. May use Ken, Gary Berg, or Sebastian for my 5 speed."
Ted- Have you thought of calling mcmscott (on the Samba and posted on your thread)? From what I've read over the years he's very knowledgable and has built transaxles for a number of guys on that forum. Check out the comments on the feedback forum. I don't know how close he is to you, but he did express interest in your thread. I'd be interested in hearing what he said after you talk to him. Al
Big Al!
I think, but I'm not 100% positive, that ScottMCM is Scott Sebastian. Scott S owns Metal Craft Motorworks. (Where the MCM would come from...)
I need to gather a few more parts and the lock down a builder. I spoke with Scott on Friday. Gary called me back this morning.
Pretty excited to see that it will becoming together soon.
Ah. Gentlemen of utter madness (are there any women here btw? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks).
Do you remember them good ol' days? Them days circa 92 replies ago. Where we was like:
Now we're all like:
I need you on this guys. We have to work together here, huddle up and device a cunning scheme to strengthen the Norwegian krone against the American dollar whilst keeping the US economy booming. We might need to get the old oil prices up or something. I dont know, Im no Thomas Piketty but measures need to be taken! and jetzt!
Lars. I hope you build that coolryde speedy with the type 4 and the 5 speed. And I hope someone local to coolryde will document the build. I'm personally very interested in seeing a coolryde outlaw and I'm interested in hearing about handling capabilities and frame rigidity. Honestly this car is a complete mystery to all guys (and girls) on this site. If $28k is a real price for a roller and the car is as good on the road as it is on paper seems like Kevin could get into the speedy building business if that's what he wants. Or maybe the thing is a complete POS. Who knows at this point. Being a guinea pig can be tough. I built the first suby spyder ever and things didn't work out so well for me. Someone has to go first. It might as well be Lars.
Wow.....How do you know Thomas Piketty? Kind of obscure for this group. Just finished reading his book....He started out in International monetary flow theory (which I, too, spent some time in) and then kind of morphed into the Evolutionary effects on the Distribution of Wealth. GREAT data he's accumulated, but his theories......Well, let's say "thought provoking".
All we can do here to help your N Krone is to figure out a more equitable tax rate/system here, which might catch on elsewhere. Don't hold your breath for that to happen quickly, especially in "older" countries.
In the meantime, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with your first list:
This should take you from the Mendeola $$$$$$ down to a more affordable $$$$ - or get you to 200,000 to 250,000 Krone for a complete car (which you still have to build).
I might disagree on the drop spindles (they move the front end geometry quite a bit and sometimes do more harm than good) but the rest is perfect.
Are you telling us that there are no decent Air-cooled VW engine builders left in Norway? What about the rest of Western Europe? That has to be more cost effective than sourcing from California, especially with the current exchange rates.
It's YOUR car, built with YOUR money. We can recommend the moon, but in the end, You're paying for it. Get something cool that you can afford.
X2 Gordon's advise to Lars about investigating local 'sourcing & expertise' for his build. Contacting SOCer Jan Peter in Germany would be a good start....There's got to be Pat Downs and Kevin Zagars on top of this madness game in Europe!
BTW... The way Lars handles the English language with articulate 'American-isms' makes me suspect he's actually a Yankee-Doodle-Dandy pretending to be Norwegian!!!
Regarding european builders i haven't researched that thoroughly enough yet. There's a Greece based one: http://www.replicarhellas.com/pages_en/index.html that you talked about here https://www.speedsterowners.com...eedsters-from-greece. Sweden has a great automotive culture and a vibrant builder scene but dont know about commissioning one. Of alle the speedsters Ive seen for sale in Noruega are either from JPS or VS.
The experience you guys represent coupled with the American VW / Speedster / Hot rod culture makes me, at least at this point, so much more confident doing this overseas. more googling...
Regardin Kevin Z. He has built a couple of speedster though hasn't he? Might try to get a hold of the owners about their experiences.
Thanks for giving up Jan Peter, Carl!
Yeee HaaaW! : )
Ah, the "money" thing. I wondered when we'd hit that wall. We'd all like everything, but it really is about working within the constraints of the situation. The nice thing about these cars is that they can be as much or as little as you'd like them to be. To my thinking, chasing "perfection" on the first time up at the plate (American idiom again) is a fool's errand. "Perfect" is going to evolve as the situation changes, and some of what you'd like is better done on your end after you've had the car for a while.
But since you seem to be asking about bang for the buck, what I'm describing is what I would do if I was working with your constraints:
Is this an "A"-armed, IRS, pie-cut, Type 4, 915/5-speed super-speedster? No.
Is this a really, really nice pan-based car that would be 99% of what you want? Yes sir.
WOW!!!.... Stan just dipped into his 'madness notebook' and built Lars a magnificent machine.
"Yeee HaaaH" That's definitely not a Norse idiom!....You just confirmed my suspicians Lars.
Lars,
You've likely researched this already, but Norway has had an enthusiastic VW a/c crowd for many years. I used to read about them in the VW mags quite a while ago. Don't forget to check in with your homies, homes.
Regarding Scandinavian engines:
Torben Alstrup in Denmark is a genius and somebody I'd buy an engine from in a heartbeat.
Johannes Persson Motorsport in Sweden is playing this game on a whole different level. He's got mind-blowing stuff-- way out on the edge.
I'd look really, really hard at either of these guys (perhaps both) if I lived in Scandahoovia.
Feeling the love here. Dropping my needle on Marlena Shaws, California Soul.
Stan et al: bro fists, all around! In the diverging phase Im at right now, it cant get any better than this. You're giving me lots to marinade on to make good informal decisions when trying to converge this beast and pulling the trigger.
Its been 3 weeks since the first e-mail to the vehicle office. I need to get them on board asap to clarify my constraints and validate / invalidate current hypotheses. Being here sure is arming me with lots of knowledge I hope will be fruitful when communicating with them.
Im beginning to get a grasp on the American speedster scene but realise I have a local blindspot and need to engage my local homies.
Regarding timeline, having the car a year from now would be pretty sweet.
Lawsh, I may have missed it, have you set a budget for your build?
crhemi (Bill) posted:Lawsh, I may have missed it, have you set a budget for your build?
Budget? We don't need no stinking budgets!
Stinking budget! Bill, there might be certain possibilities that one could impose an upper level of spendage that when said person is confronted, would have to reply with a figure that when translated into a specific number, after much squirming and perturbation, that number might be if written down in a comment which would materialize, just as an example, into something that would read: five as the leading digit followed by two zeros, in any particular order, where the denomination applied would be the Benjamin. That is as vague as I can be right now.
Phew !!!....Not only vague...but confusing as hell
Lars, you've got the linguistic capabilities of being a very successful politician.
Budget is kind of a personal question. Safe to say we will all spend just above what we can really afford. I know that if I ever build another car I will hide money and lie to my wife and do just about anything to get the car that I want.
Phil IM356D posted:Budget is kind of a personal question. Safe to say we will all spend just above what we can really afford. I know that if I ever build another car I will hide money and lie to my wife and do just about anything to get the car that I want.
That's the laugh of the day right there!
Spoken like a true husband, Phil!
Good cause we all just built you a beautiful car...on paper!
I look forward to seeing your dream come true.
Phil, I nearly cracked up over here with that comment.... You could always, Send small payments into a hidden account over time to pay secretly, then hide the final invoice 
.....or buy her an equal upgrade to the house, spa, etc... Ray
My wife spends much more on herself than I do. She calls it maintenance. OBVIOUSLY maintenance doesn't count. That's why I will lie, cheat and steal as much of my own money as I can.
Maintenance: Let's see, I'll start the list: Monthly or every 3 weeks as needed, hair colour, hair set, hair cut, nails, depilatory, fashion accessories, perfume, etc etc.
I'm an old school dude! I never discuss religion, politics or how much one earns or spends.
Whenever asked how much I spend/spent on any of my toys I politely reply..."Tell me how much you make and I'll tell you if you can afford it". 
It was fortunate for me that while I was building my car I was also on an expense account at work and traveling a lot, wining and dining customers. Once you get into the habit of carelessly throwing someone else's money around, it's a very short leap to doing it on a personal level, so towards the end (and after 6 years) I just threw money at it - Like my hideously expensive paint job that, after 17 years, still looks gorgeous. Maybe that was money well spent after all? It wasn't like I went overboard.....Just spent money in place of time on labor intensive things at a time when I just didn't have the time.
So here I am now, 17 years later with plenty of time and no money so I find myself doing nutty things like buying totally incompatible replacement wiper blades and reworking them, by hand, so they fit the blade carriers that I know work on this car, simply because nobody, not even Amazon, carries 9" wiper blades that might work as-is (and 10" won't fit).
I'm just glad that I built mine when I could afford to do it! That's why I suggested that Larrs build what he can afford. The car I would build today would be a lot different than what I have.
Just to clarify, I was not asking how much your budget was...Not my business, but you do need one in mind. As you can see it all gets out of control when you ask the SOC nut jobs what to build!
El Guapo. Es la verdad.
10" blades are the right fit, you probably have wiper arms that are too long...maybe shorten and a tack weld on the underside of the arm.
"10" blades are the right fit, you probably have wiper arms that are too long...maybe shorten and a tack weld on the underside of the arm."
Well, maybe for your cars, but not for this, customized-more-than-it-should-be set-up. Don't forget, I'm running a Specialty Power Window wiper system that I adjusted to a gnat's bahoogies to exactly fit the windshield.
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/...Z17J0YqVqhoCUWDw_wcB
The arms (ANCO 41-01) are easily adjustable for length (Just flip a tab, pull em in or out and re-set the tab - pretty cool, that) but with the 10" blade I had to adjust the arm shorter to not hit the top frame, which then made the other end of the blade too low and run onto the bottom rubber at the far end of the stroke. In other words, my system is customized for a 9" blade. 
I might cure it with a slightly shorter stroke by getting into the drive box up under the dash, but my 66-year-old back told me it was far easier to fab up new blade replacements (time = 1 beer) than to lie contorted on my back under the dash adjusting the mechanism stroke (lots of bitching and three beers). Maybe I was smart enough when I installed the box to make the adjusting cover easily accessed, but I can't remember and didn't even look.
Just out of curiosity, though, what do you use on your builds for arms and blades? I have ANCO arms (1/2" fine spline) and Trico blades (unknown part number and NLA). IIRC, the drive shaft is a coarse-splined 1/4" stub with a 'Murican'-style 1/2" adapter over it. NONE of this is stock VW.
BTW: The stuff coming out of Specialty Power Windows is GREAT stuff, and listening to their install videos (mine was a VCR tape - that long ago) in their deep, Texas accents, was a hoot.
Oops......Sorry for the drift, Lars!
