What would your dream Speedster be?

Okay, winter is fast on it's way and many here will be putting their cars away and dreaming instead of driving. While I am in love with my new Speedster and daily adding little touches and reworking details I can't help thinking of what I would build for the next one. Might be fun for everyone to put down the basics of their dream Speedster based on what you like or dislike about your current one or ideas you got seeing other's cars in the files section or at shows.

My new dream would be a standard (not flared) Vintage in Porsche Stone Grey w/ full racing numbers, rookie stripes, etc.... I want real wide 5 wheels, 1776 engine, dual carbs, merged exhaust w/stinger (sorry Stacey), minimal competiton interior...no carpet, all sheet aluminum inside with Speedster seats and a single modified roll bar behind the drivers seat. I like that hard 3/4 tonneau often seen on Outlaw Speedsters covering everything except the drive area.

My CMC is sort of headed in that direction but the more classic standard body would be fun. I suppose I could go the wide 5 route now with replacement drums but more fun to think about more cars !

Okay, what do you guys (and girls) have in mind?

Anthony, I like your picks.


I'm having my dream built. My current dream Speedster is going to a new home... maybe soon. (Hi Justin!!!!!)

I'll post more in a week.

But I will start with the suspension on an IM frame.

*4 wheel discs in a Wide 5 pattern. SS hoses.
*Rack and Pinion Steering.
*24mm Torsion Bars
*19 mm Sway-A-Ways front & Rear
*Koni Adjustables.
*Wheels:
1. Bivens Wheels 5.5x15 & 7x15, Drum Skinz, stainless studs, or
2. Pre-A Wide Five Wheels, made to same size as above, powder coated, clear coated, DrumSkinz Polished, Long Studs, more, or
3. Same as above. except 16x5.5 and 16x7.
*HR Tires for above, 195x60x15/16 front 205/60x15/16 rear.

Well here goes, this is what I ordered from Henry at IM last week (more or less as something may be left off).

2110cc Engine, Oil Cooler, 3.44 Final Drive Transmission, Sway Bars & Torsion Bar, 5 wide wheels/disk brake package, Wide wheel/tire package, Koni shocks, Umbrella style E brake (like original), Full leather interior, Square weave carpets, Roadster seats w/o headrests, Electric windows, Power/Remote door locks w/Alarm remote, Remove door lock buttons on top of door, Stayfast top, High Bow top, Stayfast tonneau, Heater booster fan, Tall bumper guards w/overiders, Grab handle, Original style dash and door panel trim, Right hand mirror, Courtesy lights, Ivory interior trim , MPH speedo, Delay Wipers, Speedo on right side of cluster, Rear reflectors, Halogen headlights, Custom Floor mats matching carpet including piping, Sound deadening, Radio pod w/am/fm/CD/CD changer/Aux input for iPod, Front trunk mod for more room + Rack and Pinion option.

All the above in Ruby Red, Black Leather w/Red Piping and Oatmeal Carpet w/Black Piping. Many thanks to Adam Featherston for the great color combos, George B. and Ron L. for Technical Advice and many others on the SOs web site.

William, Your selection sounds like you will have a nice looking and balanced car. Hope to meet you!

Jim

Nice choices......I need to update my wish list again!

Tony

My project list of winter changes (i.e. phase II) will hopefully migrate my speedster closer to my dream.

* 2270cc RAT Type 4 with red/black carbon fibre DTM shroud
* Extra instrumentation (dual CHT, dual EGT, oil P/T, A/F)
* kafer brace, BAS header/exhaust
* rear wide-5 discs (and new m/c) to replace my rear wide-5 drums
* Webasto gas heater
* addition of elastomeric sound deadening pads
* filling of voids with expanding foam
* fuel cell with through-bonnet filler
* removal of bonnet handle & addition of leather straps
* interior (under dash) lighting
* third brake light
* pegasus stickers
* cocomats
* convertible roof cover

with a roll bar planned further down the line.

I've got almost all the parts in my garage ready to go when I decide to put the car away for the winter.

Jim, get the CB Performance wide-five disk brakes with 14mm studs and you won't need the drum skins - the CB hubs are aluminum with cast-in steel centers and look pretty much like 356A aluminum drums unless you look very closely. Note that the Bivens wheels do not have hub cap clips and if you adapt clips to them the caps won't really fit well (they are replicas of the wide-five RS wheels).

Henry trimmed the stud length on my car to take matching Porsche aluminum "cap" lug nuts and the resulting "look" is vgery integrated.

"Caps? We ain't got no caps! We don't need no stinkin' caps!"

One of the neat things about this site is the sharing of details as William Steele did when he mentioned the speedo on the right of the cluster. That's the way I set mine up and I have found it preferable while driving.

I already have my dream speedster, 2110, big carbs, loud Monza exhaust, tight suspension, 5-wide wheels, great fit and finish, perfect (for me) colors, top removed and wrapped for long term storage, etc.

Now I want a second speedster for my wife. Standard body, British Racing Green with glove tan interior, 1600cc, quiet exhaust, drum brakes, full moon hub caps, 165-15 tires, a glove box for her life support accessories, and thats about all. On second thought maybe not the glove box. Oh ya, a stereo with an iPod to record old NPR programs.

Well since i'm really living and driving my dream speedster,I can see tha I will most likely make modifcations as I hang out with more of you speedster guys. I too have been aquiring parts for changes. My biggest poblem is I'm having so much fun driving this little car that I don't really want to start any tear down as of yet. I think I will wait a little longer,and just enjoy my drives while the weather isn't to wet. since the sot. I've only added fog lights. I/ve purchased a shroud,new chrome alt. tubine fan and a breather kit to be installed whenever the weater is really bad. I do like the idea of an i-pod settup . My wife would really like more compfort in the seating. Maybe I look into the scatt pro seats . I know this has been posted in the forum , and I drive a beck I have a little more room widthwise.

Thanks George. Henry is making a call today to see about the x6s and x7s. I have the CB Discs in the order, so it looks like you answered a $$ saving Q there.

Did you get your Bivens polished there, or where?

Thanks again GB.

Jim

Jim:

Any truth to the rumours I heard about a series of bank robberies around Edmond? Apparently it was a small, dark car that was used for the getaways?

Bob,

I have been picking up cans on the roadside as a part of my work-release program for knocking off those stores. The profits of the crime AND punishment are paying for the longer studs to go with the wheels!

Next, I hope to sell my VS on E-bay as a 59 Carrera GT... I've already pulled the trim, bondo'd the holes, pulled the bumpers, used an old iron bed to make a roll bar, and....

J

My Dream Speedster ... to finish mine!!!!

Jim and Anthony,

The really great thing about these cars is they don't have to be a dream. If your dream happened to include it being an original Porsche Speedster, then it probably would remain just a dream.

When I was in college a really beautiful women that I had a crush on (older than me and married) gave me a note that read, "Love is yearning unfulfilled". I did not agree with her line of reasoning then or now.

Bill

Bill,

You expressed the "why" better than I ever could. Thanks for sharing that... the passion for these tubs.

Mine should be built about the same time as yours. I'll enjoy trading notes as our dreams are built.



Jim

My dream speedster would be a new IM with a Subie WRX motor. Okay, that's never going to happen. My second choice would be a new IM with a Jake Raby (fuel injected) RAT motor (with a gas heater). Keep the hp around 175 and have all the goodies included (4 wheel discs, wide 5s, leather interior, rack and pinion steering, etc. Every once in the while I'll go to the IM site and price out a new car. The trouble is, I'm like a kid looking in the window of a candy store...I want it all.
Ron

My dream 356 would be either a Cab or Coupe with SAW's 137 HP normally aspirated Subaru engine. Basic interior, nice stereo. I'm got my heart set on a nice 50's Aqua Green with a tan or oatmeal interior treatment. Set up for reliability and driveability rather than 0-60 times. I'd like a multi-year daily driver.

-Jeff

The interseting part of the question is how "perfect" evolves over time. I had a pretty nice CMC that a guy in CA built in 2000. I really liked the car, enough to have the "perfect" car built by JPS in 2002.

As time goes by, desires tend to become "needs". George had a really nice IM roadster built in 2000, then another uber-IM speedster in 2003. He plans to put a 911/4 in the car later. John Leader had an unbelievably straight black JPS with a 1776 built in 2002, then new JPS with a 2332 (!), aluminum deck lid, and possibly the coolest color combination to date a couple of months ago.

And now our man Jim Ward is joining the fray. At the risk of letting the cat out of the bag... wait until you see what he has planned. It could very well be the perfect speedster.

Me... well, if I was going to do it again, I'd make some changes too. I've got a new engine in the works, as well as a new transaxle. I'd get a gas heater (and will too, if I can talk my wife into driving around with a bomb in her lap), wide 5 four wheel discs for sure. It would definately be a classic bodied, air-cooled flat 4, speedster.

Maybe what George and John and Jim have is catching. Maybe.....

"Yearning unfullfilled" isn't love... it's lust!

The great thing about these cars is all the different themes each individual comes up with for his/her own.

I'm happy with my car the way it is. Nothing sounds like that flat six w/ the GHL exhaust, (personal preference, I know!) and it is very well balanced. A blast to drive!

Marcos

Jim: Sounds like a great idea!

Marcos: I think you may be right, man the truth really hurts.

The "perfect" Speedster?

I'll probably never get there but, for me, a lot of the joy of owning my CMC is in building, modifying and adding on (and I bet Jerome and many others feel the same way).

Just in the last month I've added a windbreak within the roll bar, installed a stereo and a 19mm rear sway bar. This Winter will see a new soft top with "they're gonna seal up or else" side curtains, maybe even sliding side windows, we'll see (learned a lot putting that windbreak in). And since I've given up on cockpit solar heat, I'm always looking for that "affordable" gas heater. Another Winter project is a disection of a stock heater box to try to duplicate it with larger "J" tube diameters and make it affordable.

Each thing that gets added or modified gets it one step closer to the "perfect" car, but then my desires change and I'm off in another direction...I'm still toying with the idea of deleting the front fender flares, and there's always the hard top option...

It's always fun to dream, and a lot of that fun is figuring out how to turn those dreams into reality.....

And then there's the quote I like from (I think) Ogden Nash:

"To sit is to Rot"

gn

Gordon, How true!

Regarding my dream build; After it's all done, I will buy a basic set of wide 5s with clips in 5.5 and 7" and some caps if I ever want the stock look. So, I'm with ya GB, who wants any stinkin' caps anyway.


Stan, shhhhhhhhh! I don't want George knowing that a 3.7L x 6spd is going into a carbon copy of his car and that Excellence is featuring it in a 6 part build with color pictures...... Ok, GB, I'm kidding. You are the king! My build will be modest in comparison, and probably modest in comparison with many IMs coming out of Henry's shop these days. But, to me, it will be perfect.

Okay, so tell us about it!!! We need to know.

Jim, the Bivens wheels come polished to a high gloss.

"Beware of the man who dreams with his eyes open..."

Welcome back George- That's the kind of information we pay you the big bucks for. Thanks.

The perfect speedster? Where would the fun be in that?

Bear in mind that you can build a 2,387 type 1 street engine on a Precision Alloy case (aluminum type 1 case with type 4 upgrades - through bolted case halves, etc.) using a type 1 flanged Scat crankshaft that has type 4 main bearings - a very modern approach to VW performance engines.

The Precision Alloy case also has the cam centerline dropped .100" (no "big cam" clearancing required) and takes all stock VW heads, cylinders, tin, oil pump, distributor, bolt-on sumps, etc. Competition Engineering in Arizona makes a very nice set of straight-cut steel cam gears for the .100" drop case.

This negates having to deal with the limited choices available for parts and builders of type 4 engines (exhaust systems, heads, etc.) and provides a wide selection of aftermarket Type 1 performance parts.