I originally had a 1302, I bought it 2nd hand in 1973 when it was 6 months old. I evolved this car with a turbo 2.1 Wasserboxer, 944 rear end and with the brakes I've now fitted to this 1303.
John Polden the original owner of the my "new" 1303 and I worked together for some time at a Sydney performance VW shop called Powertune. We have remained friends over the last 30 odd years and when John decided to move to Queensland Gold Coast I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to obtain this car. The car was sold to V Force and stripped of its goodies then Richard at V Force gave me the rolling shell.
I've kept a lot parts from my 1302, brakes, suspension, seats, cooling system parts etc. Rather than use the water-cooled Transporter engine again, I have purchased 2003 Subaru WRX STI engine which has only done 13,000 kilometres to fit to my new project. 195 kW+ from the factory should make for an interesting ride. In place of the modified Type 1 box I'm now using a G50.
John Polden the original owner of my 1303 competing at Amaroo and Silverdale Hillclimb (blue car photos below) in the early 1980s, it was a street car then, running a 2180 cc Type 1 motor with 48 IDAs, it gained many FTDs at various speed events and it used to do the 1/4 in mid 13s back in the early 1980s. John later fitted a Mazda 12a rotary motor that first saw duty in a Group C touring car, John then ran the car as a sports sedan. The Beetle was put in his shed in 1985, when John decided to move to Queensland he sold the car to V Force, then I acquired it from V Force.
Steve
Photos, yellow bug is my old 1302, blue bug is the one I'm rebuilding and is now orange
_________________ STI powered 1303 now running
G50 box, Boxster/944 brakes, Adaptronic 1280E ecu, PWR intercooler etc
Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 208 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 9:50 pm Post subject:
Hi
More history, sorry if I'm boring anybody.
This car had not been driven since 1983 and was virtually rust free, I acquired this car in 2002 and then brought it home in September 2004 after it had been sitting in a friends shed, I had sold my yellow 1302 earlier in 2004, I always wanted a 1303.
The previous owner had fitted rack & pinion from a 75 bug. and cutout the spare wheel area to house a radiator.
More old photos.
My STI motor had only travelled 13000 ks and my G50 came from a low mileage Jap import.
I moved the motor and transmission forward 100mm, had to cut the torsion housing and I ended up using 40 hp length 26 mm sway away torsion bars, I had a stroke of luck, the G50 shift rod turned out to be exactly the correct length.
Steve
G50 compared to a stock trans, an old one from under the house.
_________________ STI powered 1303 now running
G50 box, Boxster/944 brakes, Adaptronic 1280E ecu, PWR intercooler etc
Joined: 06 Feb 2006 Posts: 993 Location: Falmouth, Cornwall
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:31 am Post subject:
This looks like an excellant idea! I love all the history around your car too! Keep up the good work-cant wait to see more! _________________ www.faltownskateboards.com
Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 208 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 2:20 pm Post subject:
Hi
The G50 is very hard to keep stable on a jack, so I made this bracket to hold it on my jack.
I've used the stock G50 alloy mount, I welded some tabs onto the chassis for it bolt onto and I had move the mounting slightly using some aluminium blocks.
I cut the centre spline from 2 chassis and had an outer sleeve made.
I welded the splines in with "rose bud" welds so that 40HP / 1500 Beetle length 26 mm torsion bars poked out the correct amount to mate up with 944 spring plates.
I will get to the newer stuff soon.
This is how the reinforcing started off on the torsion bar housing.
I widened the engine bay area around the bumper bracket, my motor has variable valve timing there is a huge lump on the left rear cam cover that I had to be careful to make room for. Here you can see how close the cam covers come to the rear apron, even with the motor 100 mm forward.
These motors are real tight fit and are also a pain as they want to fall off the jack all the time, that's why I made motor dolly with wheels, it bolts to the exhaust ports oin the bottom of the motor. Even when the motor is sitting on the floor it wants to fall over onto the flywheel. You will notice that I have jack stands under the engine dolly, this is to prevent the weight of the motor tipping the car over backward, might not happen, just being careful, it actually did happen to me while fitting a motor to Notchback that no front-end in it.
I used this Bay Window Kombi transmission frame that I bought at the Valla swap for $5.00 to give some extra support for the transmission, this will also be useful to keep the transmission steady when the motor is removed.
Steve _________________ STI powered 1303 now running
G50 box, Boxster/944 brakes, Adaptronic 1280E ecu, PWR intercooler etc
Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 208 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:28 pm Post subject:
Hi
A friend had a PWR air 2 water inter cooler that he wanted to sell as it was too big for his project. Its a 6 inch by 10 inch unit which is rated to 650 hp. Needless to say its ideal for my car.
I finished the inter cooler pipe work today, Brad a Westside Mufflers in Padstow did a great job with aluminium welding, I will only need to plumb in a blow off valve now. Now I can concentrate on getting a firewall made up to cover all this stuff up. It made it much easier working with everything exposed this way. The back seat will need to have a bit of a hump in it. I will be using the Grocco water pump from my old yellow car and a Subaru RX intercooler radiator in the front of the car. As you can see the charge air will have a very short path.
This is the Grocco water pump from the old yellow bug, which I will be reusing to circulate the water in the intercooler system.
_________________ STI powered 1303 now running
G50 box, Boxster/944 brakes, Adaptronic 1280E ecu, PWR intercooler etc
Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 208 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:31 pm Post subject:
Hi
1303 or L bugs as they are called in Australia, have a history of body damage being caused when the circlip that holds the bonnet/hood falls off. To overcome this problem I drilled out the original circlip stud and fitted a bolt instead. This is fairly easy on passenger side, but on the drivers side I needed to cut a larger hole with a hole saw.
_________________ STI powered 1303 now running
G50 box, Boxster/944 brakes, Adaptronic 1280E ecu, PWR intercooler etc
Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 208 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:35 pm Post subject:
As Im running a bit of angle on my CVs I had the 944 stubs altered to take 930 CVs.
I was going to use some replica Porsche 17x7.5 23ET wheels that I bought on Ebay. The 23 ET is an unusual offset, I believe that these were made to suit early 911s and 944s as a 7 inch Fuchs or Cookie cutter has the same ET. So these wheels being a 7.5 they protrude an extra 6 mm each side of a 7 inch Fuchs.
On my old 1302 I once ran 7x16 23ET inch Fuchs on the front and 8x16 10.6ET on the rear. I know the fronts will be OK, so after adding in the wider track that the rear alloy 944 arms give me and doing some calculations with an online wheel offset calculator, I worked out that these wheels should fit OK. I did a trial fit today with an Aero mudguard held in place and it all looks OK.
_________________ STI powered 1303 now running
G50 box, Boxster/944 brakes, Adaptronic 1280E ecu, PWR intercooler etc
Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 208 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:46 pm Post subject:
I planned to put a Beesting radio aerial on the roof from a late model VW, but I was worried about future access to the aerial.
I forgot post the Beesting photos,
On the later VWs it's possible to pull the hood lining down to repair or service the aerial. That's not possible with an old bug, so I came up with the idea making a frame that will sit under the hood lining but will accept a standard Beetle interior light, so if I need to service or replace the aerial I will only need to remove to interior light to gain access to aerial securing nut.
I had a friend make these pieces up to weld into the A&B pillars to give the body some strength. I made a cross brace between the B pillars, a bit like factory cabrios use. You might also notice that the previous owner had filled in the running board area with a reinforcing piece.
_________________ STI powered 1303 now running
G50 box, Boxster/944 brakes, Adaptronic 1280E ecu, PWR intercooler etc
Last edited by 1303Steve on Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
Like the door bottom and other strengtheners fitted inside, sump looks good too but not too sure about heater matrix - looks heavy if you need that trolley jack to lift it!.
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