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Maggie’s OMFG I need one

I don't have a 500 hp bug, but I do have the same lift in my garage.
 
Back in high school, 1984-ish... outside the Juliet Movie Theater, next to Vassar College... There was a great 1/4 mile run from the stop light, always some action on a Friday and Saturday night. A guy having a mid-life crisis with his brand new Corvette and blonde-gal co-pilot pull up to the light... a gray primered '64 Bug pulls up next, sounding like four chainsaws with the throttles broken on WFO. I see wheelie-bars poking out from under the back, and he's got some fatties hanging off the rear all canted in... Dude and blondie start laughing, and he starts revving his 350 TPI... Dude in the Bug looks over and smiles... I knew we were in for a show.

Bug starts pre-staging a little... light turns green and all hell breaks loose from that air-cooled four-banger, pulls the front wheels about a foot off the ground and practically DISAPPEARS into the night.

Guy in the Corvette didn't make it 50 feet before he knew he was a loser of the highest order. He was close enough to hear the crowd gathered on all corners laughing our collective asses off as he slunk off down the street.

Love me some Farfegnugen to this day. Shoulda never sold my '66.
 
Dern, I thought Id get to sleep with the babe, in the Bug.
 
I wonder what the cost was for that conversion? Had to be expensive.
I bet that would cost $200k to pay someone to do it. Especially at the level of work that John Reynolds does.

Excellent work and a ton of fun.
 
I bet that would cost $200k to pay someone to do it. Especially at the level of work that John Reynolds does.

Excellent work and a ton of fun.

I wasn't thinking that high but north of $100k. Either way, that's outstanding work and it looks great!
 


Badass Go Cart ... LOL . . My brother used to build 2 litter Alcohol burner VeeWee's , The short run, and Torque was pretty mean in the 1/8th mile .
Scared the crap out of me anytime it got over 100 MPH in that tuna cans . Was not the speed but aerodynamics and shape of the Bug body . Those fuckers are Notorious for air flow and getting light, lifting, losing contact patch and going airborne .

Personally witnessed this . The shape of the traditional VW bug body was Never Ever meant to ever go this fast .
I watched a badass Bug at Woodburn 1/4 mile strip out here . back when they used to let us go sideXside, the Bikes and Cars . Was waiting on another run and watching a bug lineup with another car, The tree light went down and they both rolled off the line. Less than halfway into the run, The Bug got light and then lifted up, went invert, and crossed up over the center medium airborne, landed right ontop the car in next lane.
.
 
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We had a local guy, who owned a used car lot, put a 911 motor in a vw bus. It was primer gray and beat to hell. Those were fun days at the local drag strip.
 
Badass Go Cart ... LOL . . My brother used to build 2 litter Alcohol burner VeeWee's , The short run, and Torque was pretty mean in the 1/8th mile .
Scared the crap out of me anytime it got over 100 MPH in that tuna cans . Was not the speed but aerodynamics and shape of the Bug body . Those fuckers are Notorious for air flow and getting light, lifting, losing contact patch and going airborne .

Personally witnessed this . The shape of the traditional VW bug body was Never Ever meant to ever go this fast .
I watched a badass Bug at Woodburn 1/4 mile strip out here . back when they used to let us go sideXside, the Bikes and Cars . Was waiting on another run and watching a bug lineup with another car, The tree light went down and they both rolled off the line. Less than halfway into the run, The Bug got light and then lifted up, went invert, and crossed up over the center medium airborne, landed right ontop the car in next lane.
.

I think the point of this car isn't full blown top speed or drag racing. I think it's blinding acceleration combined with the kind of handling only a small, light, short wheelbase car with a serious suspension and brakes can deliver.

My kind of car.
 
Screw that, that thing was looking to loose control every time he got on it.
Push that thing around a corner and you will be performing inverted flight.

Power without control is what that thing is.
 
Screw that, that thing was looking to loose control every time he got on it.
Push that thing around a corner and you will be performing inverted flight.

Power without control is what that thing is.

It's only a little worse than the early (late 70s, early 80s) 911 Turbos. Back then it took a little different skillset than most drivers of hp cars had due to the weight distribution and power delivery differences.

Now, most drivers have no idea how to drive anything that doesn't have fwd/auto trans/stability control/ABS. Driving a car like this, even for modern enthusiasts, is like trying to fly an alien spaceship.
 
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Back in high school, 1984-ish... outside the Juliet Movie Theater, next to Vassar College... There was a great 1/4 mile run from the stop light, always some action on a Friday and Saturday night. A guy having a mid-life crisis with his brand new Corvette and blonde-gal co-pilot pull up to the light... a gray primered '64 Bug pulls up next, sounding like four chainsaws with the throttles broken on WFO. I see wheelie-bars poking out from under the back, and he's got some fatties hanging off the rear all canted in... Dude and blondie start laughing, and he starts revving his 350 TPI... Dude in the Bug looks over and smiles... I knew we were in for a show.

Bug starts pre-staging a little... light turns green and all hell breaks loose from that air-cooled four-banger, pulls the front wheels about a foot off the ground and practically DISAPPEARS into the night.

Guy in the Corvette didn't make it 50 feet before he knew he was a loser of the highest order. He was close enough to hear the crowd gathered on all corners laughing our collective asses off as he slunk off down the street.

Love me some Farfegnugen to this day. Shoulda never sold my '66.
God he should have know better. Even if it was a stock bug he might not win. I had an 82 stingray and those 350s were total dogs. Had to LS swap it to make it fun. When you floor a "sports car" and the front end doesn't even rise up you know you need more bald eagles under the hood.
 
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At 5:25 he said he chose it because beetle enthusiasts don't like super beetles.
Hes right. I figured a 73 since its pre egr valve. Not relevent with the motor swap though.
 
God he should have know better. Even if it was a stock bug he might not when. I had an 82 stingray and those 350s were total dogs. Had to LS swap it to make it fun. When you floor a "sports car" and the front end doesn't even rise up you know you need more bald eagles under the hood.

Didn't they have an advertised HP rating of 185?
 
It's only a little worse than the early (late 70s, early 80s) 911 Turbos. Back then it took a little different skillset than most drivers of hp cars had due to the weight distribution and power delivery differences.

Now, most drivers have no idea how to drive anything that doesn't have fwd/auto trans/stability control/ABS. Driving a car like this, even for modern enthusiasts, is like trying to fly an alien spaceship.
I cringe at how many 911's have been drifted backwards into a tree because "oh shit too fast, let off the throttle"...
 
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Didn't they have an advertised HP rating of 185?
Yeah around there. It's funny because nowadays even my stock factory truck has over twice the hp as those things.
God it was so bad yet so pretty looking as long as you keep the hood closed :LOL:
 
He looks very frustrated with her when changing gears :ROFLMAO:
In her defense, I think about everything she drives is automatic. She's a sweetheart and a great person.
 
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Screw that, that thing was looking to loose control every time he got on it.
Push that thing around a corner and you will be performing inverted flight.

Power without control is what that thing is.

Couldn't agree more. What a POS. That video was hilarious. The guy looked like he had Parkinson's trying to shift the POS. She was even worse grinding it up.

You want a Subaru turbo, grab up an older model all wheel dive WRX. It will run circles around that POS at 1/4 of the cost.
 
It's only a little worse than the early (late 70s, early 80s) 911 Turbos. Back then it took a little different skillset than most drivers of hp cars had due to the weight distribution and power delivery differences.

Now, most drivers have no idea how to drive anything that doesn't have fwd/auto trans/stability control/ABS. Driving a car like this, even for modern enthusiasts, is like trying to fly an alien spaceship.

I'm a big fan of "raw" vehicles; even my "modern" track-day car is a couple button presses away from punishing anyone without a basic understanding of control inputs (a bit of corner-exit wheelspin during a 3-4 upshift at about 110 MPH will cause people to quickly reconsider their religious beliefs). That being said, I do have to draw a distinction between:

1) a well-sorted car without electronic aids but with 50/50 weight distribution, decent amount of manageable power (<8 lb/RWHP or thereabouts), good suspension, and proper tires

2) a heavily rear-biased death machine that's trying to rewrite the laws of physics upon every corner entry

That Bug is carrying, what, 65% of its weight over those drag radials on the back? And what sort of throttle linearity is reasonable to expect from a 500+ 2.5L turbo motor? Yeah - I'd get a quick ride to the pearly gates in that thing, and then St. Peter is gonna pull up a slip-angle chart for M/T drag radials and suggest another venue for long-term accommodations.

A buddy built a turbo Miata a few years ago, and it was an absolute riot - predictable power delivery, good balance, lots of grip, and basically gave the driver full control over the outcome of any situation. It was a neutral vessel for demonstrating skill. There are a variety of factory cars that will do the same - Honda S2000, Lotus Elise, C5 or C6 Z06, and a number of others that I've offended someone by leaving off the list. That's different than something that is quite simply the wrong way to arrange various bits into a functional performance vehicle.

All that being said, this build is amazing cool, and I'd love to spend a few hours with it on an autocross course or even just a skidpad learning how much I don't know about managing under- and oversteer. I've also got a soft spot for Bugs since my grandma owned one when I was a kid (it would have eventually been mine had she not totaled it when I was 12), and they are incredibly charming cars because of their many flaws.
 
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I cringe at how many 911's have been drifted backwards into a tree because "oh shit too fast, let off the throttle"...

Well, it's worse than that. They understeer like crazy on corner entry, and what's a driver's natural reaction to that? Yeah, lift the throttle, transfer a bit of weight to the front to re-establish grip at that end, then roll back into the throttle. But the physics of a car that hangs all its mass behind the rear axle means that it punishes the driver for making what would be the proper input in any other vehicle. I find it hard to criticize the driver in this case, even though many of them would be ham-fisted in any normal car.

I did have an opportunity to do a few hot laps around the Daytona road course in the 997 Turbo and GT2, and both of those cars basically defied physics with perfectly acceptable manners. Porsche didn't allow us to completely turn off stability control, so I can't say what would happen if the cars were allowed to directly respond to my inputs. I'd probably have been a stain on the entry to Corner 1 or the "bus stop" chicane :ROFLMAO:
 
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a heavily rear-biased death machine that's trying to rewrite the laws of physics upon every corner entry
Come on now. A bit dramatic ain't it?

Or maybe an illustration is in order

Normal high performance cars
1614088527003.png



WRX-powered Bug
1614088352875.png
 
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>8 RWHP/lb or thereabouts),

Really - no one caught this error?!? Either the proofreading here sucks, or everyone who read this thread is an absolute savage when it comes to acceptable power-to-weight ratios. Probably the latter :LOL:

Original post fixed.