My pleasure .

Make sure you guys watch the last updated video.

Those totally ROCK brother, we'll have to take some more in the near future...

(You need to update your thread with your engine all done up and your rear bumper!)

Hopefully I'll be home before dark so I can take some photos. It definitely felt better knowing that I had a rear bumper now . Thanks a lot Brian!

Cool ,that is one hell of an upgrade for the "baby window"lol I mean oval.............

"Baby Window", lol. Damn Hawaiians
It's a totally different car now, totally different. My speedometer needle sure rotates fast now

That's a funny quote.

Paging Ethan Dunlap...... Ethan... please get your car back together..... you have company....






Brian, that sounds awesome!! Nice work

Thanks Bo!

Baby window...lol.. that is what us island boys call those.. Anyways, that is one fine piece of craftmanship. Good job.

Here's some pictures of my car as it's changed over time...

These are when I first got it on the road. We purchased the car in San Diego from a friend of my Dad's. The car was a project that someone had started, it changed hands a couple times, and eventually made its way to us. When we bought it, the pan and suspension has all been redone, there was a rebuilt 40 horse long block with it, and it had a rebuilt tranny in it. The body had been painted the color it is now, but after sitting around for years in various peoples yards has its share of dents and dings. My dear old dad worked on the car and so did I when I was able to visit them in San diego, but he got the body bolted to the pan, put in a new wiring harness, and did the brakes. He also gathered the parts to make the long block into a complete engine and put it in the car. He and I got it started when I was out there visiting. Unfortunately, my dad passed away of cancer and never saw the car back on the road, but he put a lot of work into it...

First time the car went down the street under its own power in probably 10+ years



My wife and I towing it from San Diego to Houston in September 2005 after my dad passed away


After I go the car back to Houston and made it totally road worthy I drove it often and started changing things. The first thing I did was to give it a proper stance with a 2" narrow CB front beam and lowering it one inner spline in the rear. I also got some type 1 wheels on it (it had type III wheels on it when we got it) with hubcaps and whitewalls. I added the window trim on the door windows and a set of popouts. These pictures were taken at the TX Classic in 2006




One of the next big things I did to it was to put on a set of CB Performance wide-5 front disks with dropped spindles. The spindles added some track width and I couldn't go as low as I was before, so I decided to go with a 4" narrow beam from Franklin's. I got the front a lot lower and it rode and stopped better!



The next big change was my custom 6" wide smoothies for the rear. The look I wanted for the car was a vintage Hot Rod look with widened steel wheels and whitewalls, and these wheels really helped achieve that look and set it apart. By this point I had also added the trim to the front and rear windows...





The 40 horse we got with the car had always had a lot of blowby, leaked oil, and well, it was a 40 horse. My plans for the car were always to have some power. So I started building a new motor using a DeMello 78.4 mm crank that I had in a motor from one of my previous bugs. I sent the crank out to Bob DeMello and had him check it over and then wedgemate it to my 12 lb flywheel. I bought a BugPack raised-roof case, a DRD cam and lifters, DRD Stage 6+ heads, DRD 1.4 rockers, Mahle 94mm P&C's, and some other bits and pieces from Darren Gurolla and built the 2176 myself. When the engine was getting close to completion, I went ahead and pulled the 40 horse out of the car to begin the "transformation," as I now call it.

I had David Crow build me a stout tranny with 3.88 R&P, SB main shaft, HD close ratio 3rd (1.48) and 4th (1.04) gears, a superdiff, welded gears, blah blah blah, and I got a set of Sway-a-Way axles. While I had the engine and tranny removed, I cleaned up and re-painted the engine compartment so everything would look fresh

I wanted the rear end to be braced well to prevent wheel hop, so I opted to use a Torque Bar from Aircooled.net and a transmission mid mount..

I mounted a 72 plate oil cooler with a thermostatically controlled fan and an oil flow thermostat under the package tray. With the Torque bar under there it was a really tight fit and took a lot of planning to get everything under there. I also elected to use all braided lines and AN fitting, which made for a lot of additional work making all the lines.



I ran an aluminum 1/2" diameter fuel line through the tunnel to give me some extra capacity for future power upgrades



I decided to go with a Sidewinder exhaust because I wanted to keep the rear of the car clean looking and not have a big pipe sticking out...


Here's the finished result...