And the weekend toy. Tubes, hammers, welders and mud.

Basically, it started off as a 1969 VW Beetle. Then some american put bigger suspension on it to make it into a Baja model. Then another american dude chopped the entire body off that, and put a spaceframe in to make a beach buggy. And a bigger engine.

It competed in the Baja 500, dissapeared in a shed for many years, got shipped over here, new owner realised how fooked it was, and we bought it.

Then we did the sensible thing, chopped the front and rear suspension off that we wanted (torsion arms on a beetle so the whole units come off as a beam), whipped the engine and 'box, and built a new buggy around them.

Was originally intended as just a toy for playing in at minimal cost - didn't work....

Anyway, after playing with the 2180cc veedub motor in there around some fields, we took it to a local safari event, and promptly grenaded the motor....doh.
So then we chopped the back off, and stuck one of these in:





RX-8 Renesis motor, small, light, very compact, ideal replacement for a flat-4!

Anyway, lots happened, loooaaads of work since then, but I'll go through that later.
Shook it down on a drift day at Oulton:



Currently in the middle of an S2000 conversion though, as we've had enough of this:



It's been good fun though:











^^Yep, I'm a photo whore, you'll soon find out I like lots of pictures

It's about 880kg fully fuelled/oiled and including driver+codriver, so relatively light, it was ~260bhp+ with the Renesis, runs a Renault Master van transaxle (£20 from the scrappy, bit cheaper than the Sadev most competitors run at £12k...)
Suspension is VW-beetle based trailing arm system all around, heavily modified though, 4x remote canister Fox monotube coilovers at the rear and two at the front cobbled together out of Fox emulsions and some old Bilstein reservoirs, roughly 14" of travel at the rear (depends on tyres fitted), 12" at the front. Has secondary torsion bars at the back for progressive/adjustable bumpstops
Brakes are wilwood 2-pots up front, 4-pot Hispecs in the rear, Carbotech pads all around on some custom steel discs we made up, bias pedal box and it also has fiddle brakes (we can brake either side of the car independently to steer the car or lock a spinning rear wheel)
16 x 7J steelies at the rear (we made for it last year, has 15's as spares), 16 x 6J at the front, wrapped in 235/70R16's at the back and 195/70R16's up front, Fedima Extreme Evo Mud/Snow tyres.

Basically, lots of scrapyard bits, big hammer, welder, sorted.

MINT !!!!

Love all the pics mate, propper weapon that !

that is absolutely brilliant, you'll have to let us know when your next taking it out to an event and we (well defanetly me) will come and support/ make cups of tea/ just watch lol, ha ha, awsome little monster

scrapyard parts ftw

Definately good fun, unfortunately most of the events are a few hours trek!

Have a few more piccies:

That's fucking awesome. Like cum in a shores mouth awesome.

It doesn't do too bad, even with a power deficit to the big boys and being 2wd with a clonky old van gearbox instead of 4wd with a sequential, it's usually well inside the the top 10 at most events.

Year before last we actually leading the championship halfway through the season until the engine shit itself :/

tell you what, this is absolute briliance, i'm getting mad ideas to actually get on and build the beetle ive allways wanted to, this little beasty is pure insparation,
thankyou

Im wi shrek, i'll come support/make tea etc. this look fuckinggggg awesome.
Do you take passengers?

that s so epic,
I want

I would have sold it you this time last year

Bit of progress this week:

The worst part of all builds, just when you think you're nearly done, stripdown time!



Back together and new rear suspension mocked up. Reckon that'll handle a few bumps eh?



Slow going, but the gofasterjuice can get to where it's needed now too, twin injectors:

Space is getting rather tight, and there's still a fair bit of plumbing and heatshields to go in yet!

Sweet Jesus this things absolutely bonkers, makes Doris look tame compared lol, this some smart fueling goin on there, what ecu are you using? Deffo can't be stock now surely? And to say your running out of room is a little understated, and Christ how much rear travel do you need for them shocks? What are you planning to drive over grand canyon? I love the car it's properly bonkers right up my street lol, keep up the good work, looks great

There's a touch over a foot and a half of rear suspension travel there

It's running on a DTA S80, not exactly cheap, but reliable, upgradable, and fast and easy to map, pays for itself if you keep it on a few cars/engines.

Sorry I've just realised, is that a super charger squeezed in there aswell?

for the ecu, what do u reckon to mega squirts? I'm looking into a stand-alone jobie for Doris, and was wondering what to do about a bass map, and what I should do about mapping it once setup? Simular to yourself it's not exactly an easy setup as its not exactly an out the box engine, so to speak

Of course, everyone should have a great big supercharger

I've got a Megasquirt here to go on the Pug, nice cheap way of doing it so long as your up for plenty of fine tuning yourself

Yeah, I've got no problems fine tuning ;-) lol

I've got a wideband on the Pug so I'm just going to run a relatively safe base ignition timing, get the fuelling close/slightly rich and then work on the timing once I'm happy it's not going to melt a piston.

Sound, I need to stop being tight and buy a wide band for Doris as well, I've got a cheep af gauge and that's pretty good for idle and of boost but bleeding useless on boost lol

Yeah, those gauges on a narrowband are fucking useless tbh

Bit of framework to make it easier to shape the rear bonnet/scoops, yeah, you know how I said the engine bay was quite tightly packed?

Shiny Shiny Shiny Shiny Shiny....






Much more fun than wiring anyway.

Getting there with the rear arms, Ed finished a jig and tacked up one side just to double check clearances:





And new rear discs, same weight as the old ones but 320mm diameter instead of 300mm.

christ on a bike man alive, this is what child hood wet dreams are made of, that looks fuking awsome, i have to see this in the flesh at some point, amazing work, realy impressed:D      

what can i say.... keep up the good work  

After trying the double diaphragm clutch the other month, and almost getting a hernia, went hunting for a tiny pull-type hydraulic slave cylinder, eventually found one that would fit, so onto the other end:



Yes, strange shaped bulkhead with the fuel tank behind plus a requirement for the fluid reservoir to be behind the bulkhead led to a strangely shaped pedal too. Only a mock up (the ally tube is too soft to support the bearings long term, probably make a sleeved one), but seems to work ok.

And everything fell off the car again so the rear geo. jig could go on to finalise the rear arms:



Bit slow as were moving back into our big workshop now the power is getting sorted out.