When Allan Cummings bought a $1000 1968 VW Beetle seven years ago, he already had some full scale plans in store for it. First of all, the idea was that Allan and his son build the car together, with it - finally - being handed down. Secondly, as Allan had already owned a heap of Beetles previously, he did not want to retain the services of the Volkswagen flat-four. "A noisy, gutless, oil leak job. I hate them," in his own words! After doing a bit of research around the traps, it appeared that the ideal donor engine would actually be a Mazda rotary - which is, of course, a lot more powerful and about half the size of the stocker. Oh, and you can make that a turbo rotary, thanks very much!
Two weeks after parking the excellent-nick '68 Beetle in the home garage, Allan and his son got dirty stripping the body, doin' a bit of beating and replacing everything that looked tired. It was then sent on its way for a professional spray job. The colour is a subtle beauty - it's Alaskan white with calculated hints of blue and purple pearl dropped in. As Allan says, it looks brilliant - but he's almost too scared to drive the car, just in case it gets chipped. A chip in a custom colour mix would mean having to go through the rigmarole of another full respray!
With the Beetle returned to the Cummings' residence and a cover draped over those revived curvy panels, it was time to give the VW mechanicals the big once-over. Allan did the smart thing - he went out and bought a Series 4 RX7 half-cut, which he gradually picked apart and transplanted into the back of the Beetle. As you could imagine, it was a tough job; nearly everything - engine mounts, brackets and all the rest - required custom fabrication. Of course, fitting a water-cooled engine also meant having to install a Torana radiator, a 16-inch electric fan and a couple of stainless steel coolant pipes running along the body's underside into the stock Mazda water pump. Interestingly, there was enough available space to slide the whole she-bang in without modifications to the intake or exhaust manifolds.
There was no way that the stock airbox would fit in though, so the intake system now commences with an aftermarket K&N air filter. This filtered air then whizzes through the stock Mazda compressor and enters a very clever intercooler set-up. Allan did try running the exposed factory air-to-air intercooler, but he got much lower intake temps by sealing the core and running it as a water-to-air unit - working with a 12V caravan water pump and an air-cond heat-exchanger sitting flat under the floor. The exhaust system sees a great (but not dirty great) pipe out the back. It's stainless steel 3-inch from turbine to tailpipe, with just a single straight-through muffler. This system, Allan says, raised the standard boost pressure by around 1 psi to a maximum of 10.5 pounds. It obviously flows pretty bloody well!
Splicing the standard Mazda engine loom into the Vee-Dub's body loom would have taken something of a miracle, so it was decided to go for the then-common practice of teaming a fuel-only aftermarket computer with a stand-alone Mazda electronic ignition. Fuel gets pushed into the twin rotors via an electric pick-up pump in the standard 40-litre tank, a VL Commodore main pump and the stock set of injectors and fuel rail. There's a return line back into the tank, of course. The precise volume of fuel that gets pumped into the engine is determined by a MicroTech Pro 1 system, which came delivered with base maps already programmed. Western Australia's RotoMotion performed further fine-tuning for maximum power and driveability. Maximum power, in case you are wondering, is a low-stressed 220hp at the back wheels (with no deliberate increase in boost). Ignition is looked after by the combination of a Series 1 RX7 electronic dizzy, twin coils and a MSD booster. An 8500 rpm limit is enforced.
Allan says there was drama and more drama when it came to the gearbox.
Not wanting to have to change things unnecessarily, Allan first tested this motor bolted to the standard manual VW gearbox (after having taken out the stock auto). A 2400lb Kennedy pressure plate and a Kevlar puck clutch were sandwiched in between. But "that gearbox lasted two seconds, thanks to the tremendous torque of the engine." The driveline that has since stood up quite admirably, however, is a set-up that uses Kombi gears (machined to suit the Bug housing) and a one-piece 3.25:1 Super Diff from the 'States. A Gene Berg shifter makes for sportier cog changes.
Suspension wise, the Beetle's nose has been dropped by 2 inches and runs a 26mm front stabilizer, while Type 3 Torsion bars and KYB shocks have gone into the rear. Allan says that the traditional VW axle tramp problem is also now a thing of the past - it just squats down on its 195/60 Silverstone rubber and takes off! Thankfully, Allan recognised the need to upgrade the brakes. Behind those 15 x 6.5 inch TSW Hockmesh rims are Type 3 discs and single-pot calipers at the front, and Fiat 124 discs and single-pot calipers on the rear. Again - not surprisingly - the swap to Fiat rear anchors required "a lot of mucking around". A Type 3 master cylinder is used.
Noise - as Allan said - was one of the worst aspects of the VW engine. Your head would ring after you stepped out of a Beetle running a hot exhaust! The turbo rotary - with the short 3-inch system - is a pretty loud bugger as well, so Allan completely lined the interior with 35mm thick sound insulation. "It's 100% quieter inside now," enthuses Allan - plus it's a whole lot more comfortable than standard too. Mazda 323 cloth seats have been bolted in (together with the matching trimmed door trims and standard rear seat), the hood lining is trimmed in velour, and the dashboard has been upgraded with a cluster out of a N10 Nissan Pulsar. A SAAS steering wheel completes the indoor luxuries. It's all nice stuff, without going overboard and sacrificing practicality.
Now - as ever - Allan's Beetle project did take a couple of unnecessary bad turns. The gearbox hassles are all part of this kind of thing, but - somewhere during the piece - Allan's son lost patience and handed the job completely over to ol' Dad. He's since moved onto building a full-house drag/street RX2, which should run in the low 10s. However, this halving of the number of working hands was soon followed by Allan seriously putting his back out. Allan struggled on, nonetheless, and in '96 (two years after commencement) the Beetle was completed. Of course - with a car of this calibre - you can understand why Allan wasn't so keen to drive it everywhere; he's got a Scubie WRX for that. Eight thousand kilometres is all that the car travelled over the next seven years - motoring only to and from the drags and numerous car shows. These brief showings were well worthwhile though. They yielded a creditable 13.2 second (at 109 mph) quarter mile timecard and "bundles of show trophies". In fact, Allan's VW snowballed to the point where other VW show competitors grew completely sick of its domination! But - obviously - there were still quite a few people that could appreciate the quality of the car; barely a couple of weeks after our shoot, Allan sold it to a fellow "true enthusiast".
Now it looks like Allan will get stuck into helping out with that killer RX2!
Contacts:
Myaree Trimmers
+61 8 9330 6932
RotaMotion
+61 8 9378 2666
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