1967 vw beetle rotary build
 

Figured i'd introduce myself and post some of my build, i need to get the post count up a bit as i've got some spare parts to sell, so here it goes.

I've been a bug and vw guy for years, tried to buy one at 14 and couldn't make a deal, vw trends were the bedtime reading, so once i bought a house and had a garage i went looking, picked up a rusted out 1967 beetle to start with.

This car was built in the early 80's, it was a typical cal-look car, euro bumpers, one piece windows, chrome removed and filled, stock motor, recovered interior, adjustable beam, and painted bubblegum pink. In the 90's it was winter driven, started showing its age, someone filled the heater channels with expandable foam, did some fiberglass "work" to fix the rust, and its basically sat since 05.

It started and drove onto the trailer and into my garage. then started to get to business.

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The plan is a fun street/strip car.

Started taking the car apart to figure out what i would need, off the top, new heater channels, one new fender, rear supports, rear bumper mounts, lower firewall.

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The stock 1500 ran pretty well, but decided it had to go to make room for some rotary power. So i picked up a 13B 6 port engine.

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Decided that since the motor was out it was time to separate the body and the pan. the only pan rust is around the battery box, easy fix.
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started removing pink paint, its a pain but will be worth it to have a solid base to start on.
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cleaned up the pan, and turned my focus on the brakes, installed an AC industries disk brake kit in the front, this changed the car to the later bolt pattern and uses ghia disk calipers and pads, easy to find replacement parts and a big improvement over the drums that didnt work.

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The pan was coated in a gloss back chassis paint after being stripped with a wire brush on a grinder (burned out a couple princess auto grinders along the way)

while i had the welder out i got the first heater channel burnt in.
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heres a shot of the first 13B 6 port i bought, its fairly complete but had pressure in the cooling system, i plan on rebuilding it at some point with port work, but for now its in parts scattered across my garage. The good news is the housings and seals were in good shape so it has potential down the road.
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mounted the seats and got the nhra approved battery box installed in the stock location.
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I would love to pick up a set of rx8 seats down the road, but for now thats not in the budget.

since i changed the bolt pattern i needed some new rims, so picked up a classic looking set of riviera's

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got myself a set of 90/10 adjustable drag shocks for the front, and new brake lines.
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continued work on the body, getting bits in primer as i go.

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Picked up a weber DCOE 45 carb, and racing beat manifold, octopus throttle linkage and k&n filter.
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Picked up a second 13b 6 port from 87, this time a strong runner that was rebuilt a couple years ago, have a dyno sheet for it as well, was 134 wheel hp in the last car. so hoping i can pick up a couple with the carb, but pretty happy with it.

picked up a vw adapter kit, vw flywheel with the mazda bolt pattern and a few counterweights from automatics, i now have 2 for the 86-88 naturally asperated motors, and a 12a one. will be posting a for sale add for at least one of them and the mazda flywheel.

i've got the patches installed on the bottom of the passenger door, and the rear quarter panel, and blocked nice and straight.

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the motor i'll be running is pretty well stripped, block off plates for the egr and omp are installed, just waiting on the mail man so i can get the rest together.

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Kafer bar, solid trans mount and rotary adaptor test fitted.

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Still really dirty under the trans, but the front solid mount is installed as well.
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AWESOME, man!

Ah My ld 13B lives again. Glad it gets to live longer since it was replaced by a dirty V8...

Good stuff...keep the updates coming. Rotary bugs are great!

cleaned up the 13B last night

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Looking good.

Postman was good to me!

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Had to mount the tank and see if it fit.
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Made an order for most of the fuel system,

Carter pump
fuel filter
hard line
AN fittings
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Stock the beetle used lots of rubber line, that wont be nhra legal, so i'm hoping to keep it to just a couple inches to join to the stock hardline front and back, should be able to keep it well under the maximum 12 inches they allow.

this is a wicked build! are the adapter plates only made to fit the beetles? or would they fit a MK1 or 2?

cool!

nice, you got lucky with that last engine. that is a Mazda Reman Engine......Blue sticker gives it away....

damn ... wth happened?

looking nice

nice

Any updates on this project?