Rotary 70 vw bug
 

I saw that there is another rotobugger on the forum as well! :) So for my first car, my dad decided to take a car and build it with me so I gain the respect for it. Boy do I have the respect now. Over 3.5 years into the build, i have gained the respect idea. So, we took a ROSB (rusted out sh*t box) and tore it apart. Took the body off the pan. Cut the floor pans out, welded in new ones. Put in an adjustable torsion bar system, bilstein shocks, swaybars, cnc hydraulic equipment, put porsche calipers and rotors on, kefar bars behind engine for strength, wilwood disc brakes front and rear, 2 inch wider fenders with the elephant tail light, made a custom wire harness, rebuilt the bugger engine, painted the car lotus red, added a fuctional custom air scoops on the sides to cool the engine compartment, motorcycle mirrors, roll cage, indash touch screen dvd player, racing seats i nthe front, a rhino bucket seat for a rear seat, custom interior, removable steering wheel, the list goes way on. Finally finished the build, we drove it down the street a couple times to find the bugs. Took it home, we looked at each other and knew it wasn't what we wanted. We took out the beautiful bug engine, sold her. Bought a 13-re cosmo rotary engine. Bought the adaptor plate from rotary to bug trans. Put it in, made the pressure pipe, water pipes, exhaust. Added water lines under the car, radiator in the front, meshed the front end for more air flow. etc etc. Took a break for a few months to save some more moolah to finish build. Wiring of engine, some gauges, oil cooler, radio antennae, and other miscellaneous parts left to do. more pics and updates to come!

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First time trying to add a pic, hope it worked. The following pics are in my album as well.

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pics before the bug took shape!

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cut the pans out

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body somewhat primed

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the new pans in. porsche stuff on. swaybars on. bilstein's in.

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oh, and urethane all around.

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body back on pan, painted lotus 2004 red. porsche wheels on. 18's, kumho tires, 265 rears and 235 fronts.

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Engine rebuilt and put in.

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last pic for now. This was the finished picture before the real german look bug rotary project started... We drove the bug down the street a few times, looked at each other and knew it wasn't right. So we sold the beautiful engine off, and bought a cosmo 13b-re engine. We bought the adaptor for the engine to fit onto the trans. Put it in, put in a radiator upfront with meshed front end for more air flow, water lines under the car, custom water pipes, custom exhaust with around 6 feet of exhaust tubing with 2 resonator mufflers. The pics of the rotary in will come soon. Its close, wiring, a few gauges, oil cooler etc to finish. The stock ecu is a troublesome part. We are not sure where the pos and neg wires are for the ecu We just wanna power the ecu to turn on. nothing fancy, just get it to turn on. any help is appreciated!

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inside of car, push button start, removable steering wheel.
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rotary in!
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radiator in
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and another bug pic

new rotar pics will be uploaded soon. lots more touch up work done to the engine

very impressive that bug is sweet..
with all the pipieing it looks like a face lol..

i wonder if all that travel is to much work for the stock water pump.

i would try find a factory service manual for the cosmo should have a pin out for the ecu.

after a little searching i cant for the life of me find any cosmo manual i guess your in the dark on this one.

WOW!!! Nice German Look! I can see how its been 3.5 years well spent. Beautiful Job! :icon_tup:

Very nice! Your fabrication skills are impressive. Lets see a video of that puppy!

Thanks everyone! my camera doesnt take long vids, but ill borrow one once i figure out the wiring and then try to start it. Yeah, the cosmo is hard to find exact info on, but it works. Will definately hope the stock water pump will work. if not, more modification ;) And with many pipes laying around it took some time but the custom pipes came out. The pressure pipe was interesting because we tried to hug the engine as much as possible so that some version of a deck lid may one day cover it all up haha.

These are some pics I just took. This is the recent stage in the project. Water pipes are fitted completely. Pressure pipe is being repainted black cause it was wrinkle finish to match but we can't find anymore krylon wrinkle finish to touch up the nick we put in it on accident. :p murphy's law right?
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This black pipe coming over the manifold is the air intake pipe. It runs over the top of the rotary to the right side and we have a MAF with airfilter attached that fits on the bottom of that pipe.
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hope everyone likes it and more info and pics soon to come once my father and I finish up a remodel on a bathroom sidejob. The money from the side job will help finish the project, and may be put to use on a microtech standalone ecu if we can't get the stock ecu to run :/

That's slick! Nice work A+!

Nice bug. I am also building my rotary 70 bug. Not as nice but I'm on the shoestring budget. As for ecu ill be using a megasquirt seems to be easy if your a do it your seler. I would think about changing that urithane steering coupler. They like to wear out and break fast. This guy in my vw club had one do that recently when it was less than a year old. Great build again.

If I was to go back before all the urethane was in, i wold have just gone to rubber on everything. After listening to all the vw ppl rave about urehane for racing, i must say that the car is rough on the road. So rubber would be a much nicer ride for street use, which my bug is. A daily driver,... thats stuffed ;) I am kinda tired of seeeing the local hondas with they're enormously loud exhausts thinking they're 8 second cars. I'd like to show up in the bug and slap em around a few times haha.

Well after talking to the black mamba rotary bug guy (check youtube for his bug) he has helped me figure out what I need. S it seems I need to buy the microtech lt10 standalone ecu, msd ss coils, oil cooler, and the microtech x4 ignitor box. These items will just need to be wired and then I can finally start the engine and hear the rotary rump in the back of the bug. hope its not too loud. Now I just need to save about 1500 for the parts listed above and I'll be good to go. In a few weeks I'll be rockin and in good shape :)

wow waaay cool! :icon_tup:

Haven't done too much lately. sorry for the lack of updates. My father is finishing up his side job this week and I recently got a job. My paycheck comes this weekend and combined with the sidejob money my father and I will be ordering the microtech ecu :) As of now, the only progress is that the back seat and passenger seat is out to make it easier to work on the back area. Also we bought the k & n air filter and attached it to the intake where the MAF was spose to go since we don't need a MAF anymore. And the exhaust and water lines are 100% complete. We discovered the voltage was dropping because of a voltage regualtor we had in line for the old bug engine that didnt use an altenator. So we took that out and bypassed that whole system to go straight to the battery. Now just to put the seats back in and order up the microtech ecu and I am having trouble looking for some bosche coiles. I believe The ones my father said he wanted were the hec715 ones. Any help guys?

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if you look closely you'll notice the motorcycle brake pump connected to the parking brake since we have a modified parking brake from a motorcycle :) And one of my amps under the seat as well as the skateboard wheel we madefor a roller pedal :)

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And here is where the battery is, we put the biggest one we could in there. ANd a glimpse of the sound deadening and my 12" sub in the back ground with our custom sound box for the sub. We put over 3 layers of dynamat on the floors, doors, roof and back area along with some felt sound deadener (shiny material) to try and keep the bug riding more silent.

More updates soon as now money is ocmrest of the parts! Can't wait !!! :)