Chris/Marc's project

[Chris V]

I was cleaning-up the desktop on the machine here, and found this video I took months ago, never got uploaded to Photobucket evidently...

[Chris V]

Finally hooked-up the driver's Rostra heated seat module...seeing as how the floorboards are still dry I'm not worried about flooding them. They're already toasty on a 45* night by the time I made it 1/4 mile down the road High is supposed to be 145, and low 135.

Also pulled out the type IV fan from the backseat and discovered the outer bearing was in pretty poor condition allowing the fan to wobble around and clank against the housing...So I peened the outer bearing-cap in around the perimeter in maybe ten places and it's gone from a growling and barking monster to a very quiet fan that starts humming a little bit different tune when going up/down hill and the occasional bump...The brushes look brand-new, wondering if it was bad from the factory and swapped-out?

[Marc]

Drove the car to work & back for the first time with the heated seats working today...they kick ass!

[bugninva]

[Chris V]

Well, the time has come where Dad and I can certainly agree the Monza style-exhaust has no place on the car, aka - the first substancial exhaust leak So anyway, I'm preparing to play with an idea I've had for awhile. We've got some FI heat-exchangers & manifolds from my first `77 - and I'm planning on creating a 2-1 header with 1-5/8" leading to 2" oval-tubing routed under & around the engine to tuck a 750CC GSXR muffler under the appron somewhere. Thinking a 1600 w/stock cam is the largest engine it'll ever see. Stock photos:

[Chris V]

Well, I ended-going with a 1-5/8" to 1-3/4" slip-fit collector rather than 2", hopefully I grabbed enough bends to give myself plenty of options:

These 1-5/8" flanges with 2.5" stud spacing are darn near perfect for the heaterboxes too:

[Marc]

I keep forgetting to ask Chris how he intends to control the FI heaterboxes in a `69 car with heater cables that exit low on the frame horns. It's fairly trivial to go the other way (convert carb'ed boxes for an FI car) but I see no easy way for this...perhaps just rig some small solenoids to make them ON/OFF? I can't remember the last time I ever needed to modulate the heat in our NW climate beyond what could be accomplished by rolling the door windows down - you always need all you can get to defog the windows, except on the rare non-rainy day when you don't

[Chris V]

I spent a few minutes the other day looking closely at the late chimney stack I removed from one 'box - I haven't figured it out yet, but if the exhaust works as exhaust, then it will probably be worth the effort to make the heat function as stock too. Maybe a bracket, with a fulcrum controlled by a single stock cable, can be fixed to the one transaxle side cover and some old sheathed bike cables can be run out to the 'boxes. Or perhaps graft-on/branch-off from earlier levers/fulcrum posts.

For testing purposes the chimney stacks aren't even required to be installed...but I'll probably have to modify a rear-tin to accommodate the wider fanshroud hose arrangement.

[Chris V]

I put an engine into another project car to work on the exhaust, I left myself short on 1-5/8" tubing of course So the direction changed a bit, and unless I get a wild hair should end-up looking something like this:

[Chris V]

Thinking about finding Dad some less aggressive wheels/tires for fall/winter...

These look easiest to clean and they'd fit a wee-bit better:


But I think these look best, at the expense of not fitting quite as well and being harder to clean:

[Piledriver]

Are you a Photoshop whiz or just have Gods own wheel collection ?

[Chris V]

I'm not much of a body & paint guy, so I use wheels to help make the cars look better. I've accumulated them over ten years - for less than most guys spend on Empi 8-spokes.

[Marc]

They're so many styles/widths/offsets of used Porsche rims out there that a savvy shopper can always find something to fit...once you make the initial investment to convert to 5x130, there're some sharp-looking rims around for far less than the price of new ones - and generally the quality's better too.

[supaninja]

Damn right, IIRC my twists with shipping was just a little over 4 bills and 2 of them were freshly refurbed. Cheap repop "normal" VW wheels cost more then that, and I would be like everyone else...no thanks.

[Chris V]

The recent 964 5-spokes 16x8 and 16x6 were $199 plus $130 shipping...and they have a good amount of tread on(ten year old) Goodyear Eagle HP Ultras...and the 2005 Boxster 17's on my girl's Super cost $300 w/pretty well worn tires. I spent $400 on Audi S4 17" wheels that came with Blizzaks w/fair tread left on them.

The guy that sponsors our circletrack Rabbits will let us swap our own tires and rims on his new machines at a discount rate too.

Used tires can also be found for a song too...The WCVW/Audi crowd is constantly fitting wheels/tires to achieve more dramatic styling than the next guy - so there's a lot of very nice, lightly used tires/wheels floating around in their circles. I've just made a set of 16x8's for my Buddy's Corrado - he'll be able to run 215/40's all the way around with 30mm 4-100 to 5-130 adapters front & back. The remaining 6's & 7's just may wind-up on our friend's 'Ghia.