Cold Source Racing 73 Super Beetle for CMP

I wouldn't worry about blowing up so much as getting blown off the track, that thing couldn't weigh more than 1,500lbs if even that much.

Hmm, idea, aero mods designed to push light-weight cars off the track, either while passing or being passed. Team Massive Lateral Turbulence.

i'd sugest putting that thing down in the weeds! there is way to much room for air under your super. Get that thing dropped stat!

It is!  If we could drop HALF our car's weight (which is what it would take to get to 1500 lbs) it would be like adding 50 extra HP.

BTW, you got any other pics?

Right now the main mod we're planning on is just to the nose; to reduce its propensity to lift skyward. As for cross winds, there should be enough buicks, crown vics and old benzes at CMP to provide pretty continuous shielding for a little bug.

Here are a few more pics. Will try to post more after we get a chance to run some test laps.

engine-some assembly required?

Assembled!

Would you let this man drive your kids to school?

Our chief engineer with his home fabbed dash-panel

I hear ya. We've spent alot of time on Shoptalkforums and SBO trying to figure out the best low-tech/low-cost handling enhancements for Ole Herbies. We did relocate the battery to the front right (next to the right strut tower) and have switched to taller tires in the rear to give it a little rake. So far so good, but we'll have a much better idea of how well it handles when we take it out to the local track for testing the weekend before CMP.

Be sure to bring at least one full set of spare brakes with you, CMP is well known for chewing through them like pizzas at a weight watchers convention. If it's at all possible, stuff the biggest brakes you can under there.

my dad and i race a formula vee when we're not running saabs, and we use Carbotech brake pads. but only 2. the top shoes on each front, the bottoms and the backs we keep stock because those just don't see any real stopping loads. but we're only 1025 with dad in the car. 1045 with me (i need a diet!) not sure what the extra 450lbs would do to the ability to woah the car down... since brakes are free, you may be able to get a disk conversion in the front (if you don't already have) on the relatively cheap from dunebuggy places.
as for the revs, if you can, perhaps look for the shorter final drive geared transaxles. i'm guessing since it's a superbeetle, it's running the tallest final drive ratio, 3.8something. you want a trans with the 4.125 or shorter to get your car in the meat of the [snicker] power

Allow me to show you these fine examples of what CMP does to brakes.

If there's a brake upgrade you can do and it won't set your wallet on fire, then do it. For our GTP we wound up spending more on upgrading the front brakes than we paid for the car itself. We went from the 11 inch rotors with single piston calipers OEM setup to 12 inch rotors and dual piston calipers from a Camaro. It wasn't cheap but it made a huge difference on the track.

Wow, we're not racing hard enough. Brakes are lasting us 2+ races for a set of front stock type pads. Haven't even needed to change the rear shoes yet.

The base level '88 civic has 9.5" front rotors.  The stock prelude rotors are about the same size as the 11.1" integra rotors we upgraded to.  We ran autozone pads our first race in the civic because they held up fine on the Merkur we ran the previous race.  In retrospect it was probably because the Merkur was running on 2-3 of the available 4 cylinders for 90% of the race and never able to build up much momentum.

I think most non-sporty cars are severely underbraked for Lemons.

I guess they didn't get the bigger rotors until they got more power with the 4th gens.  I owned an '84 and an '86 Si back in college, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything about their braking performance back then as most of my time/money was focused on just keeping them running.  Computer controlled carbs and vacuum tubes FTL.