1990-1993 (FORMERLY 4 YEARS- NOW CONDENSED TO 3)

[Eddie DVK]

Some pictures from this era at Buggy House. The guy in the shades is Frank. You can see all the stuff that time-stamps this picture in the background. Other guy on the phone was a kid our age that worked there part-time, Javier, a great guy that we had tons of fun with.

Jim that first foto...
I am ashamed to say it but I always kinda liked those colorfull upholstery doorpanels that where also in ads in hot vws/vw trends... 
 

[max Der Bahnstormerz]

Great stories Jim, keep them coming, yep working in a shop was great for walk ins with stuff for sale. I had a German guy who used to pop in every3 or 4 months with only NOS Bosch 1950's head lamp lenses for sale, he only ever came in with 10 or so of them and they were approx $3.00ea. I ended up getting 50 or so of them off him in the end.

[Fastbrit]

Fun reading! Realise that our paths must have crossed at shows back in the late 1980s/1990-ish as I was in the USA three times a year back then, going to a variety of events along the way including Jamboree, the Goodguys VWevents and a whole bunch of PRA and other non-PRA drag races. Buying my Wilwood brakes from SCS, served by this tall skinny guy in glasses who I later came to know and love as Mark H. Seeing the rats running around the back warehouse area at Johnny's Speed & Chrome on Beach... Seeing Bill's car at a cruise night at the burger place on the corner of Beach and Orangethorpe way before I ever met Bill. Happy days - when Pomona swap meet was really good, too.

We used to have a bunch o fun at Pomona, I am thinking I taught Keith the concept of buying & selling stuff out there. It was pre internet so there were plenty of deals out there. I remember Mark H. had upset one of the vendors out there and I had to do the deal for him. It was for a set of gasburners, I am pretty sure it was $180 for the 4. Great times.

Going to Pomona with you and Mark was a blast. Remember the four IDAs on a V8 manifold we bought together? We both had 'customers' after a pair of IDAs, so that more than covered the cost – then you sold the manifold, too. To Oggy, I think? I bought a perfect EMPI GT wheel for $180, got accosted by a guy a few minutes after who offered me $250. Sold it to him for $300. When I hummed and ha'd about selling it, Bill said 'How else you going to make that money in such a short space of time?' He was right. Bill getting bored while Mark and I walked all round the cars for sale area, drooling over Vista Cruisers and the like. Bill getting bored, looking at the sky and saying 'We should go - it's going to rain soon.' I look up and all I can see is a faint smudge of white, no bigger than a handkerchief, in the midst of a perfect California blue sky. There used to be such great pickings there – some dubious ones, too. Seeing a group of young guys selling high-dollar race parts for next to nothing made you suspicious as to their origins. But, damn, I miss it. EBay has a lot to answer for...

[kafercup]

Jim, remember the 44 idf's with type 4 manifolds i bought for I think $200 at the Parstheaven show and swap meet around 1993-4?  Ended up finding a 914 owner on one of the early message boards shortly after who had a set of 48 IDA's and said they were too big for his motor.  He traded them straight across for the IDF's, I just had to pay the shipping. 

[Sam K]

That stuff still happens!
When I was still doing upholstery a guy came in with a 69-70 convertible. All stock but with an original EMPI Eliminator shifter on it. I traded him straight up for a stock shifter
My buddy has a bunch of those stories. People just drop valuable stuff off at his shop every now and then. Or sell it for pennies on the dollar. It's the only perk that makes me wish I owned a VW shop

That happened to me this summer too. I traded some obnoxious guy an EMPI Hurst knock off shifter for a mint Eliminator. He was acting like he ripped me off. Ha ha.

[Jim Ratto]

Autumn 1990, The Neighbor From Hell

By sundown that Sunday, when the 2054cc first barked to life, I had let the engine run to break in cam, changed oil, re-adjust valves, and bolted the new dual quiet packs on. Once the garage was somewhat picked up I lowered the car down, and did my best to set the ignition total advance to 10' BTDC with a test light, and the idle on the new Weber 44 IDF's. Getting them synchronized was really nothing, just unscrewing the drop link rods from the crossbar and making both match on the Syn tool. But setting mixtures (like the DRLA that preceded these) was tedious, since the mixture screws were about 3/8 of an inch from the side firewalls, and then there were the idle air bleeds. When I had the DRLA, somebody showed me what matching the airflow between barrels would do to the idle quality. It seemed worth the trouble. I spent an hour, bent over, arm jammed down in between decklid and body, hand getting imprint of a Weber 44IDF jammed into my skin, almost permanently. I remember how nice it was to have brand new carbs again, but this time on a brand new motor too. When I finally got to each mixture screw, the idle quality was easy to hone in on. The air bleeds, again, took some work, but after the effort the engine rewarded me with a very smooth, hard and hollow sounding, consistent idle. I was amazed, that in spite of the (what I thought was) wildish high spec cam (Engle 125), this engine idled nicer than my 1641 with the dual 36DRLA and Engle VZ25. The night air brought a chill into the garage, which now had that warm and ecstatic smell of new engine and curing high temp paint. And carbs which seemed to be running well. I connected the drop links and adjusted them for same throw and equal timing.
Once buttoned up, I cracked the crossbar a few times. The way the engine responded to the throttle was pretty telling. There was no delay. Jabbing on the center arm of the cross bar sent my 914 tach swinging wildly and the engine belted out a deep shriek, a combination of growling, open, unfiltered Weber throats, the chatter of the valvetrain and the unmistakable muted scream of a good set of dual quiet mufflers on a bigger cc engine. And it would snap right back to a rock solid 1000rpm idle. I felt the soles of my feet tingle and my hands get damp with anticipation... if it sounded this fiery just revving it in the garage, how would it sound opened up on a long stretch, on a desolate road?
You're all probably thinking I jumped in and took off and stood on it, right?
Wrong, my first drive was me limping the thing around the block where my parents lived, at hardly any throttle. Probably never got up on the main circuit. But it was promising. It didn't spit, leak, knock, smoke or die. I rolled the car back into the garage and stared at my accomplishment. I realized I wasn't alone. Our next door neighbor was now standing behind me in our driveway, glaring, and then said-
"You managed to make it louder?"
I was enraged. Here I was, for how many months, eating $0.99 cheapie burgers in Jack in the Box drive thrus, collecting parts, carefully assembling this thing, AND bolting the mufflers on just today? And now this guy complains? This would be the beginning of many, many problems with this neighbor. I reassured him I was done for the day and closed the garage up. Sat down for dinner with my family, but not really present. All I could think about was how crisply that engine sounded when the throttles were cracked. I was sitting there, snapping my right foot, up and down on an imaginary gas pedal under the dinner table. Thankfully my dad asked "How'd it run?", so I gushed out "Oh man, better than I thought it was going to. It is very smooth and revs right up. I didn't really open it up when I took it around the block though."
"Sounded good," he said "Want to take me for a ride in it after dinner?"

More later

[Jim Ratto]

Some pictures from this era at Buggy House. The guy in the shades is Frank. You can see all the stuff that time-stamps this picture in the background. Other guy on the phone was a kid our age that worked there part-time, Javier, a great guy that we had tons of fun with.

Jim that first foto...
I am ashamed to say it but I always kinda liked those colorfull upholstery doorpanels that where also in ads in hot vws/vw trends... 
 

I always wanted to see if those color inserts were squishy. They hung up there for years. When we finally took them down they were sun-bleached and brittle. You can see all the Vitaloni mirrors on the shelf underneath the door panel. On the right wall hung every diameter, color and spoke style Formuling France wheel. Think they were $49.95 at the time. Hanging above the windows were all the different exhausts. We sold Supertrapps too for all the Baja guys. I actually tried to put a big 4" black Supertrapp on my '67 once it had the Super Flow motor and 1-3/4" exhaust on it.
I think the door panel was something we got from TMI. We sold their stock panels too, and all the Scat ProCar panels too.

[Brian Rogers]

Ooooo don't leave hanging, waiting for your dads ride.
This is gonna be good.

[Neil Davies]

Your dad sounds cool. My dad is my "enabler" too - if I have a daft idea, he's the one that tries to figure out a way to get it to work! Now, about that first ride....

[Brian Rogers]

Paging Mr. Ratto.  Please don't leave us hanging for the next installment.

[Jim Ratto]

Your dad sounds cool. My dad is my "enabler" too - if I have a daft idea, he's the one that tries to figure out a way to get it to work! Now, about that first ride....

This was a rare instance. To be brutally honest, he had little faith in my involvement with working on my VW. When I first got the nerve to begin working on the car in early 1987, which meant when I got home from high school (still on my BMX bike), I'd do things like tighten exhaust clamps, re-gap points, adjust fan belt. He'd come home and see the tools out and come down hard, "don't start taking that car apart, you'll never get it back together running right, " etc... and in some cases he was correct, and thankfully his lack of confidence mixed perfectly with my rebellion and stubbornness and I did exactly what I was told NOT to do.

Now, 30 years later he's complimentary of the nature of the same car and what I've done to it. I think the addition of the Recaro seats masks all the rough edges for the old man... hahahaha

[Zach Gomulka]

My dad was also the enabler

Your experiences remind me so much of my own, only about 10 years later and one state eastward. It's like revisiting that time in my life through the words of someone else, thanks for the memories Jim.

[Brian Rogers]

My dad would come out and help me and the nieghbor boys with our cars with the provision that mine was stock. Didn't stop me from doing big and little tires or redoing the wood for my pickup bed  but when I opened the hood he watch that I only used stock parts. '55 Ford F100 pickup in Whittier, Calif. in 1969, had a lot of fun in that truck. Thanks Dad.

[Bill Schwimmer]

My dad would come out and help me and the nieghbor boys with our cars with the provision that mine was stock. Didn't stop me from doing big and little tires or redoing the wood for my pickup bed  but when I opened the hood he watch that I only used stock parts. '55 Ford F100 pickup in Whittier, Calif. in 1969, had a lot of fun in that truck. Thanks Dad.

Where in Whittier? I was there until '75 when we moved to Orange.

[Jim Ratto]

Autumn 1990, Dad Goes for First Scare Ride

Ooooo don't leave hanging, waiting for your dads ride.
This is gonna be good.

We just went for maybe 5-6 mile run. It wasn't going full kill or anything. That happened later that night.

We jumped in, strapped seat belts on and I fired it up. It was so crisp and on, I don't know what worked so well, but it just cranked and immediately fired and had this silky solid idle and prompt throttle response. Now, 26 years later, after trying big ports and pretty big cams, I think it was the small cross-section intakes and ports, combined with the Engle 125 and IDF's on somewhat short manifolds. In any case, in the context of not really having driven it with any gusto yet, at the time, this was the first thing that impressed me. I ran a blue roller pedal at the time (because all the cool VW kids did then) and the leverage of the pedal or the way the Redline linkage worked, seemed to quicken the way the engine snapped back. I also had a Scat Drag-Fast shifter at the time (the GB one was a few months away still). This shifter was a real guessing game. The throws were so short and 1-2 plane was so inline with 3-4 it was easy to engage 3rd when you meant 1st, etc. But again, in the Bay Area, if you wanted to be taken seriously, the Scat shifter was a must have  .
We headed north on Sylvaner Dr, and headed for Vineyard Rd, which traveled east through wine country, to Livermore. This, 26 years ago, was sort of no-man's land (not today). I had watched a few street races out here a few years earlier, but technically it was more of a "handling course" kind of road, with several slow 2nd gear acute corners and as many fast, 3rd gear sweepers. And never any traffic. Urban legends ran wild in these parts of where I lived about fatal car crashes and ghosts and all kinds of stuff.
We turned right onto Vineyard and I was gentle with the new motor, just letting idle circuit take me up to 3500, then shifting. The new trans made the shifter feel like a stiff rifle bolt-lock, you had to be very deliberate in selecting gears. The green Kenney 2300lb pressure plate gave a new sensation too (the 1641 I had previously had a Sachs bus clutch).
Despite me driving it very-lightheartedly, I could tell it was a whole different world than the 1641. Even the way it pulled away, as you engaged the clutch, it had this strong confidence and felt like it could get two cars rolling from a dead stop. The intake sound was much more pronounced than with the smaller engine, especially as the revs came up. The best part of all of it was how the engine would come into its own, just around 32-3500, and its sense of urgency increased. My old 1641 did this too, as it had a pretty vigorous cam in it (VZ25 Engle), but the big engine wasn't waiting for anyone. If you kept the throttles fairly wide open and let the rpm's get to 3500, you were going for a ride. The sound changed too, from the low bassy growl coming mostly from the Webers, to a more raw scream. And I was shifting it at 4000. Second gear was very useful, as I was short shifting from first, then slowly giving it more throttle in second, and the car bolted forward with real purpose. In third gear I was outdriving the lights. I looked over at my Dad. He had one hand on the dash handle and the other clutching the vent wing post. He was staring at the 914 tach, I asked him "Well?? What?" All he really said was "Jesus,  Jim...."
We went about 3/4 of the way to Livermore and turned around. As we U-turned, I could smell the warm new motor in the chill of October nighttime. As we straightened out, I gave it a dose of throttle and the rear tires lost grip and the car went a little loose. Into second, with a little throttle again, right up to 4000, with that hard shove in the back getting harder around 3500. Now third. Up to 75 mph, with the RH sweeper maybe 200-300 yards ahead, ease off the throttle and the engine made this lusty, deep note as it came down in rpm in overrun. Once past the apex I got back on the throttle a little and savored that cam-induced pull. The engine was obviously wanting more rpm, more throttle, more cold evening air.
In a few minutes were we pulling the car back into the garage, my Dad not really saying much. We got out, I opened the engine lid to make sure it wasn't puking oil or anything. I couldn't find anything wrong. I couldn't believe it was running and it felt much more serious than I had expected. The way the engine expressed its authority, once the revs come up, it actually scared me some.
By now it was around 9pm. I wanted to drive the car to work the next day. It had been off the road for probably 4-5 months by now. Plus I wanted the acknowledgement from the guys I worked with and worked for. I spent some time cleaning the car, really just spit-shining it.

By 10:30 I was planning to get to sleep.

Who was I kidding? Grabbed the VW's keys, clicked the garage door opened and fired it back up. I knew how the 1641 "felt" on specific roads  I drove often. Now it was time to see what this engine would do. And I thought maybe Frank would like to go for a bit of a ride.

[brotherbob]

Jesus JIM!

[max Der Bahnstormerz]

 

[Brian Rogers]

I went to Whittier High class of '70. Lived just by Beverly and Norwalk Blvds. Worked the Texaco and Mobil stations now both gone.

[ida2332cc]

jim this is the best read ever, the suspense is killing me. you should write a book or get a monthly column in a magazine, your attention to detail is great it really makes you feel like your there.
I like many others have lived through some good times in vws and a lot of that came from my father and his performance vw involvement in Australia and witnessing first hand as a child being his right
hand man. lots of street racing in the late 80s and early 90s in his turbo charged vw bug blowing doors of many a v8, mee looking over at the speedo and seeing the needle back at zero before him changing
to 4th gear. still now I think how fast were we actually going.

[Bill Schwimmer]

I went to Whittier High class of '70. Lived just by Beverly and Norwalk Blvds. Worked the Texaco and Mobil stations now both gone.

Cool , I lived where Colima & La Mirada Blvd joined together, right before Lambert. My brothers went to Cal High, I went to HS in Orange.  It was a fun town, lots of cool cars in that time period.

[Brian Rogers]

I suppose we're the last to take a trip down Whittier Blvd. before they shut down the cruising. Good time to grow up in SoCal.

[Cornpanzer]

Great stuff Jim. 
I was having similar dreams in the same era...just a little further removed. Thanks for sharing.

[Cornpanzer]

Going to Pomona with you and Mark was a blast. Remember the four IDAs on a V8 manifold we bought together? We both had 'customers' after a pair of IDAs, so that more than covered the cost – then you sold the manifold, too. .

You guys still owe me a beer for that!  I think it was $1000 for the whole set-up?   I had virtually empty pockets and my wife standing nearby...

[karl h]

hey Dave, long time no hear.....

[kafermeister]

Great stuff Jim. 
I was having similar dreams in the same era...just a little further removed. Thanks for sharing.

Same here.  ...just a bit further south from Dave. 

I can't tell you how great it is to read your story Jim.    I have spent my whole life Northern KY.  The magazines were all we had so reading your story really helps add detail that you didn't get in the mags. 

[Jim Ratto]

Hi guys, sorry for the absence. Between a business trip and busy Cub Scout season, I've been unable to recount much in last week or so.

This weekend I'll get into that first real long drive in the car, that late Sunday night/early Monday morning, stretching the new motor's legs all over backroads around SF Bay Area.

Then the big fun trip... just a few weeks later, in Nov 1990 from SF Bay Area to Los Angeles, Orange County and then out to Phoenix AZ and back to Northern CA. The motor was just a few weeks old. All kinds of unexpected fun, scares, and learning new stuff all the while. Like what it's like to be held at police gunpoint in Norwalk CA at midnight. Or what it's like to drive through an army of tarantulas crossing I-10 at night in AZ.

Lots more to come.

[Bill Schwimmer]

Going to Pomona with you and Mark was a blast. Remember the four IDAs on a V8 manifold we bought together? We both had 'customers' after a pair of IDAs, so that more than covered the cost – then you sold the manifold, too. .

You guys still owe me a beer for that!  I think it was $1000 for the whole set-up?   I had virtually empty pockets and my wife standing nearby...

Hey Dave!! ,how are things?  Yes, we had great times back then. Thanks to Keith for bringing it to the masses it was the 2nd coming of the California Look back then. Seems to be in a bit of a lull right now, but I am sure it will take an upswing. History always seems to repeat itself.

[Brian Rogers]

Oh goody, can't wait!

[Fastbrit]

Going to Pomona with you and Mark was a blast. Remember the four IDAs on a V8 manifold we bought together? We both had 'customers' after a pair of IDAs, so that more than covered the cost – then you sold the manifold, too. .

You guys still owe me a beer for that!  I think it was $1000 for the whole set-up?   I had virtually empty pockets and my wife standing nearby...

Typical response – it's all about the beer as far as you're concerned. 

[Neil Davies]

Going to Pomona with you and Mark was a blast. Remember the four IDAs on a V8 manifold we bought together? We both had 'customers' after a pair of IDAs, so that more than covered the cost – then you sold the manifold, too. .

You guys still owe me a beer for that!  I think it was $1000 for the whole set-up?   I had virtually empty pockets and my wife standing nearby...

My dad and I saw a similar set up at Santa Pod years ago, Webers and manifold all painted red. The guy wanted about £800 for all four and we passed! I couldnt afford to go halves and Dad wasn't sure we could sell the other pair! About 2 years later I paid a grand for a pair...