Hello everybody! My name's Arrigo, (Arry is how friends call me
). I've been reading this forum for a while, it's a nice place with very cool people, so I think it's time to introduce myself and my car.
I live in Italy, and I got my VW as a present from my parents for my Diploma in classical guitar at the Conservatory. I guess I was 19 or 20, and here's the car me and my dad bought: a pretty rusty (though it didn't seem from the outside
) 1972 Super (see attachment)
Ok, I was a student (no money basically) so I kept the Super in its stock form for a while. I added a radio, and drove it around. We had a mechanic rebuild the 1200cc motor, which was really beat up!
Then, after a while, I started to think about going faster : ) I mean, I knew there was the trend, or should I say, a culture in the USA, of hotrodding cars and VWs were no exception. So, why not applying that to my car? Remember, at this stage I probably just started to realize that I had a Super, not a Bug, but I’ve always liked the car a lot and never thought about selling it to get an earlier model.
I felt I needed to know more about it, so what I did, I ordered a copy of Keith Seume’s book “VW Beetle Performance Handbook”. Thank you Keith for that book! I guess I read it twenty times or so! It really opened my eyes about the vw engine, the different stages of tunings and showed some very cool rides as well.
First step into performance was a 1600cc. And it was not a mild one (I basically know very little, so the mechanic was free to do what he wanted...!)
Here’s some of the specs:
CB 044 heads, 40x37, square ported
CB rods
Berg c/w 69mm crank
Engle 130 camshaft (!)
40mm Dells
1 1/2 header
High strung for sure, but sort of streetable. The car was capable of running at 150km in third gear with that setup. Of course, not very responsive under 4000, but I could live with it.
I raced it a little bit against friends’ rides, and it was fun. That’s when the car gave its best.
The car still had its stock rims, and that two-tone paint job. It was time to change for a single color and some decent wheels.
This way it looked much better.
Then I got into the cal look thing badly. Even though many kept telling me that a Super would never been a true cal look, which is true to some extent, I kept working on it. I really like the elegant, clean appareance of a california look vw, and of course the emphasis on outright performance, and that’s what I wanted my car to be like.
Anyway, time for going bigger. 1915cc.
Same heads, rods and crank. Engle 120 this time, decided to stay on the conservative side (though after driving the car a couple of days ago, it was screaming for more cam...), 1 5/8 header.
Carbs were supposed to be 44 IDFs. But, thanks to many guys that write here on the Lounge, I went for 48 IDAs.
Those carbs ARE AWESOME. But, above all, they perform like a dream.
I mean, I was scared they had flat spots, driveability issues... “it’s a race carb, it’s either ON or OFF, you can’t make it on the street”... all this stuff many people (not everybody luckily) keep saying... Well, they perform very smooth, flawlessly.
The way they scream is terrific! They sing like an organ!
I really like to thank Jim Ratto for his very interesting posts about these carbs and the Weber tuning.
So the car now is still at the mechanic’s shop, waiting for some braided hoses (for gas and oil) and then will be ready to run!
Ok, time for some pictures now!
1. Picture of the Super in its stock form.
2. Single-tone paint. Kept the original Volkswagen color (Blood Orange, If I remember right). Had the 1600 already installed here.
More soon
Arry.
The Cal-look Lounge
Author
