What is cooler than an air-cooled Porsche 356! Seeing the freshly rebuilt original numbers matching engine going back into the 1959 Porsche 356 A 1600 Convertible D by Drauz is very cool. It is a 1,582 cc OHV air-cooled horizontally opposed four-cylinder 1600S engine with dual Solex carburetors.
One of just 473 built this special Porsche 356 succeeded the Drauz built Porsche Convertible Ds. Founded in 1805 D’Ieteren is still in the automotive business today.
Now painted back to the original Ravenna Green color this Ghia shows off the body lines well. Needing just about all of sheetmetal replaced from the doors down this car has been rescued to live on for many more years.
Removing the racing seats and installing a set of plaid buckets into this 1980 Porsche 911 makes all the difference in the interior. It is now not only functional but stylish.
The engine for the 1966 Volkswagen Beetle has finally arrived from GEX International and this extra power from the dual port heads should be a huge improvement. GEX offers a 36 month warranty on this engine and claim they have run them all on the bench before shipping.
Before: 1973 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. Ran when parked but that was 30 years ago! Although rust has taken hold of this car it is complete and has the very rare dealer installed air conditioning. Look for faster than normal progress on this one as we have a deadline.
We have had the DynoJet for just shy of a year now and by the end of the year it will have seen a fair share of interesting makes and models. The DynoJet is great for much more than just finding out how much power or torque a car makes. You can analyze the fuel to air mixture, ignition condition, finding leaks, engine break-in, and even aero dynamic effects on gearing.
With the fab shop shut down for the holiday it is a good time to share a glimpse of what we are doing in there. Media blasting, powder coating, metal forming, and welding all happen in this room. We stock around fifty colors of powder and will do from a single part for a walk-in customer to supply production parts for machine shops and manufacturers.
The parts have been rolling in for the Beetle and it is easy to see changes day by day now. The new black cloth interior is going to compliment the orange paint job completing the great look on this Volkswagen.
Porsche had the early cars built by various coach companies for them. In this picture Porsches built by Reutter Karosserie, Drauz Karosserie, Karmann, and Porsche AG in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen are all represented.
Built by Drauz in Heilbronn this car is the rarest of the production Porsche 356 models ever manufactured for a full year. The Convertible D was meant to be a “weekend racer” and was built with a removable windshield among other significant differences from the Speedster.
After a lot of work the engine is rebuilt in the Porsche 911 and it is ready for many more miles of driving. Broken head studs were the first indication the engine needed to come apart on this one. 1987 was the first year the 911 got the Getrag G50 unit with improved synchromesh.
Today a new crate engine arrived from JCS Volks Machine for a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle that we have sorting out. The engine arrives almost complete, just add an air cleaner and exhaust, mount your clutch and then bolt it up!
There are parts of a project car that can be a mystery. The owner of this Buggy got the car most of the way and we worked out the last bits to make it stop and go.
She loves her 69 but the engine hadn’t been given any love. The previous owner had sealed the entire engine with just RTV and no gaskets. Once cleaned up and sealed this one will be good to go for years.
After restoring the chassis this winter and fixing rust issues on the body the two are finally ready to be mated again. The Chrome Orange is going to look amazing in the sun on the Beetle and nobody can wait to see the color painted on the outside.
Dual Weber IDF carburetors can be tough to tune and how would you know for sure that you have it just right? Using our wideband O2 sensor and Dynojet we can tune your jet sizes and make sure that your vehicle is running correctly at more than just idle.
Like many vehicles that are brought into the shop, the engine on this camper came in buckets that we were tasked to reassemble. The owner of this one bought it new at the factory in Germany and traveled the world in it picking up stickers to apply to the perimeter along the way.
Thanks to the BMW Car Club of America Iowa Chapter for stopping by today and visiting with us on this Saturday morning.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by on Saturday, especially the MidCoast Road Rally. It was so much fun to watch everyone try their skills on our remote control car race track in the back and give the Burgies Grumman Olson coffee truck a steady line of customers for it’s first time out of the garage. We have never had this many people or vehicles here at one time before.
