Bought this replica '57 Porsche
356SC Speedster in July01. The SC was a limited edition racing model noted for it's
flared fender wells. It is built on a custom racing frame with a
air-cooled VW drive train. It came with dual Webers on a 1600CC
motor. Call it 70hp. That doesn't seem like much, but the car
doesn't weigh much either. Probably around 1200lb. So 70hp would
translate to ~200hp for a car of normal weight. Which of course didn't
seem like much.
So I had a new motor put in. 50% larger at 2.4L. So then I had around 120hp. Which for a normal car's weight would be ~300hp. Didn't see like much either.
So I started thinking (frequently a mistake). I have a 50% bigger motor trying to breath through the same intake/exhaust manifolds and carbs as it's little predesessor. That can't be right. That just doesn't seem American somehow, I thought. So back to the shop the car went. That was 11Aug01.
A couple weeks later, it struck me that if I'm upgrading both manifolds and the carburators all in one fell swoop, I might as well have them put a turbo on it. So a turbo shopping I went.
As of 23May03, the car remains in the shop. Oops. I guess I went a bridge too far.
It's at the second shop now. And after no one could get the big new carbs to cooperate with the turbo, we went to fuel injection. But I guess that had it's puzzles too. I call the shop every week to try to inspire them a little, but my success has been, ahem, limited.
21 months in the shop. Sheeze.