Many, many years ago I drove a 64 chevy van. I replaced the straight 6 with
a 327 v-8 I got out of a 64 corvette. It pushed 355hp on the "dyno" and I
could easily "wheelee" the fount 4� to 5 feet off the ground, 13 to 15
seconds in the 1/4 mile, corner on 2 wheels, and many times raced to 140mph
but the toll-ways of Illinois did not allow much more due to the curves,
traffic and fear of police. It was heavier than vanagon but about the same
length and width.

The drive shaft was only 18" long, snapped it off more times than I can
remember, snapped off the front of the pumpkin once, and ruined many, many
transmissions. Just couldn't handle the all that power. Had to bolt the rims
to the 18" wide rear tires or the rims would spin and rip out the tire bead.

Still miss it, had to stop with all the craziness when first of our 8
children was born.

Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian T." <nobleman36@YAHOO.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 11:05 AM
Subject: 130 MPH Vanagon <-- simple solution

> It's pretty simple, either you want to make a
> Euro-sports van like what Raimund, Eric, Andrew,
> Bruce, Ben, Sudhir, Raj, me and many others ... or ya
> don't.
>
> If you do, it's like anything else.  Think about what
> your intentions are, plan thoroughly and then execute.
>
> Any hot rodder will tell you it's a total package
> deal, the vehicle has to have all facets addressed to
> include safety.  Wheels don't just arbitrarily
> seperate from any vehicle.  Lack of maintenance and
> attention to detail cause failure.
>
> Further, no one has implied in anyway that 100+ is a
> daily occurance :-)
>