Long story short, I had decided to build a new engine for my Beetle. It wound up being a 2275cc with an Engle FK 8 cam, CB Performance Wedge-Port heads, CB quick tune EFI, and overall, the best parts I could get my hands on. The engine produced around 200 horsepower, and in a 1500 pound car, it would do 0-60 in just over 4 seconds! I never did figure out how fast it would go because it would make the needle peg on the factory speedometer pretty easily.

Despite having such a huge amount of horsepower available if you needed it, it was surprisingly tame and easy to drive, but when you stepped on the gas, you'd better hold onto something tight!

So one day I drove it into a drive-through fast food place, and it started to run really rough. I killed the engine, and when I tried to start it again, the starter just turned over and did nothing. After a bit of diagnosis, I figured that the only explanation could be that it sheared all 8 dowel pins in the crank and flywheel. After all, if I put the car in gear and stepped on the starter, the car would move under the starter's power, but it would not turn the engine over. Everyone said I was crazy for thinking that it sheared all of those hardened-steel dowel pins. I had to get it towed back home, and my parents were real kind and paid to have it shipped to their house, where my dad could work on it.

Well, it turns out that my diagnosis was completely correct. As you can see from this picture, there are 8 halves of dowel pins in the crank, and the other halves of them are in the flywheel!

In the end, it's going to be a while before I get my Beetle back. It has proven to have WAY too much power for its own good, and I'm going to have to drop a couple grand into getting it driveable again. But still, it was worth it!