VW Beetle Performance Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Upgrading Engine, Transmission, Suspension and Brakes

The book is very well written and it is very interesting for a VW fan. I recommend this book.

The VW Beetle Performance Handbook was for someone more technical than me.

I found VW Beetle Performance Handbook a very informative book especially for a beginner. It had musch usefull information that I will surely apply to my car. Yet I feel this book lacks in description. It lays out the preliminary knowledge but in no way talks about wether larger carbs or cams will affect driveability. It's engine enhancements advice are definetly dangerous for example it tells you for the ultimate motor an 84x94, 48 Weber IDA, 44x37.5 heads, large cam, MSD 6al ignition, and merger header with a turbo. He left out such important things such as the valvetrain geometry and the connecting rods. With this combination an engine could easily make 3 times its original output yet with no modifications to increase the valvetrain strength the most likely recourse would be for your engine to suck a valve and shoot a piston through the case effectively wrecking the piston, rods, head, and maybe even the case. So in summation good information yet a little vague I would suggest this book to gain a preliminary knowledge but consult something a little descriptive like the VW Interchange Manual.

This book is great, it deals with most of the issues surounding Beetle perfomance. There are a lot of books around detailing how to uprate your engine, but this book also deals with suspension and more importantly braking systems!

A great 'how to' book that gives you general guidelines in all the important areas as to how to go about building a custom Beetle. Probably not quite detailed enough for an experienced Beetle customizer looking for all the latest and greatest mods. It's aimed primarily at someone doing this for the first time. His other book, 'Air-Cooled VW Engine Interchange Manual' (5 stars), is the next step down as far as detail is concerned and concentrates on engine specific information.