Having owned heavy musclecars and underpowered sports cars, you would think it would be refreshing to find a light, agile, and powerful street car that you could also occasionally take out to the track. So did Ken Pearson, the 40-year-old longshore mechanic who used to own a Camaro, Corvette, TR6, MR2 Spyder, and Miata in the past few years.
Involved with car from a young age through experiences with his father, Ken was always searching for that elusive car that would satisfy all his needs. He even got close with some of them, including a 911 Porsche, but it wasn't until he stumbled upon a Porsche 550 kit at a show that the heavens revealed its master plan for Ken: he should build a 550.
What is surprising is, even though Ken was really into his Porsche 911, he'd never seen or heard of a 550 until he saw the one at the show. After checking out the 550's colorful racing heritage, Ken was impressed and started doing some research on who could fulfill his needs.
As it turned out, Greg Leach, owner of Vintage Spyders in Orange, California, was the guy Greg was looking for. Leach used to work with Kirk Duncan at Vintage Speedsters, the Southern California manufacturers of 'glass 356 Porsche replicars, but then Leach opened his own shop to cater to the 550 crowd back in 1995.
Greg's approach to the 550 is that he offers a body from his own molds and a tubular-space-style frame (welded on-site) with two roll hoops (a front one located under the dash and the rear behind the firewall). The two hoops are then connected together under each doorsill and in the front and rear of the frame. Though available as a fairly complete kit, Pearson opted to have Leach finish out the car-a sort of "special-order turnkey." This meant routing the wiring harness, attaching the 550 windscreen (Spyders came from Porsche with both Spyder and 356 windshields back in the day. Pearson opted for the screwed-down look of a 550 racer.), and prepping the body for paint (a PPG silver final coat was used, with black accent scallops on the hind fenders).
Leach and his crew also installed the bucket seats, which were covered in black leather and installed along with a four-point restraint system from Crow Enterprizes. Below, gray German square-weave carpet was used. The gauges are all borrowed from a Porsche 914, and the repop Porsche banjo steering wheel lends a vintage air to the vehicle.
Vintage Spyders offers their kits with or without a motor-typically a new 1914cc VW Type I. Ken's idea of what this car should be demanded he have one with larger displacement-as he was looking for the rocket-ship ride his old Corvette couldn't give him. So, a flat-four 2276cc engine was assembled at CB Performance using their forged 82mm crank, 5.5-inch racing connecting rods, and four 94mm pistons.
The flywheel was lightened for quick revs, and the engine breathes through a set of 044 Ultra Mag heads set up with a 42x37.5mm stainless steel valve combo and dual springs, with the heads match-ported to the intake manifolds. Gas gets mixed up top with a pair of 44 Weber IDF carbs while ignition is handled via a Bosch 009 distributor. Greg also used a four-speed VW transaxle (prepped by Trans West with a 4.12:1 gear ratio) to get the power to the wheels.
Getting the power to the wheels was exactly the thought behind building the car in the first place and, in the few short months Ken has owned the car, he's been busy tweaking and tuning it inbetween taking it out to Willow Spring's race course to put the car through its paces. Pearson also participated in the KIT CAR Challenge-the on-track testing program KIT CAR magazine runs at the California Speedway in Fontana (see page 61 to see how Pearson's car performed)-and he came away with a whole new list of ideas on what to change next.