15 months ago I bought a crusty old 1971 914-4 that had been sitting in a garage for 20 years getting peed and chewed on by all sorts of creatures.
I started the project with a plan of it being driveable at the 1 year mark. Since then I've done an engine build, carb rebuild, brake rebuild with 5-lug swap, fuel system rebuild, interior rebuild, suspension rebuild, and some general freshening up. Oh, I forgot to mention that my wife and I had a baby too, safe to say it's been a pretty busy 15 months.
Here's the build thread if anyone's interested.
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=277349&hl=
Anyway, the result is good. It's running and driving, the 1911 is strong and runs well. Handles great considering there are no sway bars. Tail shifter is as vague as you imagine though, and the engine is still sub 100hp so it's not incredibly fast.
It's first real public appearance was at the June C&C that I attended with a good friend in his 911.
Exiting a cloverleaf he pulled away like I was standing still. To add insult to injury a minivan pulled away too. This lit a little spark, I wanted more power. I started crunching numbers for building the type 4, goal is around 150hp. Can you get 150hp in a type 4 that's home built? Sure, lots of people have done it. But there's an even better, more expensive and headache inducing option...
A friend of mine owns Flat Six in Minneapolis, MN. About 40 minutes from me. Sent him a message inquiring about core 6 cylinders and ended up coming home with this.
It's a 2.2 from a 911T, the 125hp version. On top are a pair of Zenith carbs that will work fine for my purposes after a complete rebuild. It turns over smoothly and you can feel when it comes up on compression. Good signs for an otherwise unknown engine. If you had followed along in my build thread you'll know that I got some amazing deals, both for parts and for the car itself. The 6 does not disappoint in that regard, but I wont be sharing the details here.
Perhaps the best part of the deal is that he said if I get into it and find that anything is FUBAR, I can get a no-charge replacement from him since he has Parted several 2.2's. Again, this is a friend, I don't expect him to do this for anyone.
With his help we laid out a build plan. Going to get the T cams reground to the E profiles paired with higher compression pistons. Cylinders are iron so I can bore those. Goal is around 150ish hp. It'll be a "budget" build in the sense that I'm not going for huge power and will be doing the assembly/cleaning myself. I won't be cutting corners with machine work and inspection though.
I will be mating it with a side-shift trans using the early 911 flywheel. flywheel and bulkhead weld-in mount already on order. It's not likely that I'll be doing a conventional 914-6 oil tank, it just seems like so much money for what you get. We will see though, as time progresses I may change my mind.
This will be a driver, not trying to make it a show queen or original to a real 914-6. I want to keep the utility of both trunks but I want the mechanicals to be functionally excellent.
Time frame is significantly longer than the original build. Planning at least a year or two considering the work and money involved. I'll update this thread moving forward and not my original build thread, kind of a new chapter if you will.
Fortunately the 914 is perfectly driveable while I collect and rebuild.
So here's to the next chapeter, however expensive and time consuming it may be.
Quite a change!
Enjoy!
Tom
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It's only money and time and lots of it, but worth it.
I can provide you a 6 tank kit for $350 if you want to weld it up?
Your plan is solid /drive while collecting parts is the way I did it.
Then sell the 4 to a deserving fella for his upgrade or starter mill / then prepare for the scenery out of the side windows to blurrrrrrrr as the crescendo of music. This, created by air down 6 throats, fan whirring its' siren song, chains and sprockets doing their coordinated dance moves in the middle of the repeated symphony thru the gears, and best of all, your hair (if you have any left after the conversion process) being pulled back in a negative G-force action akin to the action that made John Glen go bald prematurely ....
Great looking car, doing a "stockish" Type IV rebuild myself and it does add up quickly!
I see no /6 in my future so I'll have to live vicariously thru people like you
I suppose i should add that i always have second oil tanks etc. I even jave a vellous tank I can make you a deal on.
The stock 914-6 tank is a really nice way to handle the oil system. Fill, filter and hose connections all in one. Plus it sits in a place that doesn't take up any room in the car - if a little awkward to install.
Don't forget to budget for oil lines, oil console, engine tin, engine wire harness, engine cooler, throttle linkage, headers, exhaust hanger, exhaust, gauges, shift linkage, rain hats, starter (maybe) and all the extras that crop up along the way. Good luck and have fun.
Your sick, very sick! Good luck with the build!
Good luck with the build! I'll be following your progress.
BTW - Nice artwork!
Doug H.
Many of us are doing /6 conversions right now. We are all here to help. Get the best parts you can afford, and have patience.
Do take up Ben's offer on the external oil tank, you won't regret it.
Started the teardown and did some much needed garage cleaning.
At least your car is 1 piece. My engine is still apart waiting on crank amd rods.. And my car is waiting on a floor pan and various other patch areas..
You will not regret this conversion... However a nice oil tank would be great, and an oil cooler up front for those hot summer days
You will never regret spending this money, and your resale will be greater...if that ever happens...and it does... a well planned six will always hold its value
But I understand the money thing too
That car looks great!!!
So your friends with Chris, His 911 looks so good since he painted it.
Started a little bit of the tear down. Head studs are all solid, doesn't seem like any have pulled but I'll know for sure once a new tool comes in and I can proceed further.
Chains and tensioners look ok-ish, of course they'll get replaced but I'm thinking there wasn't any catastrophic damage.
All matching spark plugs, good sign. Gasket sealant on the chain covers, someone has been in here before. Port matched heads to intake gaskets and presumably the carbs.
Lots of gunk and build up in the cylinder cooling vanes. Overall it's just very dirty. My cup-o-tea.
Been bagging and marking all of the fasteners, should make reassembly a breeze.
So far so good.
After talking with someone who's been building these engines for years, and a close friend who built one recently, they both lean toward non-oil fed tensioners, but with the safety collar. I know everyone has their own reasons, but Aaron is one of the best in the business and really, I mean really knows his stuff.
Waiting to connect with a friend that has the correct 46mm crows foot and cam holding tool so I can move forward with the tear down. In the meantime I got a nice little box from 914rubber yesterday.
That's seals for both trunks including bulkead, and all of the door/window seals. Love it.
Yup I am actually using mechanical adjusters and running a tad loose as the engine grows as it heats up thus the chains will get tighter.
You are nuts! LOL
You had this car on the road driving for what, a month and now you want more power? You definitely have a sickness...
I think you should just find a roller somewhere and start a GT tribute build
(by the way, I'm quite jealous!)
There is a way to make the Carrera tensioners no fail called the Jerry Woods mod.
Just an FYI, it's what I did.
I'd seriously take Ben up on his offer, the proper tank is a way better solution on a /6 conversion.
On the engine case I'm also in the camp of a full teardown, you wouldn't build a new house on an old crumbing foundation.
At minimum I'd get the case case savered, not timeserts, proper casesavers.
I doubt if I will do Carrera tensioners.
Slippery slope........
I'd at least recommend using some tensioner collars (guards) if not going with the pressure fed tensioners. It is easy to be tempted by the 'while I'm in there' disease to continue with modifications.
BTW and just an FYI Ben would have given you a better deal on the tank than the ebay guy.
So one option for tensioners when talking extensively with Henry at supertec was to drill into the bottom of the chain cases and put a removable plug in there so mechanical adjusters could be adjusted in the car and then plugged .. Might be an option.
That's great...but I bet you still go over budget.
I have a 70's 911T in my 914. If you need parts for the zeniths let me know. I acquired a few of them.
Yesterday I made the drive to a friends to pick up the specialty tools for removing the cam gears, got a little box of goodies from his engine build as well, case sealer etc.
So, now I was able to dig into the motor more (technically, I could have without the tools, but potato tomato) Started with the cyl 1-2-3 bank. pulled the rockers, cam, cam housing, heads, and cylinders.
cam is 901.105.133.0R which is the stock cam for this engine (1971 911T). I'll be measuring them up to see if they've been ground at all.
cam - #3 cyl end
cam - middle
cam - #1 cyl end
#1 head
#2 head
#3 head
all of the cylinders looked like this
everything is generally caked in either carbon deposits or oil/grime, but is in generally good shape.
So, everything looks pretty good. And by pretty good I mean nothing terribly terribly borked. i.e. no valve/piston contact or broken rings. The whole thing came apart pretty easily, no complaints.
Of course I've been bagging and tagging all the hardware, bigger items go into my build cabinet
Tore down a bit more. #4/5/6 pistons, cylinders, and heads all in equal shape to 1/2/3 that I pictured above, no terminal damage so far. To be honest, to me it looks like a pretty good rebuild by whomever did it.
Not pictured, but the chain wheels look almost new.
Went to inspect the head studs and found something...
Looks like someone installed case savers already. Judging by the fact that all of the cylinders and heads came up with no issues, I'd say they're straight. The one on the left is slightly proud of the surface, where the right one is flush.
All of the studs on this case half have them, didn't even think to flip it over and check the other side, I got called away right after I took this pic.
Again, no history on this motor. Complete unknown. So it's nice to see this when I very well could have been looking at toasted valves, heads, chains, and much more.
Hard too beat the sound and feel of the flat six.
Since your buying new pistons consider larger barrels and pistons (if possible). EBS racing at least used to have many options. When I did my motor I could have up'd the liter size by .2 for only a few hundred dollars (I was buying barrels anyways). and this will increase horsepower and overall value. Also fyi Henry at Supertec has a good oil pump rebuild program if you are doing the bottom end.
I get all my parts from Henry and he just did my oil pump as well.. Looks like you have time certs and not case savers not that it really matters. my case has case savers that Henry installed.
Did you find any chunk s in the sump screen?
screen is clear of any/all chunks.
Yeah I have time serts looks like, real case savers are larger.
So, given that it's not going to be a high compression motor, I think I'll just keep these and not drill for case savers. Especially since these are all straight and no boogerage. What do you guys think?
I would be quite happy with what you found on the inside of this /6 engine. That looks like a nice start, and you have saved some money in that it isn't all fu*ked up like a lot of "unknown" or "it ran great when pulled" engines can be.
Looks lucky thus far. My previously rebuilt 2.7 core engine was rebuilt by someone that didn't know what they were doing.
Now I know why they didn't feel it was making the power they expected.
It'll be fixed right this time, but you should be able to reuse lots of those parts when they're cleaned up. You could always build up your case to Henry's 2.45 combo if you have budget
Case split, nothing scary!
I took the easy way and had Henry rebuild my 2.7, and would follow his advice on anything with these engines. I had a Timesert pull out, so had them replaced with the Casesavers.
Be sure that the internal intermediate shaft stud is at least timecerted as well. Henry also modifies the idler arms with a longer bearing surface (like the later Carrera design) to help avoid binding of the arms. Definitely use the stop collars if you retain the original style tensioners as well.
A properly assembled 2.7 is a wonderful motor in a 914!
Initial inspection and measurement taking tonight. Made up a few sheets to keep track of measurements to compare them to spec. Also so I can note installed stud height, hole condition, presence of inserts, etc.
Good news! Crank journals are all perfectly in spec, almost all right down the middle.
Need to machine up an adapter to check crank runout. If that checks out then I'll find some place to inspect for cracks. Is magnaflux still the standard?
Crank to intermediate shaft gear, as well as the distributor gear. Few nicks in the soft gear, but nothing bad IMO, I'll clean it up a bit and reuse it.
All of the big end rod bearings have significantly more wear than the crank main bearings.
Rod #1
Rod #2
Rod #3 (probably the worst of them)
Rod #4
Rod #5
Rod #6
Finally, I didn't clean this part up at all but wanted to snap a pic of the cylinder markings.
Good news is that rebuilt rods are fairly inexpensive..
Ps I would not hesitate to het those cast cylinders nikisiled I did (actually Henry did) because he said by comparison I am running a much more mild engine then allot of people did. Also said stock headstuds are fine with cast cylinders.
Ok, been a long time without an update.
Picked up a new set of Micrometers, and a dial bore gauge. Micrometers measure down to .0001" and bore gauge is metric, measures down to 0.01mm.
Remeasured the crank, all measurements are verified. it's well within spec on all accounts. I will be getting it polished and magnafluxed at a local place on the recommendation of Aaron.
I machined up this bracket to hold the dial gauge, works pretty well.
Went to a local car show, man I'm glad that it's running and driving. having the 4-cyl in there is good for morale. Took some photos on the hour long drive home.
1st stop - Afton
2nd stop - St.Paul
Then I got on the road and headed for Minneapolis. While I was driving I noted that the hwy surface was terrible. At one point I looked in my mirror to see some object bouncing down the road behind me. It was headed right for a Prius, who swerved but still took it right in the kisser. Unsure if it was from the 914 or not I was pulling over to see what the damage was to their car but they just drove away... ok then. I pulled off to check out my car, nothing seemed off, must have just been some road debris that I hit.
3rd stop - Minneapolis
And that's when I noticed it. The mystery object tumbling down the highway that smacked the Prius? It was my exhaust tip. It was rusted right at the exit of the muffler and the bumpy roads must have shaken it loose. Looked back at my photos from the day.
Cornfield: it was there, in it's usual location and angle.
St. Paul: it was starting to give, tilted down.
Minneapolis: gonzo.
Started tearing down and seeing what I'm dealing with on the carbs.
From my research these Zenith 40 TINs are pretty great carbs, just not a lot of room to hop them up for more power. i.e. getting different venturies and jets might be a chore for non-stock configurations.
So I have two sets, I can mix and match parts to get one good set and return the leftovers to Aaron.
One set had a detonation through the intake which started a small fire, the venturies melt easily and a few were beyond repair. This set of carbs is complete, but in poor shape. It's also the set that came with the engine.
The second set is in much better shape, but it's not complete. I'll be rebuilding the second set, and pulling needed parts off the first set.
This brings be to something I'd been thinking about since I got the engine.
There's a constant battle between two sides of who I am. One side is saying more power, bigger pistons, forged everything, high compression, go big or go home. While I'm in there might as well do PMO carbs, and dual plug it.
The other side of me is saying to rebuild the stock engine, keep the pistons and cylinders since they're in good shape. New rings and a cleanup hone maybe, then button it all back together with new bearings and gaskets after any case work is done. I'm unsure what to do.
Going big, I'd have a really peppy motor with a ton of money into it. It'd be fast, plenty fast for the street. Realistically to build it bigger it'll be 2-3 years since I don't have a lot of cash to throw at it all at once.
On the other side, I could have a 2.2 six in there and running next spring. Sure it'd only have 125hp, but that's still a huge jump over the 4-cyl. To add weight to this option, I've always been more of a fan of driving a slow car fast. Being able to wring out a car on backroads is a blast, with lower power cars you can do that without risking tickets/arrests/lives.
I'm not really concerned with adding value to the car, at this point I think the sum of it's parts are worth more, and I don't see that changing with either build option. Plus, my wife has expressed that I'm not allowed to sell the car. Which is ok, I want to keep it around.
Started cleaning up the pistons and cylinders.
Tore down one of the heads, didn't grab any measurements but there's definitely more play in the valve stems/guides than I'd like. I assumed I would be doing valve guides and everything that goes with it but inside I secretly hoped that they'd all be tight and perfect.
Family news:
Things are pretty crazy right now. My wife's sister is moving to Maine. She had been our childcare and it was working wonderfully. She lives just a few miles from us and is right on the way to work for each of us. We did pay her, but it was much less than what a typical childcare center would charge, and we had the benefit of Wren being with someone we know and trust 100%.
She gave us 2 weeks notice. It's hard to blame her though, they need to get moved and settled before school starts for their two kids. It's just a crappy situation.
Even worse, my wife went in for an ultrasound to check on the stents. They clotted back up. This is clotting through the blood thinners, and she's been at the high end of her INR range for weeks. Just bad bad news. She'll be getting a CT scan tomorrow to see if there's anything going on that the doctors hadn't seen before. Then meeting with the hematologist later in the week to see if there are other medications or options that could stop the clotting. Praying that we don't need to do Lovenox (shots) every 12 hours for the rest of her life. She's 29 years old.
In the short term, we'll be going back in to the hospital for 2-3 days for more procedures. Many of which are the same ones she's had before, i.e. ultrasound catheter in her leg over night, sucking out clot, balooning up veins, etc. They'll check the stents and see if they need to be replaced or if they can be salvaged, and hopefully there will be some good news somewhere in there.
Baby is healthy, for the most part. She has a bit of a cold currently. We're constantly in awe of how lucky we got with her, she is a great little squirt. Awesome sleeper, super chill, and rarely has meltdowns.
Thank you all for your positive thoughts and prayers, we appreciate you.
So, back to the car/engine...
Been talking with people that have much more experience than I on these motors. Based on everything so far, I'll be bolting the case back together with the new bearings and the crank, torquing to spec and seeing how it turns. I'll only be sending it out if there is binding of some sort. I'll check bearing clearance with plasti-gauge for a little piece of mind as well. If all looks and feels good it'll get reassembled with new bearings/seals/gaskets and run as-is. I'm sure I'll get some flac from some, but that's ok. With current budgetary limitations (yay childcare!) I wouldn't have this thing built for years to come, in which time I would surely loose interest.
I'd love to stop in while your slapping it together, might learn something..
I'm pretty good but not great at body work, and painting, and fabricating and figuring things out and making it work. But I have never assembled a porsche engine case up, 4 or 6.So always excited to learn. Matt Johnson built my engine with Henry Schmidt of super tech consulting him on the engines unique build using offset rod bushings and such.
Running stockish 2.2 T headers and upgraded ignition,
30mm vents .
125 mains,
52 idles,
air correctors are stock,
going really well as per last tune,not hard to set up if you do bench tuning before,set up pump jets and general setting first.
You can get more power from these carbs ,lots of parts for them now too.
Edit more to add;
My research indicated these were more of a emissions carb hence the small stock venturies and matching small main and idle jets,a quick calculation got me to use 30mm venturies which are pretty much spot on for 2.2 litre capacity.
Main wear points are the spindles themselves,the bushes seem to hold up well enough,the ends of the pump rods wear in the pivots as do the throttle cam roller pins.
Be very careful with the small steel air bleed screws,if seized they can break very easily,PO of my carbs had broken one off so I had to drill it out...rather scary.
The accelerator pump spray jets can be blocked ,I found 2 were that way on my left carb,found that out when I bench tested with full fuel bowls.
Buy the PMO made float level tool as it is handy for checking bowl fuel levels and needle and seat operation.
You can pretty much buy all the parts but looks like you have a few spares ,good luck .
I've been collecting parts, i.e. all the bearings, new rod bolts, gaskets/o-rings/etc. No real work has been done on the engine otherwise.
Also been 3D modelling the engine, but I have a different thread for that.
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=315481&hl=
I had the car out for the annual Eurowerks fall drive (Saturday) and car show (Sunday)
I put about 200 miles on the car in all and it was great.
Update time, been holding off on moving too far forward until I get a chance to 3D model the case, but I did get something done.
Swung down to a friends shop and stuck it in a big parts washer he has.
The inside is pretty clean so I stuck the two case halves in lightly bolted together.
Pic is a bit blurry, thanks potato phone, but it's mostly cleaned up now.
I'm going to go over in by hand and clean a bit more, but now it's ready for more inspection and for me to model it.
Been awhile since I've posted any project news for this, it's been cold here in MN and my garage heater isn't set up. On top of that I've had the 3D model project and the baby keeping me busy.
I've been collecting parts and planning though. New valves and springs, heads are ready to go to the machine shop to get rebuilt which will probably be next month at some point.
Also scored a set of MSDS headers. Went with the 1.625" O.D. headers. Wanted to be able to increase the displacement in the future if I want to, and these shouldn't be too big for the 2.2.
I've got the engine case half 3D models and the carb 3D models pretty much done, so that means it's getting to the point of assembly. Or at lest further checking... my next step is to assemble the crank in the case, torque, and check for binding.
In your experience was it 1.625 I.D. or O.D. ?
When I chose these I was discussing the size with Marty at MSDS and he didn't seem concerned with them on a 2.2.
Thanks for the feedback, I have some messages out to a couple people on the issue. Might need to exchange these since they haven't been mounted or coated yet.
edit: heard back from Aaron over at Flat Six, the guru I try to run everything through. He agrees that 1.625 is probably too big. Now to see what Marty thinks and if I can swap these. I'm guessing I'll have to pick up the shipping charge both ways, so that sucks...
Looks like I'll be holding onto these until the engine is in and my tuner gets a crack at it, if it's bad I can send them back and exchange for a set of 1.5's.
Update: Today I went out and did a test assembly of the case, bearings, and crank. The goal was to see if the crank would turn freely while the case was bolted together and torqued. Unfortunately it looks as if my case falls into the same category of so many other mag cases. The crank turned smoothly at initial torque of 15lbft. But when brought up to 25lbft it would not. For referenced the case and bearings were clean, light smear of regular engine oil on the bearing surfaces.
So it looks like I'll be saving more and then sending it out to Ollies.
On the bright side, the type 4 1911 is still there and should run fine this season. And I have everything to do a side shift trans swap to bring the driving enjoyment up a bit.
2.4 crank and rods.
I am sorry to hear that..
My experience is that main bearing bores ovalize and that is what squeezes the crank when torquing. Ollies will mill the case split line and rebore the main bosses. They will then measure the deck heights and will provide spacers to correct the cylinder heights back to factory. Very slick and puts you back at square one for the rest of the build.
Thought I should update the thread.
I got my heads back from the shop, seats were virgin so that was nice. New valves, guides, seals. Springs were low mileage units I had found else ware, all were checked and were within spec. He had one exhaust stud that he had to drill/replace.
I love new parts.
So now is where I am supposed to start saving for the case work, except I already had a few other things in the pipeline for the 914 so I'm finishing these off.
First things first, the front end needed a bit of an uplift. I liked the LE style front valence, and the non-foglight grills I had were warped badly. I found a page detailing the use of modern driving lights in place of the OE fog lights. It was good on my wallet so I went through with it.
Fit and finish isn't the best, but acceptable for a driver. Light output will be far greater than what I had. They are driving lights, so much brighter than fog lights. I will be aiming them so that they don't blind people.
LE replica valence is of great quality. I had to drill the mounting holes of course but it all lined up pretty well. Quick shot of satin black to tie it all in.
After that I pulled the meatballs (roundells, number dots) off. they were ok for a season but I wasn't feeling them anymore.
This bumper has seen far better days. New, or even good condition used bumpers are out of my price range with the 6 build going on. So I'll either leave it as-is, or I may try to pound out some of the dents and then paint it gloss black... project for another time I think.
Next on the list is the side-shift trans swap. Rudedude set me up with just about all of the parts I needed. Ordered a couple soft parts since I was going to be in there anyway and I needed the conversion bushing. I got it all stripped down and was ready to start reassembly and that's when I discovered that the new conversion bushing I had ordered was the wrong part. I looked online where I ordered it and sure enough it's listed as a part for an early-late transmission conversion. Turns out it's just a stock replacement for an early car... so a new one is ordered and should be here this week.
The trans and bar are in at least. I'll be rebuilding the axles with new boots and grease, and might try to do something about my muffler.
All in all, R&R of the transmission with the engine and exhaust still in place was easier than I anticipated. Using just a floor jack. To help line up the drive splines I grabbed both of the axle flanges and turned them back and fourth the same direction while simultaneously pushing the trans to the engine. Snicked right into place on the first try.
This weekend I am going to try and finish the swap and get the car tuned up. Might make it out to a local swap meet for another project of mine... a 2007 VW Passat...
Finally, next on the list is a new set of vinyl for the roll bar. It's been sitting in a box just waiting for it to be warmer. I have some new chrome trim I'll be mixing and matching with what I have to get the best possible set.
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