914 1.7 Knocking Sound -- New Here, First Post, Horrible knocking coming from the motor Options

[UberElectricEagle]

Greetings. I am new to the Porsche world and I purchased a 1972 914 1.7 about a month ago. It's a pretty nice car over all, but I think the motor, or part of the motor, might be toast.

When I purchased it, it badly needed a muffler. The knocking noise was harder to notice and sounded more like an exhaust leak over the horrible sound of the lack of a working muffler. The car seemed to run decent even with the poor exhaust and the price was good so I bought it. I just wanted a decent car over all that I could drive around for fun on sunny days before the winter gets here. It came with stainless heat exchangers I installed and I installed a really nice dual muffler from Dave at Triad.

When I fired it up with the new muffler, I really noticed the knocking when I drove it since the all the exhaust leaks were now sealed up and I wasn't wearing ear plugs. At idle it's not too bad, but once I get going, the knocking is very noticeable. It's odd too, because it's not real consistent under power in motion.
To me it sounds like the noise is coming from the #1 cylinder. I think the cylinder is providing no power, because when I take the wire off the cap, there is really no change in performance. (I put a video link of the horrible sound below.)

Any advice on where to go from here would be great. My gut feeling is telling me the motor is going to have to come out. If I'm going to do all that, I might as well put a 2.0 liter in or ????? I'd even settle for just a solid running motor with some minor upgrades to make it a little quicker. Any advice on what route to take on a good used motor would be great. I guess A motor that runs on 4 cylinders would be an upgrade. Thanks for your help, a mildly depressed Sam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5JhEd7SUH4...re=channel_page

[Cupomeat]

Wow, I have never seen such a fouled plug.

Looks like oil fouling, which makes me think that you are probably looking at a top end rebuild in your near future.

SO, tell us how it runs with the cleaned plug (as that one will give you no spark at all) and then get a good compression test of the whole 4 cylinders.

Good luck and I hope that helped.

[UberElectricEagle]

Wow, I have never seen such a fouled plug.

Looks like oil fouling, which makes me think that you are probably looking at a top end rebuild in your near future.

SO, tell us how it runs with the cleaned plug (as that one will give you no spark at all) and then get a good compression test of the whole 4 cylinders.

Good luck and I hope that helped.

It ran the same. #1 cylinder was dead weight. The other plugs were not bad, but they were replaced too just for science.
I have a bad feeling there is zero compression in #1 and the knocking noise is the piston rattling in the cylinder. I've also noticed in the few miles I have driven it, it ate a lot of oil. Probably just flying out the #1 in addition to leaking all over the cardboard.
I'll go make sure it's getting spark (I'm pretty sure it is) now that I'm home from taking the wife out in the boat.
I really like this car too, but this is depressing because I was not looking for a project when I bought it. I just got done with a project and now I just want to drive!!!

[Cupomeat]

Wow, I have never seen such a fouled plug.

Looks like oil fouling, which makes me think that you are probably looking at a top end rebuild in your near future.

SO, tell us how it runs with the cleaned plug (as that one will give you no spark at all) and then get a good compression test of the whole 4 cylinders.

Good luck and I hope that helped.

It ran the same. #1 cylinder was dead weight. The other plugs were not bad, but they were replaced too just for science.
I have a bad feeling there is zero compression in #1 and the knocking noise is the piston rattling in the cylinder. I've also noticed in the few miles I have driven it, it ate a lot of oil. Probably just flying out the #1 in addition to leaking all over the cardboard.
I'll go make sure it's getting spark (I'm pretty sure it is) now that I'm home from taking the wife out in the boat.
I really like this car too, but this is depressing because I was not looking for a project when I bought it. I just got done with a project and now I just want to drive!!!

Well, the good thing is that you can do a stock top end rebuild in a very short amount of time, and no serious money (unless the head is un-rebuildable).

Sounds like you should do that compression test and then pull the motor and that side head. Sorry to have gotten your hopes up with the possibility of a valve train noise.

[UberElectricEagle]

Wow, I have never seen such a fouled plug.

Looks like oil fouling, which makes me think that you are probably looking at a top end rebuild in your near future.

SO, tell us how it runs with the cleaned plug (as that one will give you no spark at all) and then get a good compression test of the whole 4 cylinders.

Good luck and I hope that helped.

It ran the same. #1 cylinder was dead weight. The other plugs were not bad, but they were replaced too just for science.
I have a bad feeling there is zero compression in #1 and the knocking noise is the piston rattling in the cylinder. I've also noticed in the few miles I have driven it, it ate a lot of oil. Probably just flying out the #1 in addition to leaking all over the cardboard.
I'll go make sure it's getting spark (I'm pretty sure it is) now that I'm home from taking the wife out in the boat.
I really like this car too, but this is depressing because I was not looking for a project when I bought it. I just got done with a project and now I just want to drive!!!

Well, the good thing is that you can do a stock top end rebuild in a very short amount of time, and no serious money (unless the head is un-rebuildable).

Sounds like you should do that compression test and then pull the motor and that side head. Sorry to have gotten your hopes up with the possibility of a valve train noise.

Well, I have spark so it's not that. I checked the compression the best I could with an old timey tester and my wife at the key and it read about 135 - 140. So there is compression, but I didn't look up what proper compression is.

I don't think it's getting any fuel. Can this be?? # 2 cylinder is getting fuel just fine.
When I pulled the #1 plug after running it a bit earlier, It was already getting black from unburnt oil and I don't think there was any fuel smell on it.

It has the dual carbs, but I don't really know anything about them. I'm somewhat familiar with SU''s and I'm guessing these are webbers. I'll go check em out a little more.