First 914, looking for resto tips/ and build ideas Options

[SLRPY MN]

So I met with a man last week and put down some money on 1972 1.7L 914. the body is in excellent shape, all the carpet was removed which made it easy to see any ares that could have been reusted out. minor rust in the lower crease in the rear trunk. the battery compartment and under the batttery. He told me it won't start due to a starter issue. the injectors, plugs and wires are all new. also has brand new empi wheels and tires. I'm picking up the car on friday and plan on spending most my weekend on getting this car running again. So im sure i will be spending alot of time researching possible starting issues and cleaning fuel lines.

[SLRPY MN]

so this summer has been monetarily challenging but I have slowly been working on the car I pulled the motor out and noticed that there is debris and general junk all throughout the cooling ducts... also it seems like all my internals are really gunked up needs lots of TLC and now I'm looking into modifying the 1.7 but don't really know enough to know what parts I should look into buying to increase performance a bit... also I am not really a fan of electronic things so I want to move toward carbuerators.

[malcolm2]

so this summer has been monetarily challenging but I have slowly been working on the car I pulled the motor out and noticed that there is debris and general junk all throughout the cooling ducts... also it seems like all my internals are really gunked up needs lots of TLC and now I'm looking into modifying the 1.7 but don't really know enough to know what parts I should look into buying to increase performance a bit... also I am not really a fan of electronic things so I want to move toward carbuerators.

"internals gunked"? maybe that is why your starter is having trouble. take the plugs out to relieve some suction pressure and turn it by hand.

With the engine out, you can remove the cooling tins easily and get the crap out from under the tins and in between all the cooling fins. take lots of pre-removal pictures to help with re-installation. You can clean and even re-paint the tins, get new cheese head screws, check the T-stat and flaps, pull the clutch and flywheel, replace the seal. There is lots of stuff you can freshen up without cracking the case. In order to beef up the power enough to notice, you will have to open the engine.

Did the PO say the engine ran when parked? If so, you may just want to get this 1.7 running again and drive it awhile before you start really digging in to change the crank, the cam, the P/Cs, rockers, etc....

Folks say that if you change to carbs you should also change the cam to get the best running engine.... it is deep inside the engine. 2ndly, carbs may not be electrical, but they require lots of tinkering, so you might want to stick with the FI and learn about it. This forum will help you with either.