Eric's Six Conversion., ...It's about time I got this show on the road Options

[Detroit]

Greetings all...

As the title suggests, I'm undertaking a six cylinder heart transplant on my four cylinder '74 914. I've always wanted to build a hot rod of some sort, and a 3.X 914 seems a pretty solid choice. I just hope the patient and donor organ both survive the surgery...

The motor is a 3.0L out of an '82 SC. It needs rebuilding. I'm going to start a separate thread for that over on the Pelican forum in the engine rebuilding section, because I'm going to need lot's of advice. I realize that there are plenty of peops here who've built sixes, but as that forum is dedicated purely to the task it makes sense to me to start the thread there. I'll paste a link for anyone interested once I've got it started. It's not going to be some crazy race motor. I just want a good reliable street engine. I'm not a hundred percent sure what I'm going to do with the chassis at this point, but I have plenty of time to think about it. I work slow.

The overall plan is to rebuild the motor, and then get it running on a start cart, which I've already started to cobble up. At that point I'll pull the four cylinder, do any chassis mods, and stick in the new engine. It all sounds so simple when I type it... Stupid brain.

I've already torn the engine down to the long block, but have paused to get a few things around the garage cleared up. There will be additional pauses along the way. I've got a zillion things to do around here... I'm pretty determined to get this done though, so hopefully said pauses will be brief.

I will do my best to keep everyone updated along the way. And of course supply plenty of pictures. Here's a few to start.

The car.


The six.


The start cart (and mock up engine and trans).

[Detroit]

Ben, that's your muffler hanging off the back of it. Your heat exchangers are hanging on the wall. I wanted to get those on there too, but it (I only tried one) wouldn't go on. There's a bit of flash on the flanges from when they were ground flat, so I'm assuming that's the cause. That said, I bought the larger heat exchangers. Will they fit the 2.0 on my cart, or is the stud spacing different?

[mb911]

Ben, that's your muffler hanging off the back of it. Your heat exchangers are hanging on the wall. I wanted to get those on there too, but it (I only tried one) wouldn't go on. There's a bit of flash on the flanges from when they were ground flat, so I'm assuming that's the cause. That said, I bought the larger heat exchangers. Will they fit the 2.0 on my cart, or is the stud spacing different?

Absolutely they will fit. You may have to enlarge the holes for the studs. The heat exchangers will move. Just did it on my car this weekend. Stainless is very gummy until heat cycled. Meaning they move around a bunch until bolted up and heat cycled.

[Detroit]

Absolutely they will fit. You may have to enlarge the holes for the studs. The heat exchangers will move. Just did it on my car this weekend. Stainless is very gummy until heat cycled. Meaning they move around a bunch until bolted up and heat cycled.
[/quote]

Cool. Thanks. I figured that was likely the case. I've never had a header go on anything without a touch of finessing, so I wasn't stressed about it. And there's no actual need to put them on the start cart at this point. I just though it would look cool...

[mepstein]

[quote name='Detroit' date='Mar 23 2021, 09:51 AM' post='2901847']
Absolutely they will fit. You may have to enlarge the holes for the studs. The heat exchangers will move. Just did it on my car this weekend. Stainless is very gummy until heat cycled. Meaning they move around a bunch until bolted up and heat cycled.
[/quote]

Cool. Thanks. I figured that was likely the case. I've never had a header go on anything without a touch of finessing, so I wasn't stressed about it. And there's no actual need to put them on the start cart at this point. I just though it would look cool...
[/quote]
There is less wiggle room with the heat exchangers vs plain headers.