75 914 Laguna Blue Project Options

[Graydingo]

Hello everyone, my name is Duane and I love me a Porsche project. So much so that I've had five air cooled cars (mostly projects mind you) in the last few years. I've pared that down to a mere 2 911s (one massive RSR project and a pretty good little driver 75.) By fate, every single one of them was a 75, or a 77 model year.
I guess I love an underdog and a project! Any-who, here's me latest acquisition...



A 1975 Porsche 914 2.0 in Laguna Blue L50C. What a color!



It all started when I found a 76 2.7 911 motor on craigslist. I inquired and got a snappy text back from a known number. Turns out, it was a friend and the owner of the local Porsche specialty shop. I went over to check out the motor and ended up buying it. A pretty clean 2.7 core, missing a few parts, but had a set of Italian 40 IDTP carbs on it.

While there, I was shown the 914 which the 2.7 was actually destined to go into at one point but then the owner decided to go nuts and planned to put a 3.6 in it.



He had acquired thousands in parts but lost motivation in the project. He had flares, elephant suspension and all kinds of stuff. Sadly (or perhaps fortuitously,) he had sold a lot of the new parts to another 914 enthusiast, so what was left was just the original car.

Already having a big project in my 74 RSR tribute, I passed on the 914 and headed home with my new 2.7. My 75 911 has a similar motor and It's ready to rebuild. I thought I would take the best parts off both motors and make a 2.8 twin plug beast for my 75. Ya never know what condition the crank or heads are in, so I figured it was a good plan to have more parts at the ready for cheap, and then sell everything left over later.

One thing that struck me about the 914 on that first visit, was that the car was extremely dry. Here's the ....ahem... heck hole.



Though the car was taken apart, the previous owner seemed to have all the original parts (though many of them were in his storage facility and not with the car.) Another cool factoid was that the car was actually purchased in a nearby Audi/VW dealership right here in Las Vegas. Vegas in '74 was very, very small, so to have a survivor 914 in the same town that it was 46 years ago is pretty cool in my opinion.



The car was more or less stripped in preparation for a GT conversion. I remarked in my mind about how solid the car was and went home that day thinking it was a good deal but that I'm a snobby 911 guy who doesn't buy anything but 911s :-P The car was definitely marinating in the back of my mind...

Fast forward a few months later and a younger friend was talking to me about project cars, and it got me excited about the 914. On a whim I reached out to see if it was still there and bought it the next day. I think I just really liked it and I fell in love with the color. It feels like a mix between Gulf Blue and Miami Blue. I'm actually painting my RSR Gulf, so I absolutely love all the cool blue colors.

The shop had a bunch of waterpumper parts stored in the back:



PO had the original Fuchs 4 lug wheels, but no tires. the 914 was also on a pretty sweet dolly, but unfortunately that wasn't part of the sale.



I took the wheels to a discount tire and got the cheapest tires I could buy, just so I could make it a roller for the impending flatbed trailer pickup appointment.



I had to scrounge around and find some lugs to mount them. Luckily I had some open 911 lugs as well as some 996 studs to complete the temporary fix.

After getting it back to the shop I thought: "I've got a complete project build going already, wouldn't it be fun to try to build a total survivor driver with original paint, dings, dents, damage and all, but have a bit of a sleeper engine and nice interior. So mostly original, but everything works and is nice in terms of get in, turn the key, take it to the grocery and not worry about parking it. "



Stay tuned for the paint correction...

[Graydingo]

The other thing I was debating was Restoration Design is raising prices for metal March 4th.

How important do you think their outer long strengthening panels are for a six project?

I ended up buying the outer long reinforcements from Restoration Design about a month ago. Figured Canadian steel was going to be a lot more expensive and I wanted a stiff feel to the chassis.

I also considered the inside reinforcement kit, but opted to not go with that for worry that it might upset the interior fitment of the carpet and rear backer pad.

I sourced main bearings for the 10/10 crank that I had done at Ollies for the 2.7 flat six motor that is going in this project. I think they send grinds out somewhere else, but I was a little worried that it would be hard to find 2.7 main bearings that were oversized to fit the grind.

As luck would have it, my local friend is restoring a 76 911 Targa and had been sent the wrong bearings and they were the right oversized bearings for my crank.

The same friend had a set of Gillette 993 heat exchangers and I reached out to Ben about trying them for the 914/6 solution. Ben had built some sets based on the Bischoff version of the 993 heat exchangers, but not the Gillette. I sent Ben a message and asked if he wanted to try them and he agreed.

A few weeks later Ben completed the job and sent me the finished Heat Exchangers. The 993 design is compact, stainless steel, and quite good when it comes to performance. Ben said the Gillette version requires a little different technique on the flange portion as compared to the Bischoff version.

Ben has to move some things around on the heat boxes to accommodate the 914/6 design as well as attach the leads to the muffler.

Now to determine if I polish or maybe ceramic coat grey or even white to be different.

What do you think?