Engine refresh opinions wanted......, Budget minded clean up of a stuck 2.0 Options

[Nick Pawloski]

Hello everybody.......
New member and 914 owner here in need of educated opinions.

Background: Just bought my first 914 as an incomplete restoration. The car is a '76 2.0 with a Chalon bodykit. The PO bought the car as a running, driving, street car ten years ago, drove it for the summer, then pulled it into the garage to repair the usual battery tray rust. Tray repair turned into a full fledged restoration, including the Chalon kit. Long story short, ten years passed, children and a new Boxster appeared, and so the motivation and time to complete the resto waned. This is where I step in.
The car has 81k original miles on it. The last time the motor was turned over was approximately five years ago (supposedly). It is stuck from sitting. Spark plugs in cylinders 3 and 4 had rust on them when pulled. 1 and 2 looked decent. I drained about a quart of water from the oil. I squirted a very liberal amount of Marvels into each cylinder and I am holding out hope that I'll be able to turn it over.

In the more likely event that it is not moving, I am going to pull it and do a refresh on the motor. (PO removed engine for the repaint, so it will be an easy pull, already completely disconnected)
Tear down, clean, flex hone the bores, valve guides, seals gaskets etc. I'll obviously do whatever is necessary while it is apart.

Keeping in mind that this will just be to get the car on the road this summer, what other critical updates/upgrades should I undertake while the motor is apart?

Also keep in mind that I have a spare 2.0 from a '73 that was included with the car. I plan to do a FULL rebuild on this other motor this coming winter.



Thanks for any help.
Nick

[Cap'n Krusty]

Forget the flex hone, they're junk. The rust is more than likely to be too deep to hone out anyway. The crank MAY be unpitted, and even the cam may have been above the "water line". You should still do a complete refurb. Inspect the cam for wear on the lobes, a common problem. If you replace the cam, you MUST replace the lifters. The Cap'n