New to the board. Big Problem?........ Options

[Dominic L]

First post here, but I've been lurking here for some time now! Anyway I'm the proud owner of a 1975 914 set up for autocross with a serious oil leak coming from the cylinder, (i think). Could i have a cracked cylinder? The oil (and also looks like exhaust pulses) is coming out between the 3rd and 4th cooling fin on the # 3 cylinder. Pics are attached of the cylinder (circle around the area where the oil is landing) and the underside of the tin. The oily area on the tin is from the same cylinder (#3). I planned on a rebuild (the car sat in a garage for three years) over the winter but i hoped to autocross it once or twice before the winter. Please help. I'm having withdrawl pains from lack of autocross!!

Thanks,
Dominic

[Katmanken]

Have a Haynes manual? It has the torquing sequence and it's not cross torquing per cylinder (like a wheel ) but rather cross torquing in a funky sequence across each head. Any aircooled vw engine uses the same sequence so if you have a VW manual, go for it.

Not sure if your engine has head gaskets or not. Might want to pull the retorqued head and look to see if they leak.

Big battle here on whether to use them or not. If you use them, make sure they are on both sides. If they are there, prolly easiest to keep using them (unless the head is pitted). That way you won't have to screw with valvetrain geometry.

Ken