Help a Newbie out!, Help a Newbe out! Options

[Pnambic]

Hey guys,

Congratulations on putting together some of the best reading on the Internet (behind www.theonion.com and www.godawfulfanfiction.com). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) There seems to be not only an enormous quantity of 914 knowledge and experience resident here, but a beautiful willingness to impart that information on eager new owners such as myself.

Alright, enough with the obligatory first-real-post-@sskissing... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Here's my situation:

Bought my '74 original signal orange 914 in January and had it transported up to my father-in-law's place. He used to restore cars ('64 Corvette, '50's Studebaker, '74 Avanti, Ford Model A, '37 Rolls Royce) as a hobby years ago and has *hopefully* all or at least most of the tools I'll need. The car had no engine and no transmission, but otherwise appears to be in pretty good shape (less than half the car has rusted away). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It's been so REDICULOUSLY COLD in the midwest recently, that it was pretty much just sitting (about 3 hours north of where I live) until I could get some time to spend with it. Meanwhile, my father-in-law was getting pretty excited about the project and stumbled across another 914 (repainted silver) near him. He figures this one, while not quite in as good shape as the orange one, will at least offer some insight to where everything goes since he's never worked on a Porsche before. It was reportedly running fine last year, but the carburation apparently went foul and the seller didn't want to work on it anymore. (Traitor! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif) ) The deal included the nearly running '72, two other engines, two sets of wheels and two trunks full of spare bits and parts.

Last weekend, I only had a few hours to spend trying to inventory what I had to work with. With the trusty Haynes manual in hand, I was able to easily identify one of the spare engines as a '71 1.7L, the one in the silver 914 is a '73 1.7L, but the other was seemingly un-numbered. Are there any other obvious tell-tales other than the missing intakes and fuel injection? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) I think I read once that a factory replacement might not be numbered, or at least not in the same place as usual? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

I'm going up again this weekend and I promise not to forget the camera this time so I can offer a little bit more to go on. Hopefully I'll also get some compression testing done this weekend to see what shape those engines are in.

Thanks in advance for any insight / guidance / smart-ass comments you can offer!
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Ya gotta love smiley faces and smiley bananas!

Dan