What attaches to this engine ground lug? Options

[wonkipop]

here is a 72 with the tab lug.
nothing wired to it. blower on this one must be earthed elsewhere.
found it in this old ad, interesting car, one owner - interesting owner too.
http://www.canosoarus.com/DougsPorsche/Porsche01.htm

[wonkipop]

lug is there on 71 411 variant with a brown earth wire connected.
looks like wire goes under coil and to blower fan which is jammed off to the left (looking at engine from rear in 411, opposite side to where its mounted on 914).

there on a 73 412 fastback which has its heater blower directly over the top of the centre of the fan shroud with a brown earth connection to the blower fan.

so as mr. b says for early 914s, same goes for the vws - its definitely being used for the blower fan in those earlier 411s and some 412s, 73 fastbacks at least.

it also there on the 76 912E. same lug with seemingly no connection to it.
might mean its there on 76 914s which are all 2.0s?



as an aside resulting from this -
i think i just realised why the blower fan gets the aberrant single hose in the 74 1.8s.
i'm slow but my cover up excuse is we don't have 411s/412s in aus.
74 412s, one year only of L jet, look like they don't have enough room under the different L jet air cleaner to get the second hose to the heat exchangers (at least in the variants - and it probably did not matter because they all came to the USA equipped with that crazy petrol heater i believe?). they just have one hose like 74 914s biased to drivers side. vw must have rationalised and used the one blower for all the 412s and 914s for 74? 412s ceased production in 74, so for 75 they must have felt it was all a bit compromised and put the two hose adaptor on what had been the single hose motor.
i could never get that reasoning for the single hose in 74, seemed so strange. i mean it works fine but it is biased, and in my case being RHD, its no longer biased for the driver,

also stumbled on a description of how VW set up to do the 914 engines. at ht. of production they scheduled one day a week in the type 4 engine plant (hanover?) for 914 engines. 1.7/1.8s and 2.0s. this may have come about after the 2.0 4 came in.

[jrmdir]

Thanks everyone - this has turned into quite an interesting topic. Amazing knowledge base on the forum!

I'm going to check the engine # this weekend and see what I can learn about my power unit.

Now I'm curious about the coil location - mine is clamped above cylinder #4 with a very OE looking U-bracket, while most of the photos here show it strapped to the front of the fan cover. My fan cover also has the cast "coil saddle" in that area but it's empty.

I'll report back once I learn more.

Thanks again,

Ron

[Shivers]

Thanks everyone - this has turned into quite an interesting topic. Amazing knowledge base on the forum!

I'm going to check the engine # this weekend and see what I can learn about my power unit.

Now I'm curious about the coil location - mine is clamped above cylinder #4 with a very OE looking U-bracket, while most of the photos here show it strapped to the front of the fan cover. My fan cover also has the cast "coil saddle" in that area but it's empty.

I'll report back once I learn more.

Thanks again,

Ron

I've never seen a factory 914 coil any other place.

[Shivers]

In 1982 mine was bone stock. When I rebuilt the engine I put the coil back where it was.

[wonkipop]

Thanks everyone - this has turned into quite an interesting topic. Amazing knowledge base on the forum!

I'm going to check the engine # this weekend and see what I can learn about my power unit.

Now I'm curious about the coil location - mine is clamped above cylinder #4 with a very OE looking U-bracket, while most of the photos here show it strapped to the front of the fan cover. My fan cover also has the cast "coil saddle" in that area but it's empty.

I'll report back once I learn more.

Thanks again,

Ron

i think its only strapped to the fan casting on 74/75 1.8s - which are all the images i posted are. this was the standard position for the type 4 motors in the VW applications on the 411s. 412s. i think it was in the way of the second heater blower hose in most 914s so they had the coil on the engine tin.

i wouldn't worry, your coil would be correct. coil location in standard VW spot is a non issue for 1.8s with the single heater blower hose.

i think the coil might stay cooler when its on the engine tin because after you shut down a 914, all the heat in the engine conducts to the magnesium fan casting which gets very hot if you ever done the touch test after about 5-10 minutes of shut down. cooking the coil? i mean mine is still alive, but i think it gets a lot hotter than it would sitting on the engine tin after shut down.