I know for sure that Im going to stick dual carbs on my 1975 2.0 But the mechanic said its going to cost $500-$600 for the carbs he hasn't looked yet to see what he can get. I asked if they were weber carbs and he said those are going to cost alot more. Im thinking about getting some carbs online myself and just pay for the labor to get them put on. That will probley be cheaper. But Im not sure of any good places. Im looking for some good carbs that arn't going to be over kill but will make my porsche run really good.
Im asking for help with the carbs and I have made my mind up that Im not sticking with fuel injection so please don't tell me how good fual injection is and how I should not go with carbs. Thanks to all those who help

Stick with the fuel injection . I know nothing about carbs, but ebay is always a good place to check. At least you'll get an idea of prices. You could sell you fuel injection to fund the carbs, as well. I know you've been having a hell of a time with the injection, but IMHO, once you get it sorted it will be better than carbs.

dude, stick with the FI !

so he knows it'll be $500 but he doesn't know for what.
but he knows Webers will be "a lot" more, but he doesn't know what he's getting for $500.

RUN AWAY ! (he's clueless...)

did that "$500-$600" include a new fuel pump ?

i ran 40mm Dellortos on my 1,7; ran fine. i have no idea if they're still available, or at what cost, or where to find manifolds and linkage. i got mine over the counter at Small Car in Anaheim. I know they're still in business but i have no idea what parts they sell nowadays - if they even sell aircooled parts. "CB Performance" still sells aircooled parts AFAIK.

installing a set of carburetors is not rocket science (the linkage requires a bit of thought) and i think this mechanic person sees you as an easy mark.

you've proven remarkably resistent to good advice, so i have no idea how or if you'll act on this ...

Dual Weber 40 IDFs are the best setup for NEW carbs. Kits start at $500, not including hose, a fuel pressure regulator, and a fuel pump. The $600 CB Performance kit is supposed to have the best linkage (I have this linkage, and like it). You can find a set used on Ebay for $300-400, but they'll also require a rebuild kit ($40 per carb, assuming you do the rebuild yourself). The $700 kit from Aircooled.net is supposed to have the best jetting setup out of the box and the best after sale support.

You cannot use the stock EFI fuel pump, you'll have to replace it with a lower volume pump suitable for carbs (Webers need no more than 3 psi of fuel pressure, the EFI setup generates 30 psi or more) and a fuel pressure regulator suitable for carbs. A Facet pump can be had for $50-75. On the '75, the fuel pump is in a well in front of the passenger's feet, which is the ideal place to put the carb pump.

If your mechanic was talking something cheaper than Webers, I'd be very wary. Not all VW engines are the same, and there are a lot of relatively inexpensive setups for the Type I and Type II engines that don't work on the Type IV. The manifolds required are completely different. The dual IDF setup is by far the most common on the 914, so you'll have little trouble finding people who can help you diagnose them and provide parts.

Save all of your fuel injection parts, and be careful removing them. You can sell it for a good amount of money ($200-300).

If you have to go carbed I have a set of dual single solexes with type 4 intakes.
electric chokes too for those cold mornings(but not in St. George).
Freshly rebuilt. same as the euro carbbed types AFAIK
Linkage is a bit incomplete but CB performance can set you up with a good set.
I was gonna throw them on Ebay but Ill let you have them for 75.00 since your a member and all
But keep in mind these wont yield as much power as the dual, dual webers but are a far stretch better than the pinto type weber single time bombs.

or these ones on ebay...

ebay carbs


BTW I dont have the air cleaners

Unless a 914 engine has been rebuilt WITH a carb friendly cam, carb(s) in a 914 is a sign that the mechanic and/or owner don't know DICK about L-Jet or D-Jet fuel injection.

If you WANT carbs get a motor that is done right and will respond to the carbs....gee, isn't there someone selling a complete motor on this list?

Adding carbs to a stock motor is NOT a performance upgrade. If you have a budget for 500 bucks worth of carbs...spend it on fixing the FI....find a wrench that CAN do it or learn to fix it yourself....

OR come up with 4,000 more and get my complete motor....

ebay carbs

Im wondering how well will something like this work and is the price good they say there for the 914

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...&category=33550

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...&category=33550

i'm gonna give you some really horrible advice here:

if you really are in over your head with the FI (which you could probably figure out in a week or two with a $30 multimeter and some serious effort, but that's another story...) AND don't want to spend the money on a knowledgable porsche mechanic to set up your D-jet (which would probably cost $200-$600 in labor):

then just buy a crappy single ("solex"?) carb on ebay and pay the VW mechanic to install it. your car won't run great, but hell -- at least it will run. then, in the meanwhile, you can figure out all your Djet stuff on your own, and replace it on your own. you can consider it a performance upgrade (which it surely will be).

again, this is probably BAD advice -- with only a little extra effort right now you can probably get the Djet working (and for roughly the same amount -- or less -- of money as carbs), but i just want to hear that you're driving your car.

btw: the twin solex carbs on ebay (mentioned above) might work well for your mechanic

You don't *need* a "carb-friendly cam" to make the Webers work. It won't be any more powerful than a working D-Jet system, but it will be a lot more powerful than a non-working D-Jet system, which is what the original poster has now.

I'll grant that it would be much cheaper and really probably much easier to just fix the D-Jet, assuming our original poster had the time and patience to do it. Clearly, patience is at an end here, and if he wants to fit carbs, OK. Fit them. The car will run and be drivable, which is an improvement over not being drivable.

He's clearly more willing to listen to the local mechanic than people on this board (at least for now), which is only natural. You have to let 16 year olds make mistakes, cause they're going to make them no matter what you do. <_<

those are 48's and 34's

get 40's or 44's

No, you don't want 48 IDFs. Way too big for a stock engine. The manifolds pictured are also not correct for the 914.

I think MikeZ said it best. Put the money into your injection. Plus, the car will be worth more, in my opinion, if it comes time to sell.

Before you spend a ton of money on the car you might want to have someone who knows something about 914s come and check the rest of the car out for rust and other major issues.

I think I am getting very pessimistic after reading so many posts on these BBSs, but it seems like more first time owners get screwed with 914s than most other cars. There are just so many f-d up 914s out there, it's not even funny.

dito, those (manifolds) ain't going to fit ...

Do they sell manifolds for 3 bolt heads?

Seems like most of the stuff would be 4 bolt (VW bus etc.)

Carb newbie here, don't you guys even get started on me until you know the big picture. Sheesh. You'd think d-jet was a cure for cancer around here.

I have check the car there is a little rust by the battery tray and I have a hole under the passanger side seat which Im going to fix soon. The thing is the car was sitting out side for along time with no rain tray so now every wire I touch it seems to break off or fall apart. If I was going to stay with fuel inection I would want a brand new system computer and all the wires that way I can start fresh if anyone can find something like then I would consider staying with it.

Use this BBS as a resource to fix the djet. You will be way ahead....

Geoff

well, this is the sobering truth, isn't it?

just remember that $5-600 isn't going to be the end of it, mr. cactus. you have a car that hasn't (really) run in who knows how long. aside from the hole under the seat, who knows what other problems exist?

if you are looking for instant gratification with this thing, you will be disappointed. if you are looking for a car that you can learn a tremendous amount on, put all of your extra time and money into, and have a little fun in the process, you will be rewarded. it will take a lot of patience, blah, blah, i better stop before i sound like someone's father...

Here is some 44 I email the guy he said the pictures are not the actual ones.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...&category=33550

That look like a good price.

Well I can get the car to run buy pouring fuel right into the throttle body and its sounds really good.

well, that's good news!



i say,
throw away your old FI engine harness and PM brad and buy a used FI engine harness from him.

but, i'm biased towards FI
Andy

How much will a new fl injection system cost compared to carbs

It was written.....

You don't *need* a "carb-friendly cam" to make the Webers work. It won't be any more powerful than a working D-Jet system, but it will be a lot more powerful than a non-working D-Jet system, which is what the original poster has now.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I never said you need a carb friendly cam to run carbs....carbs WILL run on a stock motor...it's just a NOT a performance upgrade....you get lousy mileage, usually the motor runs rich or lean and generally pisses off the motor or worse yet makes it drop a seat or burn a piston if you run too lean for too long.

A stock motor is just that...STOCK, the design gave what it could. Any motor, foreign or domestic has the same problem when introducing a different intake system....ALL components need to be changed for it too work right and have an increase in HP as well....

There's no free lunch.

bowlsby, on this very board (see the suppliers page) can set you up with a better than new fuel injection wiring harness. I VERY strongly doubt your ECU has any problems at all. For D-Jet, it's such a simple device that there's just not much to go wrong in there. The wiring harnesses DO age and can develop problems, but the replacement harness will take care of that.

Note that if you do have electrical problems (you also need to see if the relay board is any good), then just adding carbs won't fix everything, and may still not get the car going.

What you've bought is a mystery project car, and you're going to need to educate yourself significantly to get it going. This is fine, as you're hardly in a position to need the car, and you have lots of time to work it out. Consider it an opportunity.

i'm sure you can get everything you need from brad for less than the costs of new carbs.

call HPH and ask for him. make sure you mention the 914club.
heck, it might even help to mention my name

HPH, High Performance House

explain the situation. send him your stuff as a core. he'll work something out.
Andy

Here's two pages to learn about djet:

http://www.rennlist.org/techarticles/djetronicfuel.htm

and

http://members.rennlist.com/pbanders/

So here's what I'd do before I spend $1K buying and getting carbs installed and tuned:

Read the troubleshooting sections on those web pages (especially Brad Ander's page) and go through each FI component and test. This will take you maybe a Saturday afternoon. To test fuel pressure you need a $40 gauge from the parts store and to test the MPS properly you need a $30 vacuum gauge. The fuel pressure is probably ok though and if you can verify that fuel is reaching the injectors then the problem probably isn't fuel pressure related. You can do a quicky test on the MPS by sucking on it and seeing if there's any vacuum. But even with a bad MPS the car should probably run.

After you start testing you can post any questions here and you'll probably get fast answers. Your problem after all may not be with the fuel injection but with maybe the fuel delivery system.

But before you start check specific fuel injection components I think you have many other things to check.

Is the fuel pump working? Does it "buzz" when you turn the key?

Is fuel squirting out of the injectors?

Is the tank clogged?

When was the last time the filter and fuel lines were changed?

Do you have spark?

Is the timing set correctly?

It seems like spending a couple weekend afternoons diagnosing your car could potentially save you about a grand.

Don't rule that out! I spend a butt load of time, aggrivation, and money trying to sort out mine when that was the problem. Very easy to swap out. Probally not a bad place to start.

If you found a local 914 person, you could spend an afternoon swapping your parts into his to test them.
A friend did that with me and it helped diagnoses the bad ecu.

Does anyone here not drive a 914 with carbs. All I have seen is fuel injection people and really havn't got a real good opinion why I should not switch to carbs. Someone with dual carbs give me your opinion.

My carbs had problems and seemed like they were constantly out of tune.

I also had a bit of trouble moving from SLC to Corpus because of the alt change.

But they sounded real good and the power felt good.

But it was better than nuthin I guess.

BTW my car has been out of commission for ~4 months due to rust

Most of us, aren't "fuel injection people". We are motorheads - car people. The 914 came with fuel injection so it's what most people have.

It sounds like you have a mental block about working on the car's fuel system. We are just trying to save a $1000 bill from your mechanic for a carb conversion. If your tank is clogged, going to carbs isn't going to help. Do some basic troubleshooting before you throw in the towel.

i did, a couple of pages ago, remember ?

go here: CB Performance Carburetor page

and check this out:

Part Number 6410 Dual 40 IDF Kit for 914 Porsche $609.95

these people KNOW what they are talking about.
you will also need a fuel pump; you CANNOT use the FI pump, even with any kind of regulator. at best, it'll run like cr&p; at worst, it'll run like cr&p until it bursts into flame and burns to the ground.

with bits and pieces and odds and ends you should be out the door for $750 or less.

obviously, we don't know the situation in St George for local, Porsche-oriented mechanics. in a more 914-oriented part of the world there'd be a qualified shop you could use to get your car together for less than that, but we'll assume that's not an option.

YOU must do the legwork. we can HELP but YOU must do the work...

Thought I just seen a recent add for a FI setup. Check the classifieds here. If your FI pump is bad, I have one that is a year old. Works perfect, I'll give you a good price on it if you need it and decide to stay with FI.
Maybe post what you have done so far in this thread. Im sure the technically savy FI guru's here would be happy to offer some advice. I considered myself a total noob too. But, since the time I purchased my 1st 914 in 98, until present, I have to say I learned a fair amount from the good people here in the club. Be persistant and try to do the work yourself!

I had dual Dells when I got my car in 95. Ran great at full throttle and got maybe 12 mpg. Startup sucked, had to sit there and warm the car up so it wouldn't pop and spit while trying to go. I fought those damn things for 2 years.
I located a complete used 2.0 w/FI and installed it. I took me six months to figure out the FI as then there wasn't the internet info on how to repair it.
I then had the motor rebuilt to a 2056cc motor and tuned the FI to run great.
Even if its cold the motor starts right up witha twist of the key and idles.
I can drive away and no spitting, poping nor that loud sucking noise of the dualcarbs in your ears.

Sounds like the fuel pump isn't working to me. Take out an injector and stick it in jar, turn the key to see if it sprays fuel. UNDO THE POWER to the coil so there is no spark!


Report back to the BBS

Geoff

I also have dual carbs (40 IDFs), and put them on because the PO had removed the D-Jet, replaced it with a crappy single carb, and lost some parts to the D-Jet. Fitting a set of carbs got me running in a week, where hunting down the lost bits to the D-Jet and getting that working would have easily stretched into 2-3 weeks. The carbs have required a good bit of fiddling post install, and yes, cold starts are a hassle. Cold, btw, means engine cold, not cold outside. 60dF is cold enough to require some effort to get them to start (2-3 tries, and you have to let it warm up some before moving). I only get about 22mpg, and I'm sure I'd get more with D-Jet.

I am going to switch to EFI ASAP, but have two project cars going and a full time job. The carbs are simply a stop-gap because I could afford to spend the money, but not the time. If you're like most 16 year olds, you have more time than money to blow, so fixing the D-Jet is a better way to go.

With all the help on this BBS it should be pretty easy to toubleshoot. We had 16yr old Andrew up and running last year!

geoff

I wish I was like that but the whole reason I wen't out got a job was to so I could buy my 914 and Im making a whole alot of money then I though I would ever have. With school I have no time at all to go blow my money and let alone to really work on my porsche or do anything.They work me 4-5 days a week. I have about 2-3 days after school to work on it. It dosn't help that it gets dark early ether. Untell they hire another busses once it really starts to pick up again probley in about 2 months is when I will get more days off sence they will hire again .Untell then I just want to drive my porsch around. I mean if I did go with carbs then my dad could really help me with my car sence he grew on working on cars with carbs the guy seem to know what he was talking about he said he had done it to a few 914 and he even showed me the ones he did on his super bettle but Im going to find out more tomarrow once he takes a look under the hood.

Ok here is another set of Dual Weber 44 IDF kit. Would this include everything I need to stick them on and make it run besides the top plate that might need to be replaced. Thanks. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...item=2468125821

ixnay on those carbs imho. the inlet was broken in shippment(?,how does one manage that?) and a half assed repair was done. that is a crappy, crappy linkage. i run carbs on one of my cars. but, listen geoff , sort out the f.i. for the price of the carbs and installation you could ship the car to hph and have someone get it up to snuff. bolting on the carbs is 1/2 of the equation. they WILL have to be jetted correctly and "dialed" in, and that is another cat you can and will chase. i would suggest you stop pouring gas into the throttle body now that you know it will run. IF you gotta get carbs, do get the rotary pump FOR CARBS from cb. 44's are to big. as for being in a hurry, the days are getting longer and warmer. it took me 13 months to get the 73' up and running. there are a number of people here who are "working" on their cars. "working" as in trying to get them running, so you're not solo in this type of endevour.

edit. look, the ad has been running for 5 days. think to yourself, "why are there no bids if this is a good deal?"

kevin

the current problem on the engine is that you have no idea what is and what isn't working. the "best" way to address that is to assume nothing, check everything, and go all the way back to basics. but that does take a certain amount of experience and mechanical intuition, so we won't go down that path.

but the fact is, you don't know what's what. to make ANY headway, you must use ONLY KNOWN-GOOD parts. not a "99.9% complete" "only a little broken" rebuilt second-hand project setup. ask any of us who've spent A WEEK trying to round up that last 0,1% part without which the car will not run!

the parts you get must be in KNOWN GOOD WORKING condition from someone you can trust. (that's everybody in this thread, and most people on the board...)

whether it's a carb setup or FI parts, get what you're getting from some who can KNOW THEY WORK.

if you had a good baseline working reference engine, you could fix and tune an unknown carb setup - with a chassis dyno and a wideband gas analyzer.

isn't mikez selling a set? buy geoff a plane ticket and a few lift tickets. tell him to bring his $650 new in box mps or one of his $150 recalibrated ones. then the gas analyzer and dyno time. there goes another $100+ per hour . fix the f.i.

i have to ask. what is the insurance premium for a 16 y.o. driving a 914?

kevin

Haha I have already check the insurance and its going to cost me $401 every 6 months thats about $75 or something a month. Well today Im going to talk to the mechanic and see what he has done to my car.

$802 is less than i expected. at 16 you prob have'nt racked up too many tickets.

kevin

It would of been about $700 every 6 months but I watch a safe driving video plus took a test for the insurance company and they took off $250 plus I got good grades in school so that was another $50

good job. if you were my son and kept your grades at a level to get the discount, i'd give you the dif towards your insurance.

kevin

he can't rack up tix until the car is fixed

Cactus,
I'm a carb guy myself, but even I would say FIX THE FI! you need to learn one fuel system or the other, and FI is better to know in the future... and I believe is better for a stock sized engine. carbs require more "tinkering" in the future, and IMHO can be HARDER to learn without someone to show you... I only know carbs b/c that's what my dad taught in Small Block Chevy Land... and even he would say to learn FI while you can. I think many of us have carbs because that's all we know... carbs are easier to set up, but MUCH more difficult to get RIGHT...

you have the best FI support group on the WEB! we're all behind you!

Gee, one guy reads my stuff....

Yeah I got a set....44s with linkage, plus a dizzy....a couple of them, an 050 and an 009. They were jetted a little bigger than he needs but I have a box of jets and stuff....

Willing to seperate them from the motor....was asking $600.00. Needs air filters. Zeke ran them w/o....I don'ty think the carbs have more than 2 hours on them....

Yeah, and Zeke burnt up his motor with them!!! in only 4 laps!!!!!
Thats why the FI is the way to go but hell all of us were young once and shot ourselves in the foot cuz we knew better!

I have nothing against carbs except on a stock motor as the djet or ljet is a nice fuel system.
I ran a 750 holley on my old truck with a 390ci. got near 325hp out of that beast 2 5mpg.


Geoff