You're doing JUST fine!
I love work! I could watch for hours!

Alright, time to take a timeout from pushing on the car. Just accepted an offer on the house so no more fun time in the garage for a bit. On the up side, I'm going shopping for a big shop this afternoon!

So the wife banned me from working on the car until the move is over. On the up side, it'll be over in 2 weeks. As the brain idles, I'm coming to the conclusion I'm just not happy with my axle solution. After seeing Chris Scott's amazing build I started thinking. This is probably a bad thing.

Chris is using the same tranny I am, w/ boxster axles. I've got the larger audi tripod flanges but let's ignore that for a moment. Obviously the axles are about the right length. The boxster and the doner a4 I pulled this tranny from are almost identical track widths at the axle ends. The wheel bearings are the same dimension on the A4 and the 914. The rear calipers on the 914 are a PITA.

Given all this does anyone know why I shouldn't just fill and redrill a set of audi hubs, stuff them in there with stock audi axles, weld new ears on the trailers and use audi calipers? Solves the caliper issues, gets rid of the adapters and seems more elegant.

I think you should keep the Audi bolt pattern too. More wheel choices and it's different than the masses...

I mentally kicked that around for about 8 seconds. Thing is, I've already converted everything to 4x114.4 w/ billet hubs up front and filled/redrilled rears. I LOVE these rims. Probably funny to get hung up on a set of rims but I've run them on 3 cars now. Probably the car part I've owned longest

I just called my favorite used parts yard. They have a pair of hubs and axles waiting for me for $40. Compared to the price for a set of custom shafts at raxles, I'm thinking it's worth the risk. Besides, if this works, I also get wheel speed sensors. Rev limited traction control and launch control may be in my future.

And since I forgot to reply to this one after learning a whole bunch. I found a source for main bearings and a method to hone/re-ring the 3.6 and 4.2 blocks. Milling them over isn't an option, but freshining them up isn't off the table anymore. The local pickNpull has 3 3.6s sitting there for under $500 each. They had 4, not sure where the other one went

It sounds as though youv'e got some good local resources that can provide multiple options for your powertrain. But you seem to be getting wrestless and losing your focus for your engine choice. The axle/hub combo is important to get the extra power to the wheels, but I would caution against over complication at this stage. The creativity is cool to watch (don't get me wrong) but don't let it be an additional distraction that keeps this project on jackstands.

Believe it or not, this is my attempt to throw money at it and get it the heck off jackstands. The V8 comes with a dizzy, getting rid of CDI gets me closer to firing the engine up. Getting rid of adapters removes the external dependancy on the custom guys and speeds up the process.

I'm quickly comming to the conclusion I'm not driving this thing before the snow falls, that gives me another 3 months to do stupid things. I'm driving it to the PNW BBQ next year though. Oh, and I'm running it as a nonqual at next years Chump 24 in Spokane.

Damn, that was more passion than logic. Obvously, I could be convinced otherwise. I've got a good two weeks' timeout to think about this.

I've done conversions in 914s before, as you know, they always leave something to be desired and cost too much. Doing the 16v Turbo teener was a blast, but there was abot $400 in flywheel adapter, lord knows how much into the engine, an it still shifted like a truck. If, and it's a big if, I can pull this off with just some slightly modified hubs, whole new options are available for the swap enthusiasts. From my perspective, dropping 300hp in a teener for just over $1.2k in parts is something worth perusing even if it does take me a little longer to build.

Been following this build. Keep going and when you get it done

We will have a BBQ and a Drive

Speaking of...

I just realized the smoker stays with this house. Great, now I'm gonna have to build a new smoker shortly. As if I didn't have enough things keeping me from the car.

On the up side, the wife agreed to letting me turn the driveway into a go cart track:

Rohar,
Thanks for the funny comments on my thread.
If you are removing all of the moving parts from the tunnel like the shift rod you can do like what we are doing and fill it with spray foam. This should take care of any heat insulation concerns and keep anything from vibrating.
The vems system that we are using on our car is pretty nice and has all of the inputs that the Audi motor needs. The price is very good also.
Thanks,
Chris

3 30' trailers filled with stuff in the last 48 hours. My current neighbors seem to be a bit upset, 4 of them have come over wondering when all the trailers are gonna be gone. Since I'm not living with them anymore, they didn't get the answer they were looking for. I tried to be polite, but I'm sure I was pretty short. We take ownership on Tuesday, I'm not sure I'm gonna make it.

A positive note, when I went to pick up one off the trailors I'm borrowing from a friend, there was a big assed Enco mill mothballed in his shop. I asked him about it and he said it was his grandfather's and he just listed it on craigslist. Couldn't help myself, $1000 delivered. Pix to follow.

Oh, and I hate moving.

Finally in the new home. The shop is bigger than I remembered. I haven't measured it but it looks to be 50x50 by eye. Absolutely no storage in the shop so I'm hunting craigslist for cabinets. Gonna be another 2 weeks before everything is sorted out and I can get back to work.

Oh, and NORD, I'm gonna have to convince the PNW contingent to wander out here. The property is friggin awesome for entertaining/cruising. The 10 miles from the house to the top of the mountain ROCKS! Plenty of room for guests too. Maybe a teener day at FATT out at SCR next year?

So I finally made it back to Seattle to pick up hardware I paid for a bit ago:



Well hello my new little friend, bad things are about to happen to you

I guess this is one way to do twin spark without CDI:

So I've managed to get enough of the shop sorted that I can continue the build in earnest. Time to tackle the cooling tubes. I'm tearing out the center void and shoving pipes right down the middle. But here lies more decisions. I'll be covering the tubes with a refractory so I don't have to worry about heat, but material selection may be important. The V8 is an aluminum block, the radiator's aluminum as well. I can get steel tubing for about $24 total, aluminum is gonna run me close to $140 but there'd be virtually no likelihood of electrolysis.

Thoughts?

Ok, so I tabled the tubing for now but I have made progress. REALLY!

The V8 brings it's own challenges, but they're not nearly as tough as the /6. Turns out Audi didn't make many cars with a 3.6 v8 and a manual, so the flywheel is a bit of an issue. Worse, the newer v8s use a completely different flywheel. Only 2 engines used that bolt pattern, this one and the VR6 from VW. The problem w/ the VW unit is the starter gear is on the wrong side as it runs a tranny side starter. No worries though, I managed to secure a solid VR6 flywheel for $50 and spent the afternoon with a 70 year old machinist. We worked things out. Ok, he made fun of me a lot, that's what happens when you deal with seasoned machinists. But we've got a plan and he'll tackle it shortly.

Meanwhile I've started working the rest of the engine/MSIII integration. Wires and seasoned machinists. I'm in hotrod hell.

You ARE a glutton for punishment aren't you??

Looking good. I always enjoy the progress. . .

Glutton for punishment? Yeah, pretty much.

So I'm wiring up the ignition today. Keeping the dizzys w/ the MSIII. Saves a LOT of time and money. I've never worked on a 3.6 before I bought this one. On paper, it looked great. 2 16vs siamesed. It didn't really hit me how much that was true until I started working over the ignition. 2 heads? Fine, 2 distributors! Brilliant! Jens in the design department musta had a liquid lunch that day.

Driving 2 coils from 1 signal without frying anything is interesting. On the up side, I get to keep the stock tach, it's a V8 but the signal comes form an I4 dizzy.

Did I hear that the Porsche Parade will be in Salt Lake City UH. for next

year? Is so You just might see some PNW 914s stopping by.

WOOT! I'll plan on being an "official" pit stop. There's always plenty of grub, beer, and now room at Rob's house!

So with the acquisition of the 944, I've come to the conclusion the teener will be v6 powered. I'm pretty comfortable holding the V8 over until I'm done with the teener then doing a swap on the '44.

In the vein of getting something productive done today, I started tearing down the intake manifold. The flanges are symetrical, so the throttle can face forward or backward. Only problem is that the long runners (it's kinda like varioram on this one) hit a cooling pipe when flipped backwards. So I'm cutting the long runners off as I'm not gonna need the low end torque anyway. Now I've not worked with this engine a bunch, so when I opened the intake I was a bit surprised:



The upper half opens the short runners by a series of 40mm butterflies. I've got half a mind to keep the butterflies and use them as individual throttles. Sure, there'll be some external plumbing to make it idle, but it looks promising.

This is what I used from Mcmaster-Carr.
http://www.mcmaster.com/#general-purpose-hose/=fdp4jz

High-Temperature Coolant Hose

Use with ethylene glycol and water
Temperature Range: -65° to +350° F
Color: Blue
Hose: Silicone rubber
Cover: Silicone rubber
Reinforcement: Silicone-coated polyester

It's probably about the same cost range as the aluminum tubing. The thing I like about using hose is that I have minimum connections and reduces electrolysis.

I'm back to the iron block v6 so steel tubes are back in play. Next nightmare is figuring out how to mount the intake manifold backwards. I spent about a half hour on the phone with a good friend. After explaining that the manifold interfered with the cooling lines on top of the block so I'll just cut off the useless long runners from the intake, he suggested I just reroute the cooling pipes. Farking brilliant! Why the hell didn't I think of that?

I've got the day off and the shop is warm, but strangely the couch is soooo seductive. Someone give me the strength to get off my ass and pull that engine/tranny out from under the car again.

Get Up Get up get up
Now go work on that car

Damned thing is out. Got lazy and found a new way to raise the car. Pics shortly.

Hey, you pull a v6 from a 914 your way, I'll pull it my way:

Red-neck two post lift. . . All you need now is a big-@$$ pair of vice-grips at the base of the hyd cylinder as a "safety lock" in case of hyd failure. . . GIT-R-DONE!!

There was no way in hell I was getting under there. Got the engine/tranny down on a pair of dollies. Used a floor jack to get the chassis up about 2 inches and bolted the chain to the motor mounts. Jacked the car up in like 1 minute, went to the back of the car and pulled on the tranny. Slid right out. Then I put the chassis back on the floor really fast

You don't want to know my procedure for swapping engines on MK1 VWs.

Maybe I'll make more progress today.

That tranny sure looked smaller on the other engine:



Forward with the /8!

You might find it easier to remove the rear wheels and lower the car versus raising the engine assembly. :0

Interesting build, have fun.

he's lifting the engine into place from the floor, works great compared to trying to jack the car from side to side doen on over the engine..... or trying to balance the engine on a floor jack and jacking it in to place.

I agree. I've got a 1000lb winch that came in my trailer. Was just thinking today it would be cool to mount on some rafters in my barn above where I work . Just might look into it a little more tomorrow!

Keep up the good work Rohar! Always a nice feeling to have it in the car. Even though there is still a buttload of work to do. Keep it up

As many times as I've mounted and unmounted an engine in this thing, and as many are ahead of me, a FAST method had to be found or I'd give up. I mentioned this in my OT:944 thread. But I've finally gotten off the fence on which engine is going in the 914. So the v6 had to come out and I'm prepping the v8.

I've got carts that fit nicely under the engine. So it's just a matter of jacking the car up 1", roll the carts in, unbolt the engine/tranny, jack the car up another inch, attache the cherry picker to the chassis and lift it out of the way. Then just pull the engine out. Takes about 5 minutes right now, will get worse when everything's connected.

Hoping I can get the front motor mounts done on the v8 today and get it in the car. Kicking around re-building the tranny mounts too. I'm just not happy with them.

Alright, things aren't going as fast as I'd like. Passenger mount is hell with the alternator AND the starter in the way. Threading the needle on this one.

Patterns are done, now to start cutting steel.

Alright, the motor mounts on the /8 are a bit much. More the passenger side than the driver's side.

The beginnings of a passenger side mount:



No really, I'm gonna make that into something worth having. Now stop laughing. Really, stop it!

Lookie here, one finished passenger side motor mount stub:

Same song, second verse. A little bit faster and nowhere near as worse:



That engine is gonna get bolted to the chassis tomorrow.

Oh, and it's cold out there, I couldn't stop shivering so the focus on the camera is munged.

It ain't mounted yet, but I'm well on my way:



Friggin nightmare engine...

Turns out the passenger side of the yoke hit the suspension ear so no mounting for me today. I has a sad. I'll figure out a better geometry in the morning. I'm friggin tired.

Sounds like a good time to change the rear suspension. Weren't you you toying around with the mazda suspension? Doing that should keep it off the road for a while longer.
What are you thinking for the engine management?

You mentioned you have 3inch 911 calipers on the front of the car. What kind of calipers are those? Would they be from a 911T ? Or maybe those Eric Shea ones he has? Just curious

I'm trying to stay away from further complication, so no Mazda suspension. Yet.

I was toying around with using CIS-E and the twin distributors that came with the engine, but trying to figure out how to drive both dizzies with cis-e made me a little insane. I've got the OE ecu, but it's pretty limited on tune-ability so it looks like it's going MSIII.




The front hubs are billet aluminum drilled for 4x114.4 to retain much of the stock look but allow for wider rim selection and M calipers and disks.

Got the yoke all sorted out last night, just had to change the angle on one of the diagonals a bit, time to go jack up the car. Again.

Lookie what happened over lunch:





Everything lines up, gonna have to relieve the rear trunk of more of it's steel, but overall I'm pretty happy with the fit.

The beginnings of a new, more sleek tranny mount. I know it's asymmetrical, but so is the tranny. It just looked funny when I had it all symmetrical.



It obviously needs gussets, but I ran out of welding wire. Guess I'll finish it tomorrow.

I mounted a tranny:



No wait, I mounted a tranny:




It'll get some diagonals and some cleanup when I pull the mess back out of the car. I'm thinking next project is a lot of chassis cleanup and plumbing.

looks like Jeremy from Top Gear . didnt know he was a tranny

great progress, this thing will be fast

Andy, please tell me you know who that is! It would be a travesty if anyone over the age of 20 in this country didn't.

Yeah, it should be pretty quick. I'm paying more attention to keeping it driveable and dependable though.

^ I agree!

I was going to make a joke about time warp, but I refrained.