Apparently the car is done! I plan to pick it up Thursday morning assuming I can escape the office for a while.

Only a couple of minor things to sort-out, one being the graphics/decals scheme. I still have not figured-out a game plan on that. I may end-up not going with a vintage livery design as it's not really a GT replica or vintage car anyway...

I love the car, are you bringing it to Fontana with POC at the end of the month? I will like to see it, I think my 914 will be ready by then if not I will take to Fontana again but for the short track! Galen and the boys there are awesome!

The car is home!!!

If I say so myself, it looks badass! Ed and the Kundensport guys are really masters with metal and paint (and fiberglass too.)

The flares are really subtle, in fact basically invisible when looking dead-on from the side. However, as you can see there is a mean fatness from the rear or above view. Have to admit I'm still not 100% warmed-up to the front flares but I'm sure they will grow on me. I really like the look of the rears a lot. The good news is I should be able to run a square tire setup (245 Hoosier R6 front and rear) if I want to. Or, I can space out the fronts to widen the track a bit.

I will post some proper photos over the weekend. Here are a couple of awful iPhone shots (the weird coloration is due to the crap camera):

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Heading to Streets of Willow Sunday. Will be tackling a few things in the garage tomorrow to get ready.

Nice! Very clean looking.

Very nice!

Love it man! REally like the flares done this way. So subtle yet mean when you got tires that wide under there

I forgot to mention, ultimately (in a couple weeks) it will have a Sheridan spoiler in back. I have the Sheridan deep front spoiler already, also repainted. The car looks clean with no spoiler in back, but I think it will really help on the track. Turn 8 at Big Willow is sketchy with no aero...

Sexy!

More pics please

The car looks stunning Chris!
Do you have any closeups of a front fender, and maybe a full frontal view of the car?
Good luck at the track.

Nice!

Thanks Chris! Sorry if I gave a misleading impression - there is nothing wrong with the front flares at all. I think I just need to stuff some more tire under them to balance things out aesthetically.

I spoke with Galen today and he's going to help me set it up with optimal custom spacers (or custom wheels ultimately), and perhaps I will be able to run a 255 or 265 'square' setup. I can't tell yet if 275's will fit in back but he will measure everything and has some test wheels/tires we can try for fitment.

I will take some pics at the track tomorrow, although right now the car looks pretty funny as it has the old skinny tires on it. (Posted about that on the Pelican board.) It could be worse - I get to burn up some 5 heat-cycle Hoosiers before I sell the old wheels.

I wasn't worried.
I widened the front of my race car as much as the rear and, even though I like the shape, there is some empty space at the outside of the tires that I can't fill due to SCCA specifications.
OTOH, the stock 914 fenders leave a lot of space at the outside of the front wheels too.

Some people think the space needs to be filled for the car to look good but they neglect to consider the change in spring rate from wheel spacers on a McPherson strut/a-arm suspension.

The car looks awesome. Those flares really look great.

It's probably covered in another thread, but where did you get the 911R rear decklid latches and the tail lights?

TIA

Thanks! The lids are from Getty Design but the tie-down latches are just commodity parts I got from Pegasus. Some guys prefer the real NOS parts for factory or true replica/tribute cars, and those turn up from time-to-time on the Early 911S Registry or Pelican classifieds.

I have the info on the "R" taillights at home but there are definitely some earlier threads here on that topic.

Note that the body shop had to extensively modify and re-fit the fiberglass housings as they were crude to start with. They also come "some assembly required" i.e. you have to wire everything up yourself. Therefore it's not an inexpensive mod and probably not one I would do again, but I think the result looks cool.


914R by cjcam, on Flickr

I didn't get many pics yet. The car is back at Werks II now for various things including figuring-out the optimum spacers and studs for the new wheels/tires. It was also running crappy and down on power at the track last weekend, which I think is a carb/fueling issue.


914R after bodywork by cjcam, on Flickr

Wow! Looks great. What size are the flares? I know Tangerine makes different sizes.

Chris , Looks Great !!

Thanks! I believe they are the largest size.

Oh no they're not.
I've done 5".

I could have used more clearance in back as it turns out...no going back now though. I'm aiming to finish any significant dicking-around with this car by the end of this year and start looking towards (read: saving my nickels) the next project.

Quick update on the car. Unfortunately after two years of track use, we found 24% leakdown in cylinder #5. So, that is getting looked at now. The carbs are also going to be torn-down and optimized for race use (larger venturis and possible emulsion tube and jet changes.)

Other "while we're in there" stuff includes finishing the brake cooling, G2X data acq system and probably a trans cooler.

Car looks great where did you get the front splitter from?

Thanks,
Steve

Thanks Steve. The deep front spoiler/splitter is from Roger Sheridan. I also have a rear spoiler from him that's not installed yet.

Gorgeous and inspiring. I really need to reduce the number of toys so I can make progress with the one I keep. Meanwhile, checking your Flickr feed...

Thanks Chris I will give him a call

Sorry for the lack of updates. Unfortunately my engine is a sick puppy and the car will be down for a while longer and another $$$$ bill is coming. 2011 season is over for me.

More evaluation and pricing is ongoing, but I'm basically facing 3 choices:

1) Replace only the totally unusable bits, put it back together and roll the dice
2) Also replace questionable bits and do some upgrades, such as more compression (pistons) and more aggressive cams
3) Swap-in a different engine and roll the dice

Technically selling the car with a hurt engine -- at a massive loss -- is a 4th option but that just ain't gonna happen.

I went and visited the shop today. The top-end is mostly apart and parts being cleaned-up and inspected. The good news is the bottom end, heads and cams seem OK. Bad news is at least a couple cylinders, valves, guides, seats, 1 rocker and various other bits are not OK. The springs and retainers are fine but may be upgraded for good measure.

Waiting on price and availability for a few P&C options from Mahle before deciding which route to go. I would love to go 12.5:1 Mahle 2.8 "RSR" if I can afford it (that might warrant a cam change too), but it may be much more practical to put this thing back together as a 2.7 with new or good used cylinders and the existing 10.5:1 JE pistons.

The game plan should solidify next week - stay tuned...

Just getting caught up on this... That looks awesome!

Finally! After months of frustration I finally have my hands on the 92mm (2.8) P&C's to put my engine back together. Apparently Mahle only makes the less common stuff in batches every once in a while and once they're gone you are SOL until they decide to make more. They weren't planning to make any more 92mm stuff until this summer at the soonest.

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I probably will not use these pistons as they're "only" 10.5:1 C/R and I want to go up to 12.5:1 or so ideally; getting pistons should not be a problem as it's the barrels that are made of unobtainium. I will probably save these pistons in case someday I want to put the car back to a more streetable configuration.

I also have one of these on the way. It's not an absolute necessity but is cool, and my current "S" red shroud is a bit damaged.

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There are still some kinks with the bodywork to figure-out as well. The rear flares are too small to fit the optimal tires and the fronts have some strange geometry/clearance problem I don't fully understand yet (going to see in person this week). The solution to that may be going back down to 15" wheels/tires which would require re-modifying or changing the struts.

I loved the way this car looked with the narrow body and the raw hoods.

But now??? I am not afraid to say it..... OMG!!!!!

Been down the weird front geometry/clearance road. Your front fenders now give you enough room to screw you into the ground....the quickest way to get there is by using spacers. Just because some tire wheel combo will fit doesn't mean it should be there. Case in point....see pic. Ayup, got em in there and made sure they cleared at full compression, lock, & droop. Made for a lost season of steering effort like a dump
truck and understeer.

Agreed JP. There are two main issues: (1) the 16" tires I have on there now are too tall and other options are very limited and (2) my strut spindles were raised so minimum 16" wheels are needed. We're kicking-around going down to 15's and using spacers to get the track and clearance right. I hope to finally have a solid game plan this week but am not super enthused about possibly not being able to use the effing spendy Weidman RSR Fuchs I bought...

Car looks incredible. Is it still streetable?

The sad fact is that we must base our decisions on available tire sizes.
Width vs diameter of the available rubber is pretty well set across the range regardless of manufacture.

So, one needs to set up a car for tires.....not an ideal situation but everyone is in the same boat. Since you are now gonna have an excess of HP ( aren't light cars grand)
you need big sticky buns out back. Hoosier makes a 275 X 35 X 15 fits that bill nicely with a 23 inch diameter. But, whata' you gonna do up front? One would think a square set-up would be the cat's ass and this is where the weirdness sets in.
The proper wheel width for the above tire is 10 inches. Do that and scrub radius will have your ass (BTDT).......not enough backspace and no way to get the wheels inboard far enough. This may not be too bad on the track (other than heavy steering) but it's a killer for the tight corners in AX. An 8 inch wide wheel (a one inch improvement is scrub) cured that for me (with canti slicks) and someone is telling me that a 9 incher works for him with the 275s......this may even be true. At any rate, the 914 font end has it's limitations and this can be an expensive problem to work out.

I've run the square set up and loved it. My opinion would be to try and mount the tires and see how it looks. We've done that in the past and it worked out. You'll know real quick if it doesn't fit.
Can you go to 16's?

Yup, I've been running 16's in the skinny sizes -- the problem ensued when I obtained enough power to overwhelm the rears (205's) and now the wider Hoosiers are way too tall, over 25" whereas the 205's are 23"-ish.

There are some 16" Hoosier and possibly Goodyear slicks that could work if I can fit the width but that's looking doubtful so 15's are probably the answer.

Thanks! It is street registered and still has horns and lights but is far from being pleasant or usable in actual street driving, even with a muffler installed. Very stiff and very loud...full rollcage...no side windows...

Looks amazing Chris!!

Those rear fenders are the jam!!!!

The slicks in my pics.(ah, poetry) are 10 X 22.5 X 16. Your rear flares *look* wide enough. The fronts area little deceptive on my car as the opening was raised 3/4 inch but as I said, just cause they fit don't mean they work.

I think I would also take into consideration the play grounds...

Chris you can probably run this car as an IMSA spec car in some of the vintage clubs.

but you may be limited to a 15inch wheel for that...
I know the HMSA club would want you to use a 15inch wheel

its another slippery slope isn't it...
you can keep the car metal and sorta production ish...

or you can cut all of that new paint job off and jump into the tube world of fiberglass flares and PCA club racing

brant

very nice! I love the color

Well, more bad news I'm afraid. Based on the other sketchy stuff and damage found in the top end and induction, I decided to have the shop split the case and inspect the bottom-end. The oil pump housing is cracked so I'll need a new pump. Also there is a chance the case needs some machine work but that is still TBD; and new bearings and studs make sense since it's all apart now.



On the bright side the super-trick custom Mahle pistons should be here pretty soon and the top end parts and machine work will be squared-away at that point. As far as we know the rods are OK but after all this I will not be too surprised if problems surface there too.

Just FWIW this engine was built by a reputable shop that I know some other guys here have used. All indications are that it was built with some questionable used parts and "creative" machine work. Not exactly Motor Sheister awful but I am appalled to hear this stuff with regard to this shop and how much money went into this engine originally. I am looking at probably 50% of that cost again to fix and upgrade it the way I want. I bought it "as-is" from their customer who fell onto hard times, fresh in the crate, so I have no recourse with the shop unfortunately.

Additionally there are still unresolved clearance issues with the flares and at least the fronts will need to be redone or modified somehow. The rears are smaller than I wanted but should be livable and they look great so I am very reluctant to go there again.

Well my g'damn car is still not home yet but there is forward motion. We ended up getting around the front clearance issues by going back to 15" wheels and the resulting shorter tires. (This will save a little weight too.)

Accordingly I just picked up 2 pairs of NOS 15x8's and 1 pair of 15x9's. I can also run the 16x9's I already have on the rear.


15x8" Porsche Fuchs wheels by cjcam, on Flickr


15x9" Porsche Fuchs wheels by cjcam, on Flickr

I will most likely send them to Weidman for the RSR 'frosted' finish.

Nice 9's did you buy em from Brooke ?

Yup do they look familiar? Ultimately I may want to find another pair but I have to sell other wheels first to reinflate my wallet.

Well, after a sustained nightmare of flaky people, parts frustrations, and "stuff happens" delays, the car is finally home again! There is of course much more I want to do on the car but there is now a great foundation for 914R version 4.0

Many pics and details will follow. In the meantime I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas and New Years!

Glad it's back, looking forward to pics and updates