I just purchased two 914. A 1970 914 1.8 and a 1974 914 2.0 The 1974 2.0 has the ga 2.0 engine along with the center console option and has the factory installed A/c, but this one needs alot of work to restore....like paint, body work, windshield, interior, suspension. The other one, 1970 1.8, has the engine and transmission out of it, and is in overall real good shape with only paint need and the engine and trans needed to be put back in the car. So I know that the 1974 2.0 is worth more at the end, but the 1970 1.8 requires alot less work. Wich one do you think should I restore???

2.0 motor in the early body..easy

unless you're planning on selling the car to make some money, in which case you bought the wrong 2 cars to begin with ...

the '70 with the 2.0L will be just as much fun to drive as a '74 with a 2.0L ...
Andy

and its a tad lighter than the later bodies just FYI of course

Should I leave out the A/c when I put the 2.0 in the 1970?? Also is the 1974 2.0 have the emissions garbage on it ? or does it have the high compression 95 hp engine??

Leave out the A/C. Very unreliable, poor design because of limitations. Most of them don't work anymore anyway. I didn't think they put emissions stuff on 'til '75? Not higher compression, european had higher compression. Better horse power than the cars with smog equipment.

unless you *really* need the AC, leave it off, it'll save you some weight, a few HP and most of all, you don't have to cut up your perfectly good '70 body.
sell it (the AC) here or on ebay and offset some of your costs!

the '74 should not have any significant smog equipment unless someone added it to it later. as for the high-compression, none of the US cars had that, that was euro-spec.
altough, a lot of people have replaced their US spec pistons with euro-pistons, bumping up the CR. so, you might as well have euro pistons in your car.
only way to tell for sure is to take the heads off ...

you can remove smog equippment to gain a few HP here and there, in fact, i ran my 1.8L D-Jet with nothing else but the MPS and Brain, no Decel-Valve, no AAR ...
works just fine ...

Andy

And if you have some extra trim/parts... I might be willing to take some of them off your hand, since I just picked up a 74 for myself.

nothing wrong with a properly installed and modern A/C unit in a 914...I was just down there in Orlando (visiting da Mouse) and I know we had the A/C all the time in our POS rental car

are you sure it's a 1.8? these didn't come out until '74, but we 914 people are known to swap engines and fuel injections left and right.....

the engines are easy to swap out, pick the car with the best chassis and least amount of rust and go from there.

My 1970 with 2.0L & side shift trans. Plus few other mods...

I would put the 2.0 in the 70 along with all the add ons into the 70 witht he exception of the A/C. If the air works, then I would probably install that too. Just for the times when it is hot out.