I just got a 914 this last week. I went to put the battery in and it started really sparking on the battery when i connected the negative. Once i had the battery in place and hooked up i turned the key to see what electrical components where working. Headlights moved and dash lights were on....but I soon smelled something coming from the engine. I quickly turned the key off and took the battery out. The smoking was coming from around the middle of the front side of the engine. It doesn't look like anything is there but i didn't have time to investigate further.

Any ideas?

main harness comes thru firewall about that point.

Do you mean around the fan area? If so, there really isn't much up there unless some wires had come loose, fallen? maybe sucked up by the fan?

Alternator conections? Maybe the smoke was just coming through the fan inlet?

thanks for the start

When I got my car someone before me had run some hot wires into the engine bay from up front, not sure why. Anyway I was doing the same thing you were and had smoke come out from around the same place. Turns out the wires had exposed ends and were grounding to the metal and basically burning up. needless to say I unhooked the battery and got rid of the wires.

Not sure if this will help but just wanted to point out that you never know what a DAPO (dumb as previous owner) might do.

Good luck, and don't burn you car up.

What did it smell like? Electrical fires/smoke smell very different than smoke from burning oil, etc. Might help you get a start.

it was an electrical smell for sure. smelled bad!