Excellent work, Mats. Thank you for posting your build thread.

Could you tell us the specs for your BBS wheels and tires? Thanks.

Sweet!

Shhhhhh...they're not real BBS's but dont tell anyone....

I bought these from a guy that means to use them for an 2.7 RS Clone build but that never happened so I picked them up quite cheaply. All four are 7x15 and had never been used on the the street. The tires on them were from like 89 or something. Anyway the brand apparently is RW which I dont know much about. I'm thinking of eventually having them refinished in gold with a polished lip instead of the black they are now.

The tires and 195/50-15 Nokian. A bit of a budget tire but still a good brand so they should be ok for long drives and shows which is what I will use them for.

Stellar build. IIRC, you drove that in the Winter w/o the windscreen. Damn that was cold!

So yesterday was the highpoint of the Swedish 914 year. The annual meeting down in south of Sweden, for the first time I would be bringing my own car that I only finished working on the evening before (fixing the odometer)



I left home at 5:20 am to drive the 255 miles south. Joining me I had my friend Pontus driving his Cayman as a backup/following vehicle.



Since I had barely driven the car the first hour was a bit nervous. It was also quite cold for the season, only 40F when I left so I got to put the heat on to keep warm. Further south there are a couple of long inclines that I was a bit nervous about but the car handled them well just touching 375F at the top of the hills.

About 20 minutes out from arrival we stopped for fuel just to be sure, I know my engine is running quite rich (lambda 0.9) and it got around 25 mpg on that part of the trip keeping an everage speed around 100 km/h.



It was a very nice feeling driving into the small farmhouse courtyard to joing the other 914's attending. All of Sweden has an estimated number of 150 914's where probably 50 are being used every year.



So the meet managed to have 7 driving cars and one project attending. Among the visitors there was at least three whose cars were not finished or not running, hopefully we'll break into double figures next year.



It was a great day, meeting old familliar face and learning a few new ones and seeing a few cars I'd only seen images of before.



All in all it was a great day, my first major trip in the car and it handled the 510 miles great. I was pretty tired getting home tho so next year i'll probably split the driving over two days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrh878om6pI...eature=youtu.be

Yesterday was the first ever slalom even for me with this car. I felt very rusty and had
some trouble with the 180 degree turn trying both a tight and a wide line. Only four cars in my class and when I headed home I was still the fastest in my class.

Looking good Mats.
Your car looks well up.
Certainly corners nice and flat.

Love this photo! Great perspective

https://youtu.be/vXNzR7L_FRY

Had a little bit of fun last night...

Mats
Your car looks great. Enjoyed both of your videos. It's an excellent build!
Dave

Well since last time things have been pretty smooth...mostly...but more on that later.
Spokes front LED's are great, cant recommend them enough.



Been to a few local car shows and have gotten great response to the car. Always nice to get some appreciation when you've worked hard to make it a good car.



I designed this badge in Solidworks. It's basically a 1988 911 3.2 badge that I switched around. A friend 3D printed it for me and its got two strong magnets countersunk into the backside.



I finished the surface with a 1200 grit wet and dry paper and then painted it silver. Turned out pretty nice.



I've had this faint whining noise from the gearbox since the start of the season. Sadly its getting louder and driving home from the autocross last night its really noticeable.
So the season might get quite short as I dont want to risk a total failure.

I've started investigating someone who can rebuild my gearbox. The good thing is that all the gears go in easy without crunching so the synchros should be ok.

Looks like a great area for a 914. Thanks for sharing the car and the pictures. Jim.

Hi Mats. Great job on the badge ! Nice custom touch.
Have fun and good luck on the gearbox rebuild.
Greetings from Holland

I got a set of 914 Rubbers H4 headlights lenses and H4 LED bulbs in the mail last week and I've been waiting for a few non rainy evenings to try them out and compare with the stock sealed beam units that came on my ex California car.

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This is the sealed beam on low/dipped beam. Quite short range.

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This is the sealed beam on high beam. Better range of course but still not what I'd call good.

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These are the LED H4's on low/dipped beam. The experience is that they are much brighter and light up the road further ahead than the sealed beam low beam did.

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These are the H4 LEDs on high beam. I was quite dissapointed as there wasnt much difference from the low beam. As far as I can tell there is no extra range on the high beam and as the light pattern on the ground shows most of the extra light seems to end up close to the car. There was a little more vertical spread in the light but it didnt do much in actual long range light that you want on high beams.

My verdict: The improvement of the low beams makes it worth the upgrade. I wont be driving my car much in the dark so its ok for me. If you do alot of night driving I would try a set of Osram or Philips H4 bulbs too for comparison. (and get separate +12v feeds and relays for the headlights to ensure reliability)

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LED low beam from outside the car.

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LED high beam from outside the car.

I also shot a two quite shakey movies from my phone while driving the same stretch of road both with the sealed beams and LED's.

I can post the links to them if someone is interested.


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LED bulb installed.

Thanks for posting the comparison pics. Is it possible the the low & high beams are wired backward - and they are aimed too low? That might explain your high beam (really the low) hitting the ground so close to the car. Just a thought.

Great story, pics, and build; thanks for sharing.

They are aimed the same height as the old sealed beams so I think that should be comparable. I've got the yellow wire connected to the top connector of the bulb, white and brown to the side ones.

ive been playing around with this too, and i have rifht now the Osram H4 in the headlights and they are a good bit brighter and more white as you see with the Led, there is the typical difference in the hi va low beam - thanks for putting more "light" on the subject

Beautiful car Mats! Great video's too. What exhaust are you running? Your car sounds great!

Thanks.

Its a Scart silencer on stock 2.0 HE's. Not quite the song of a -6 but damn nice for being a -4.

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The other night when I came back into the garage after a short drive I caught this picture and got a little inspired. That moment after a drive and you turn of the bright garage lights. The silence is only interupted by the ticking noises of the engine beginning to cool down. Automotive nirvana right there.

Great picture Mats! I always enjoy seeing pictures of your car!!

The 2017 season is offically over. I havnt driven the car very much since late July due to an increasing whining noise from the gearbox. Its most notable when everything is warmed up and you accelerate from a slow speed in high gear.
Passing thru a village and slowing down to 50 kph (30 mph) and then accelerating
back up in forth gear and you can hear an whining noise that is rpm dependant.

So engine and gearbox out. The gearbox was dropped off last week to a semilocal (3 hour drive one way) Porsche engine/gearbox rebuilder thats very highly recommended here in Sweden. Now to play the waiting game and praying that I dont get have to eat porridge for all of 2018 due to the repair bill.

Nice pics on the LED head lights, yes you jump from 3900 to 6000 luemens, but the pattern is overlapped more than I'd like too, but if you look at your picture you can see the sign in the distance better, so it is throwing more light. is it 1/3rd more? Hard to tell with overlap, but I like mine.

Sorry to hear about the trans, but I'd think the repair bill would be limited to the replacement parts and the base cost to crack the trans. Hopefully, since it hasen't truly failed yet. Will be interesting to see why you have the noise.

Yes the LEDS are a definite improvment on my old sealed beam units but I'm curious how they stack up against a set of Hella lenses and quality relayed H4 bulbs.
Plus the fan noise is a dead giveaway that somethings not stock on the bi-yearly mandatory tech inspection.

I might have to make a comparison of that come spring.

While I'm waiting for the verdict on my gearbox issues theres nothing that lights up the dark season like some new old parts...



Might have to make myself a triple combi gauge this Winter.

Just got an update from the guy thats got my gearbox and the 4-point bearing was apparently a total loss. Somehow the bearing had started separating, Another bearing was also on its way out along with first and second gear syncros.
Around €1000 in parts and then labor cost ontop of that so probably around 2k € for the whole rebuild.

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Spent about 7 hours in the car today to go pickup my rebuilt gearbox and drive home again. These are the leftover parts. Changed two bearings, two synchros and all the seals and nuts and washers.


Now I'm just waiting for a few remaining parts I've ordered before I can put the engine and gearbox back into the car. The goal is to have it drivable by the end of March.

Just wrote a update post on my 914-6 GT fuel gauge replica on my webpage.

http://matsgarage.com/?p=1329

Any questions I'll try to answer here.

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Still pretty cold for the season over here but last night I got some help with finetuning while cruising at different speeds and wow what a difference those small adjustments made to the feel of the car. Before it felt slightly reluctant or hesitant on cruising due to running to rich. Full throttle was never a problem tho. Now it runs sooo much sweeter at cruise and the CHT's were just fine. Now I'll drive it for awhile like this and then we'll do some more fine tuning when I feel its needed.

Happy Days !

Now I just need those Euro tail lenses from 914 Rubber....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGhv9PJUGRU...eature=youtu.be

I wasnt aware my son was filming as we left a car meet tonight. He caught me spreading some lovely noise over the town...

That is one sweet sounding car. Really nice build. Thanks Mat, enjoy it!

Finally got my new seats this week and got around to mounting them. They are Scheel replicas from Italian company D'Eser. Fitting them wasnt entirely troublefree. The stock rails wont fit directly because the mounting bolt c-c distance between the two rails are 360 mm on the stock seats and 385 mm on these seats. Also the seats use 4 M8 screws where the stock seats use 8 M6 screws. I designed a simple 5 mm thick adapterplate to be able to fit the seats for now.



I end up sitting probably two inches higher than with the stock seats and the seat angle is a bit too reclined so some sort of modification will have to be done later on.



Because the seats end up sitting higher the shoulders rub against the backpad. I've put some thin microfiber cloth inbetween to prevent rubbing damage for now.



Access to the handbrake is also a bit more tight but it still works at least. And the seats look bloody amazing compared to my old stock sun damaged ones.

Wow ! Beautiful seats .

That 2" height difference could be very important to some here.
A big plus for some and a deal killer for others.

Very nice seats. They complement your beautiful car.

Mats-

You should be very proud of yourself...beautiful 914



PM me...I have a little something for you!!!!

Oscar

Nice, the shape of the side bolsters pretty much the Scheels in the GT cars. Nice choice!

Thank you everyone. These seats were the last big piece that was lacking on my car. I ordered them for my birthday back in february but between the maker having lots to do and a misunderstanding about the payment it took 4 months for them to get here. I could have gotten plain seats faster and cheaper but those rivets just elevate the look and I love it.

Now apparently my son wants to turn one of the stock seats into a gameseat for his playstation. I guess thats what we're doing over the summer vacation.

Well I started writing this in the "why didnt you work on your 914 today" but figured it would place better here. I love the way my 914 drives and looks but even with a built 2,3 four and a rebuilt gearbox I just dont get the confidence in it that makes me want to drive it all the time or go too far from home.

This summer I've only done 250 miles and that is all just local driving. I could live with the engine leaving 2-3 drops on the floor in between drives, thats not a big issue. But the gearbox weeping from the input seal annoys me greatly. Also the whining from a worn 4th gear just makes my mechanical sensibility alarm go off. I've talked with the guy that rebuilt the gearbox and he'd swap the seal at no cost to me. But I'm thinking I should maybe get the whining dealt with too. Does anyone have a known good fourth and fifth gearset to sell me? @Dr Evil ?

I want to drive my car alot more but as it is now it feels too hand grenady.

I had that feeling after rebuilding my engine. Took it to a weekend HPDE and thoroughly thrashed it. Never missed a beat and now I just drive it. Love your car, new seats are really nice too. Get out there and drive,

Bummer with the uneasy feeling about the car. The one thing I demand from my cars is reliability. Without it, I don't want to drive it.

BTW, I don't think the notification to Dr Evil works if the name has a space in it. You may want to PM Mike directly.

Falcor,

Where do you live?
I get to Stockholm a few times per year.
I could bring over some parts.

I live on the oopposite side of Sweden. About an hour north from Gothenburg.
It would take me about 5 hours to drive to Stockholm. But if you have the parts I need then shipping from the US isnt that bad usually.

If the weather cooperates this weekend I've been invited to a car show in my hometown thats about an hour and twenty minutes from where I live so I'll drive it there and back just to put some more time on it before winter.

@falcor75 Sell you, I will give you a set, and if they need to be sent over or dropped in a piece of luggage let me know. You cover shipping I am happy to have them go to a good home.

PM me what you need. If Dr. Evil wants to look them over that is fine. I am some what local to him, get to his city about once a month, some times more depending on the political hands I need to shake. Part of the job I never enjoy, seeing 914 people while I am in the city makes it bearable. It is my reward for putting up with all the stuff, just part of the game.

Thanks Stephen. I'd need a fourth and fifth gearset, the ratio isnt that important, the most common ones would do fine. The more important part is that they have some milege left on them. If we could get the good Dr to check them out before shipping that would be beyond awsome.

I would trust Stephen to know what he has.

I have several sets so I will take them out and drop some fine pictures in here. They will be good and a matched sets. Figuring out the Gear pieces is as easy as counting teeth, and referring to the chart.

Get them up this weekend so you can look at them before I leave for Okteenerfest. Travel 100s of miles to see a guy that lives just 45 minutes from me.