Well this thread is going to be multi-functional in the good hopes of not cluttering the forums. first an intro....

Well I guess ill start out saying hello, and thanks for the help already in my first post. Seems like a pretty good crowd here. I'm a youngin' out on the coast of central California. Green to the 914 platform, but not to cars or mechanics in general. My father and I picked up a previously modified 71 with a 1.7l that will be our next project.
My previous work was a Engine Mechanic in the military for 5 years. From there I moved to my first project, a 91 240sx hatch. Pretty much my learning phase, but I did pump out a good power plant.

Currently I'm rebuilding a 74 Datsun 620. Modding the frame to fit an IDRS and fitting the old 1.8l for a 4.0l V8 that will be twin charged. after this, me and my dad will start on the 914s.






Enough of that filler BS...on to the good stuff. We picked up our first 914 which had been sitting for 9+ years. It didn't look like it was kept up too well, but it ran great, until a head problem. It seems a hair crack in the head created a hot spot and formed a blow torch from the inside out. Life happens, what can you do? Lucky for us, two owners prior to us who did all the mods, kept tabs on everything that had been done to it and had a picture of it in all of its glory. So we can at least appreciate it for what it use to be. haha.




The Brutality!!!!




Anyways, on to plans.
We plan to get another rolling shell we found and keep one somewhat stock as a driver, and build the other. The plans are from the ground up as a modified weekend/track car. Not as extreme as the Datsun, but just tasteful upgrades and a wild motor swap.
It took some time for the 914 to grow on me, body wise, but they did. The outside will be taken care of by my father. The infamous all black build is what he wants to come close too.


Engine wise, I'm in control. Personally I'm done building 4 cylinders, its more a labor of love in most cases, in regards to the ones I've worked on. Anything is fast with a turbo, but I want a bit more umph out of the pot with this car. So we threw out the idea of 4s and set our sights on a 6 cylinder. A V8 would be cool, but I personally think its more than you will ever need for this car, no if's and's or but's about it. We also are looking to keep the weight ration as close to center as possible.
So right now its a fight between a Subaru flat 6, or a Nissan straight 6 2.6l. the Nissan does present a hefty challenge, fitting it, and the whole transmission issue. But the aftermarket, affordability, and performance of the platform kind of trumps a lot of other options in the long run. It's all still up in the air and much more research is to come...

Feel free to butt in here and give your 2 cents. Like I said before I'm new to all things 914, and my father is new to all modifications on them. It should prove to be a fun time. Engine drop tomorrow, stay tuned!......

Your work looks very good; the plans and goals appear very good; nice project to keep an "old military retiree" watching with extreme interest. Like the way you are approaching it or them. Best of luck.

Work scope and quality look very good from viewing the pickup.

Steve Hurt

Your work looks very good; the plans and goals appear very good; nice project to keep an "old military retiree" watching with extreme interest. Like the way you are approaching it or them. Best of luck.

Work scope and quality look very good from viewing the pickup.

Steve Hurt

I wonder how long the straight-six is. It might be a real challenge fitting in there. I do know that the later Nissan V6 has been run in at least one or two 914s, though. Those things sound eerie--a little like an F1 car at times! It was a very cool sound coming from a 914, as I recall.

Sounds like you have the skills to put together whatever your dream might be. I am very interested to see where that takes you!

Welcome to the World!!

--DD

Thanks for the kind words Steve, and your service as well. We'll be sure to keep it intresting for a while.

Dave, I think I remember seeing one straight 6 digging throuh the internet somewhere, but i cant find it for the life of me. Cutting into the fire wall and trunk seemed to be how they did it. Every car seems to be a learning process, but we should be good.

Well that was an experience, never dropped a mid engine before. Took a min. to find out how to get the shifting rod lose and a few other things, but we got it out. Actually pretty easy if I had to do it all over, but a lift would make it a lot quicker. anyways, disconnecting the lines and such, we found we had to replace a lot more than we thought. Not a surprising, but not what we first thought.

The rust damage is a lot more extensive than we thought as well. I only saw a few spots prior, the hell hole looked good, and all the uni-body connections looked to be solid as well. Fenders and everything in plain sight looked good. The floor boards in this thing need some love....really bad. I almost want to just cut them out and make it one layer. (i dont know why they have a 2 layer floor board in these things.) But that will be dealt with at the end of the week. For now it sits, Ill crack the head tomorrow (no pun intended) and see if we can get away with just replacing the heads and have them go through a scan to check for other problematic cracks. Other than that, its progress for now.

wires were a rats nest. after going through this car, and unbolting all these odd size and bolts holding it together, i would like to drop kick the one who did this.





Time to clean this thing up too.

Alright, so i got the head in question off. upon getting a closer look at the spark plug threads, it does look like there was a repair that lead to failure. However the ring (head gasket?) at the top of the cylinder was busted in half and was making a hot spot right next to it, so sooner or later this head was bound to fail regardless.

Surprisingly the cylinder wall and the piston look great. Just a lot of metal shavings in there from what happened. No scoring on the walls or anything so I think we saved some ass there. I'm going to open the other head to investigate what seems to be a push rod tick and check for other apparent cracks or problems.

Anything else you guys recommend checking while I'm in there, specific to this engine? And last....Looking for some 1.7 heads for sale. thanks.

Ah, head gasket failure. I wonder if it could be related to the spark plug hole blowtorch, or if it is an independent failure?

The risk of this happening, BTW, is why some people don't like using head gaskets. If the gasket fails in one spot, you get a combustion leak--and you've seen what happens with those...

--DD

Yes, it seems it has a lot more potential to be catastrophic for these engines than just a normal flat sealing head. I'm glad it happened really as it seemed one or the other would happen. It may have just caused the gasses that were in that section to spread to the weakness of the repair in the plug. Oh well, either way. Ill run another head gasket as we dont plan to keep these engines for ever.

Now the problem is finding the heads. These were .022.101.372. I hear what you want to go with is the .021.101.371Q heads? what is a solution for new heads?

seems like were doing a minor restore and patch job before we go into project mode....

Got the heads off, and found about a good 64th of an inch of slack in one of the rocker arms that was making a nice tick. Nothing looks worn or damaged however. Cleaning the engine, but other than that it will stay until i source some new heads. We moved into the cab, and though the hell hole looks nice, we have some pretty nasty rust on the passenger rear floor pan and the rocker panel starting at the bulkhead. Got a new rear floor pan on order along with an inner panel to cut and weld in. that's it for now.