We've been playing with this one in our spare time. I don't think I ever put an official thread up here on the site so, here goes!

This piece of crap will soon become "Project 914 ORV". Actually what looks pretty bad on the surface; is pretty bad "on the surface".

As many 914's go, someone tried to make this one something it isn't. It isn't a "slant nose" no matter what you do to the fenders. And, I don't care how many Miami Vice episodes you've watched, that rubber whale tail thingy and the rear reflector are just plain "wrong".

But wait... Speaking of "just plain wrong", were going to carve this late model, big bumpered version of of 80's lust into a high-rise, fiberglass skinned, tubed tub that's ready for Utah's backcountry. That's right; White Rim Trail here we come!

Fear not, we're still thinking "all things vintage" so, we'll be pouring over factory rally pictures and builds to make sure we can learn all we can from the engineers at Porsche who went before us.

Here it is as it arrived:



Mmmm purdy huh?



Time to get busy. Shovel loads of crud came out of the trunks and interior:



Bummer...



Getting there:



Buuuu-Bye:



Ooooh, the comedy never stops when you're working on a 914. Farm and Fleet tractor implement lights silly-coned on for turn signals! Yee-Haw!!



Rio inspecting the progress:



Off come the body panels. Special thanks to Elli-rot who went before us. He sent a bunch of pictures of his Dzuz fastener locations and offered advice on where to put them as we cut the panels off. Here you see pictures of his cars taped to the body as we taped and cut.



That there's a good 1 1/2" of Bondo.



Done:



Nice solid tub is what we were looking for and it appears that's what we got.



More panel cutting:





Here you can see what we're aiming for. All of the QRS panels from Jeff are laid on the car in a mock assembly. Already looking 100% better! Next it's off to sand and soda blasting.

This is going to be good

Here's the tub at the media blasters shop. We actually did both sand and soda as there was a bunch of undercoating in the wheel wells that the sand would cut better. We wanted the trunks to be soda blasted as those areas have the finer detail that will be seen.

There will be no original body panels on this car (with the exception of the sail panels). The doors will be re-skinned and all of the panels on the car will be the complete QRS GT panels. Bumpers and all.



There was no light inside the shop when I got there so these pics are a little off but, you can see the tub is now stripped:



Here's how the soda looks inside the trunk. I just love the way it brings you back to factory metal:



Here's a trunk full of goodies that we had blasted at the same time. These bits will be zinc plated in clear.



The dash and engine lid lay in wait inside the tub:



A small bit of hell hole work is about all that's needed here:



The rear trunk is fantastic. If your going to build a car, it really is a great idea to get the tub down to bare metal so you know what you're dealing with.



The next step was to have the car measured out top to bottom. This one is perfect on the suspension side and almost perfect up top. The front is only off by a few mm from a tap in the left front. We're currently deciding on how crazy we want to go with that as the car will be driven off-road and the entire skin will be new glass panels anyway...





A little metal work will be needed here to get the left taillight housing right. Pretty simple stuff once you're at this stage in bare metal:





Next we'll dig into the suspension...

We did a little something different with these control arms. We're still using our stiffening tubes but, this time with a little twist. People always asked "why not a lateral tube" so..., yeah; why not?



Here's the real twist. It turns out there's just enough room in there for a 1" tube so... that's where it went!

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The other side...



And another in the side evenly spaced from the lateral tube:



All welded up and ready to go!



Gusset's too!



Then we turned our attention to the front end. While the whole world's gone plum-crazy over raised spindles, we decided to lower ours!







Gusset's too!



This car is getting Bilstein's all around so we went with the "Oliver" shade of vintage Bilstein green. The later Bilstein is more of a John Deere green with a more yellowish tint to it.



We're still playing around with some inner suspension ear designs for the rear but, suffice to say, we'll have an additional 4-6" of lift with basic stock settings (and these):





Still not sure if that will be our final tire choice but, they should give an additional 2" of lift off the stock ride height.

Stay tuned.

Can't wait to watch this thread....will be interesting, seeing this to fruition...and...see what it does.

Amazed to see how well the soda blasting works...gonna see if I can talk someone into splitting cost and setup of that one...Hi Jake...

This will be fun to watch, nice progress

Subscribed!

The tub is currently at Insane Buggy Werks getting a cage that will tie into the shock towers and into the suspension pickup points. One look at John Adderly's Northstar powered sand rail and you'll know why they call it Insane Buggy Werks! LOL They know how to bend tube and make strong off-road frames.

I also asked Jeff Zwart his thoughts on the cage after having his issues with his Pan-Alaska tub. He mentioned the areas to tie into which he thought would do the trick for what we're after. Thou shall be done...

...stay tuned.

A few other tid-bits I left off.

Let there be light! And there was (or will be) light.



And of course we can't simply see no evil without hearing no evil... take a guess where these will go.

Neat!

Have you considered extending your rear control arms 6" or 8" and moving the pivot points FWD the same. I don't think the stock shocks would work at that point. Same with the front end. If you flare the car you can extend the control arms and use narrow tires. I know it is a lot of work but...

I agree Erc. You should extend your rear arms. On the front you may want to put some Aluminum blocks between the body and the control arms, crossmember to keep the geometry when you raise your spindles. You will need to lengthen your steering rod also.

That's pretty bad-ass. Ask me about my next project when we're on the phone.

Cool!

Pat Garvey is looking for you Erc and he ain't too happy, either.

Tell him it's an improvement upon this:



Now... time to order that new rear fog light.

If you look close... maybe "two" rear fog lights!

its the FOUR lights on the roof that make the car....

Way cool! Saw a lot of these pics on your facebook site but great to see it on here. That car with the slantnose front bumper treatment makes it look like a TR7 (not really a compliment).

Awesome!

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Dave... can you reel him in please?

Yes.

And no.



Which one were you talking about?

Aucontraire. Cest les mudde flappes!

Not too much to report here as this is our little side project.

The tires arrived and the wheels are off being powder coated in white. We'll try to update that around the end of the week here. Hoping to get them mounted up so we can throw the suspension on the car while the chassis is still in metal stage.

The chassis is off getting the cage welded in. We'll be going to all of the shock towers and then down to the suspension points and the tranny mounts in the rear.

Speaking of suspension; the rear arms are back and the bearings are in:

Ooopsie... I've been so swamped. Business went gangbusters this summer and I have an Elderly father in Michigan to look after. Stimulating times to be sure. I've been doing a few things here and there on the beast but haven't had much time to update the thread. Here's a few:

Fuch's have all been powdercoated:

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The tires were toned down a bit but, now they're absolutely perfect for the chassis:

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Plenty of meat here but, believe it or not, they're basically a stock diameter:

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Mr. Zarbo provided us with some amazing luminage for the front. NOS Cibie Bi-Oscars will probably be mounted in the shell of a bumper. I plan to literally build the bumper opening around the lights:

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These are massive! Like dinner plates. It will be hard to get them in the bumper spot but, if all goes as planned, that's exactly where they'll be:

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We've all seen this before but, it's basically ready to bolt on. We'll be using our PerformancePoly bushings throughout. We'll be using alignment washers for a low-friction mount and decambered ball joints to deal with the raised ride height suspension geometry. (more on that as we mount everything up)

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Bilsteins on the tallest setting with stock springs. The top body-mount with be lowered and strengthened and the ears will be lowered and strengthened as well:

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Artsy hub shot:

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These will get 930 spacers and Brembo calipers:

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These get 930 spacers and our rear VB914-6 calipers:

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Yes, I actually bought one of those old style Dymo label makers to make the factory style dash labels... it's the "details".

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And finally, here's a sneak-peek at the cage going in.



This will be more of a cruiser/rock crawler cage with ties to all of the suspension points to make a fairly rigid chassis.

Engine and drive train plans are coming together as well. Initial plans are looking like a basic 3.0 with the newer CIS cams and maintaining the stock CIS induction. We're looking to mate this to a side-shift, short-geared box via a solid linkage kit and updated bushings. All tucked under a nose-to-tail aluminum skid plate.

This should give us turn-key performance in a reliable package that's capable of operating at various altitude settings. This is very important as we can be at or below sea level a few hours south of us or, 12,000 ft. above in the mountains behind the shop.

Awesome progress!

The roll bar hoop looks awfully low. Might be a head knocker...

Short geared 901? Call me

Fuchin cool
14" rims?
This 914 will rock

Awesome work Eric. This will be too nice to get dirty...

Mine goes a good 2" over the stock targa bar and i still only have little head clearance.

Unless your name is Clay, that bar will be too low ...


PS: And yes, the top still fits!

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We may yank the bar. That section was done without me seeing it. I'd "like" the potential to be in SCCA rally cross events and a one piece hoop is manditory.

I would suggest you pull all of it out.
The welds would concern me, especially the passenger side angle bar and how it meets the long at the bottom.
Not going to pass a tech inspection.

You might want to consider getting Foley to ship you out his precut bar and base setup to start with, then you have at least that bar, the base plates and the rear cross bars all fitting correctly.

He sells it like that, a shipped, you weld it in , roll bar, or semi cage.

You can add tubes from there, but the stuff from Foley would be a great place to start.

I think it might be worth giving him a call to talk about what he can fabricate for you that could be pre done , just for ease of putting it all in place and having it all fit.

Rich

Have you read the article on cracked Fuchs wheels in the last Panorama? (October 2014 - Wheeling & Dealing -with your life) They talk about problems with stress cracks on the wheels and especially powder coating issues in the lug nut seats. I realize that he is talking about race cars and wheels, but something to keep in mind. A good read and fair warning.

Very cool build and can't wait to see more…..

Looks like you're going to have the only zombie apocolypse 914 on the planet... I want to drive it.

Way cool build...plans for nerf type bars up front and in the back?

Everyone can breath... the bar is coming out. I poured over the SCCA bar rules yesterday and handed them to John. He agrees. He thought it was just an off-road car and, it may be but, I'd like the chance to play "Rally-Cross" with the local kids.

Not to keep beating on your cage guy but...Independent of the roll hoop not being a single piece, those braces don't go to nodes which is really poor practice. It's not that hard to cope a tube to fit into a node, rather than just cut it on a mill to fit onto the vertical tube. I've built a few tube frames and cages and would never, ever, let anything like that leave my shop. That's all.

I really can't wait to see more progress! This should be a really cool car when it's done.

Oh pa-leeeeze...

FYI

When you attach the calipers you will probably need to remove the powder coat on the trailing arms and front struts where the calipers sit. The powder coat is thicker and will space the caliper off center of the rotors.

Good advice since this guy don't know shit about brakes.

I actually wondered about that because I powder coated my trailing arms too. I hope Eric shows us what his solution is.

This is one of those threads that you wish was 15 pages long and you want to peek to see the end result!

Id just file the powder coat off but thats me.
To be fair, id have asked them to not powdercoat it in the first place.

Although I do have his brake rebuilds on all 4 corners

You would have to go pretty heavy on the powder coat to make any difference. You can mask them by installing a short bolt and washer in the caliper hole. I haven't in the past and never had a problem.

So do I. What does that say about us?