Nope, just passionate about Porsche. But thanks.

If I remember right, the 904's fiberglass body was glued onto the frame. Planning on doing the same?

Not there yet, but it is an option.

Equally strange is that the 'historic' bodywork for the car is sitting neglected outside in the elements, thousands of miles from the chassis.

This is the kind of anal hypocrisy that gives preservationists a bad name.

I'll be following your build, good luck with it.

Automotive panel adhesive has come a long way in 50+ years. I love the stuff & wish it was'nt so damned expensive; best household "glue" I've ever used

I'm a developer, there's a reason those buildings go by the wayside, and it's waaaay beyond the value to fix it up, making whole is beyond $$$ in some cases. Similar to this situation, there are going to be feelings, emotions, goals, bucket list, that cannot be expressed in words by the OP and are valid reasons for him not to let the car go for any price. In fact this nonsense has probably solidified the cars fate...

Let's get on to the build!

When I lived in Brooklyn my landlord owned our building but also owned a whole block right behind on on the East River. He wanted to develop it as waterfront living, a bunch of people wanted to preserve the building. A hearing was set for certain Monday at 10AM, this is what I awoke to that Monday at 7AM.

There was no hearing, they demo'ed what was left and built condos. That landlord had about 5 fires in the few years I knew him. When I saw him on the street that morning, he said he got a call at 5 AM that morning. I asked if the caller said, "It's done" He told me where to put those thoughts in typical Brooklyn fashion.

I agree with the analogy. Yet 99 times out of 100, those passionate preservationists can't seem to come up with a viable fiscal plan to not only purchase and preserve the building, but most importantly maintain it.

Everything costs money in one way or another, even if it is "free". My daughter was awarded free tickets to last night's Reds game for getting straight A's. After parking, dinner, and a beer (for me), I had spent $55 before the first pitch.

Adam listed what he needs in a car a few posts up. I would find it hard to believe that among the folks who want to see this car saved, the parts, tub and skills to put it together are not there. Rather than bash him, those folks need come up with a plan that both sides can live with, put a deadline on it, and deliver. Win/win. From what I can see, his demands are not that tall - running, driving, higher displacement six conversion with big brakes. Hell, you could just drive a good tub up there, rent a shop and swap everything over the course of a couple of days. I can't be the only original thinker here.

BTW, Adam, if I were you, I would rather do the build on an ex-street car than an ex-race car. Repairs on racers are not always pretty.

AND



SO

Yeah, but racers hate rust, so this car has none.

I've met a lot of developers who lived in the suburbs with preservation orders yet "develop"in less affluent areas. Funny thing that.

Chop the car up and do it quickly.

Close to what I was thinking. It's not like half of us don't have a car stashed on the side of the house with plans we're probably never going to get too...
I could be into it pretty cheap if I could put the hours into it. But reality is I really don't need another car in the garage collecting dust until I hit Megabucks.

Remember it's a disease, there is no cure, just medicine, i.e more cars.

Hi Adam! This is quite the thread you've got going here. I don't think I've ever seen this community so up-in-arms about anything. I'll not put my input in the controversy, since I'm feel pretty neutral about it, but I am curious about a few aspects of your project.

For one, I've not seen anyone ask or any explanation as to: Why you are so set on putting a 6-cylinder in a 904? Weren't the originals all beefy 4-cylinders with DOHC, except for a few limited run 904/6s? It seems to me I read that Porsche had trouble with body overstress when they tried to put an F6 in the 904, and had to add a tube-frame, turning it into the 906. I'd imagine that cutting the body off of a 914 and bonding the 904 body onto it then adding an overweight engine (for the fibreglass shell) might well present a similar problem without some rather drastic countermeasures.

You might want to do a bit of stress analysis on the center-drive 914 and an analogue to your rather exclusive 904 body before you decide to assemble the final car. Panel adhesive is utterly ridiculous to try to undo, especially on fiberglass.

Just my $0.02. I look forward to seeing whatever comes out of all this.

Hell I would not care if it was Hitler's staff car and he wanted to make a dune buggy out of it.
He owns it He can do what he wants and I wish him success.

You forgot about the best versions, the 904s with the type 771 flat 8s in them


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My-Lv3fqplU

Don't restored vintage racecars with history do quite well in the market ?
Isn't a vintage racecar restored to its period livery and performance more valuable than one that has been made un- recognizable?
Isn't there more upside in going toward its history than there is going sideways ?

Hey now, you can just take the logic of yours and take it over to another thread. Dr. Porsche himself would be proud to see this car be transformed into one his beloved 904s. Adam has assured us of this!

I think the 904 will bring even more money. Can't wait to see the build.

Just picked up the car, it is running wonderfully, hoping to find a big empty parking lot to let loose in, if not I might risk putting Dealer Plates on it, but I might not be able to talk my way out of that one.
The body is all ready for display for the open house on Saturday Sept. 5th, hope to see everyone there.

Nothing personal, but how are you going to transform that tube frame thing to not look hideous on the inside of the 904? Must be planning on doing a lot of cutting and reforming of the structure. Do you have any plans that you can share? I am also a big fan of the 904 and I wish that Beck would of made his into production like his 550 spyder. Would of been an awesome kit car if the price was right.

I talked to Chuck Beck a few days ago about another car but mentioned my project, he liked the idea but did point out a couple of pitfalls. My guess would be he looked into using 914's also.
I am hoping to keep some of the roll bar in place since I may have to cut the Factory bar, but I won't know until I start fitting.

Chuck is cool but quite the oddball. As many success's as he's had, there have been just as many failures

The Beck 914 was OK, I still have a Kit, but impossible to ship. The Ford Shogun was cool but he he took too many shortcuts.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Chuck Beck also did a really nice 904 replica. According to his web site he is selling the whole thing minus drive train.
http://www.beck904.com/sales/

It is/was a very nice kit. As long as you don't buy his personal one. Wicked fast, but I saw him basically four-wheeling it at Road Atlanta infield after I talked to him about the Beck 914 at a Petit LeMans

I had the opportunity to check out his personal car in LV at a Porsche shop JP and I visited. I really don't car what you do to a 914 chassis it will never impress anyone like the work Chuck did on that chassis. Here's an idea, pull the driveline from the IMSA car, sell the roller chassis and the 904 shell you bought and just buy one of Chucks rollers. No need to reinvent the wheel.

BINGO

Rick, I think I had a good idea for you a couple of pages back.

I'll bet there are some sporty guys in this country who would love to own a an old racecar,
maybe a Porsche that once raced in a seminal series.
Maybe a car that was developed by three revered names in the American Porsche pantheon.
Events could be organized where they could go to run such cars and enjoy them as they were meant to be used. East coast, west coast and in between.
A great name would have to be found for such events.
A name that's simple but evocative, maybe a bit European.
Something like Rennsport Reunion ?
Nah.... it'll never fly.

awww... don't make me look for it -quote it!

I got no dog in the hunt I appreciate the cars history but it's your car so ...

this thread is awesome I thought it was just gonna be a cool/interesting build thread but this much fun before the build has even started

That should be easy to measure using the floorboard as a reference. You could even use pvc pipe as a cheap mockup.


At $60k there is some motivation to look at options.


Me, yes, but no, can't afford it, but I would really like to see it saved. I've got a 72 4lug autoX car I could barter with, but it would require a bunch of Members volunteering to make it happen.
Makes me want to ask, what was wrong with dug's deal?

Chris-
I explained what didn't work with Dug's deal previously and don't really want to re-hash since Dug took offense to our different view points on the merits of the deal.

I've also explained why I didn't buy a Beck in a previous post, so don't want to re-visit that either.

I think at this point everyone who agrees or dis-agrees with my decisions has made their voice known, can we just move forward on the details of the build now?

To date no one has come up with an alternative that I am comfortable with and after months in the planning stages, and the hurry up and wait stages, or can't find a car stages, I would like to just enjoy my build and I encourage those who would like to follow the progress to check back here for updates.

To the rest of you who are just re-hashing the same resistance to my build, please only post if you have something new to contribute, just taking jabs and being sarcastic is getting tiresome. I've tried to be cool here, listening and responding to everyone on their opinions, but I'm really not sure how to respond to some of you guys who are just being obnoxious.

I assure you the original bodywork and the one-of-a-kind rear wing is not stored outside in the elements. That photo was just a "quick put the body work on the car" shot taken the moment after it arrived. It's all locked up tight until I get the chassis ready.

From my reading, the 904 was designed from the outset to use a version of the 901's six-cylinder motor. But they had problems making the engines--either making enough of them to satisfy demand, or making them race-worthy, so they switched to the tried-and-true Fuhrman four-cam. Eventually, they were able to use the six-cylinder engines that they had originally planned to, and of course there were the one or two that wound up with the early flat-eight motors....

The 906 was a very different beast. The only thing it had in common with the 904 was the suspension uprights, because the Doctor insisted they use the parts that had been bought for possible future 904 construction. The rest was almost completely a clean-sheet design.

--DD

In Sept and Oct I am going to see and photograph both a 904 and a 906, so once I do that I can report back about differences.

Found this thread in another forum- this guy appears to have built his replica 904 from scratch. Lots of very interesting info & pics:

http://forums.early911sregistry.org/forums...ca-build-thread

I believe you'll find that the 904 has something approaching a unit-body design, where a floor pan and lower panels were pressed from steel and welded together, then the plastic body bonded on top of that. (Trivia: Body by Heinkel, the aircraft builders!)

The 906 had a tubular space-frame, and the plastic body was attached to that.

Very different animals...

--DD

The 904 floor is fiberglass the frame is steal

This will be the real challenge
Click to view attachment

Do you cut the 914 in half and remove 6 inches or do you cut the 904 body and add 6 inches to the door and roof?
or
Do you move the trailing arms forward to get the wheel in the 904 wheel well?

I'm pretty sure the 904 was a road car while the 906 was only a race car.

The 904 has often been referred to as the last "dual purpose" Porsche. It was designed for both street & track use. The 906 was designed from the get go as a race car, but I think a few may have been legalized for street use. To be honest I'm not sure on that, my memory has gotten hazy over the years.

Jeff Zwart owns a 906 that he races and drives on the street. A few years back Peter Egan wrote a Road & Track column on a road trip they took up the California coast in it.

I recall reading that buyers of 906s were advised to arrive the factory with a trailer.

I am hoping to take the 5-ish inches out of the 914, but as a backup I have a couple of spots I can add inches to the 904 body.
The rear clam-shell of the 904 falls exactly where it needs to on the 914, so no moving there. I measured on the 904 and the 914 and from the back firewall to the middle of the wheel is almost exact.

Makes me sick to see such great cars sitting outside rotting away.

Relax. See the leaves under the cars? Safe to assume it's a show and tell.

Fun 904 stuff...

904 history

Original complete body. $48,000USD

906 restoration



Really big drawing

That last picture is suitable to send off to Staples to make a huge poster!