The moment of truth
on the first start up. and
my first drive.
The car was finished, and it was spectacular!
I finished it off with a sticker that inspired my build.
At Rennsport many years back, I met Don Leatherwood, who was Brumos' racing crew chief and responsible for their many cars including the many #59 914-6s. I talked at length with Don about 914s and my project - probably one of the nicest guys, and he introduced me to Hurley Haywood who had nice things to say about his time racing in a 914. That, coupled with seeing
the Troutman 914, inspired me to choose the 914 as my first Porsche despite everyone else pushing me to get a longhood 911.
What's left? Affixing the gold 914 vw emblem on the rear, a few minor teething niggles, and mostly getting enough seat time so I can hit redline. And upholstering a set of speaker grill covers in black leather to hide the air pipes for the heat.
Lots of folks to thank along the way here:
- Bruce Stone and Rich at 914werke for lots of hard to find bits
- Ben McFarland for the oil tank, heat exchangers, and the muffler (it sounds perfect on this car)
- Mikey and the team at 914Rubber - they came through with many hard to find pieces and their customer service is terrific - this build would be near impossible without their many great parts
- so many in the 914 community for advice and inspiring thread builds
- probably thank my wife too for not asking what it cost (The first number is at least a six and very likely a 7 - there's no shortcuts to a build of this quality.)
My build goal shifted over time when I first started this project. I wanted initially just to do a narrow body 914 conversion that was nicer and less aggressive than
my 914 3.2 build (it's
a track beast). Over time, as I did more research, I thought it would be cool to build the car Porsche might have built if they continued the 914-6 past 1972. In 1973, they introduced the 2.7 in the 911 Carrera RS, which they continued until 1976 (albeit as an MFI motor in Europe and a CIS motor in the US).
So I thought - how cool if Porsche had built a 914-6 RS touring, which wouldn't be the wide body GT build of the 916 or the Brutus car, but a narrow body, purpose-built touring car. It would have absolutely used the 2.7 of the early G bodied cars, though I doubt it would've ever been offered as a twin plug (that was a racing thing). Once you've driven and heard a twin plug, you can't get that sound out of your head, and that's why I knew I needed to include in my build. My first true experience with a Porsche was
as a passenger in Chad McQueen's twin plug 2.5 short stroke, and that sound never leaves you (it was my ring tone for a while).
In the time I started this project, I've added a 74 911s to the garage. Next week, it goes in for an engine swap, from the stock 2.7CIS to a proper 2.7 RS MFI build. Like this build, I'm going for the car that Porsche didn't build - a narrow bodied touring car without the boy-racer wings and hips (very much in the vein of the current GT3 RS Touring). It will be fun to sample that 2.7 MFI and compare to this twin plug 2.7 (and my experience in the 911's current 2.7 CIS, which will be stored as it is numbers matching).