Hey, Gang. SO happy that you're all still here, and happy to be back! After several rough years, I'm back in the saddle and doing another 914 build. I currently have a 2002 996 C4, and a 2016 M6....but I've found nothing can replace a 914 in the garage. Thought I could scratch the "Vintage" itch with a 1983 XJS, but it's just not the same...at all.

Just at the "Getting Started/Parts Collection" stage right now, but I'm hoping for another really cool build. Essentially, I'm going to do a lot of what worked on the last build, and avoid some of the mistakes that I made along the way. 3rd time's a charm, right?

Anyway...I've been buying a lot of the same "go fast" bits that I bought last time, and have my engine guy, builder, and body guy on standby to get started in earnest in a few months. Gives me time to get started on finding a decent roller to start with, buy an engine, all the parts, and just generally take up space for the next several months until I can drop everything off and really get started.

When I made the decision on Monday, I sent off a flurry of emails and txts to all the usual suspects, and everyone was in to help me get another one on the road, and better than ever. It immediately felt "right" to be building another 914. This made me SO happy. I've been a member of this forum since 2004 and have made a lot of long-lasting friendships along the way. SO happy to have found you all so many years ago. I've had many many hobbies over the last 20y, but the 914 is the one that I've loved the most.

So....here we go! Welcome to my journey!

What happened to your last one after all that work ??

Welcome back. Glad to see you are going to build another 914. This is the best car club I have ever been involved with. OK, now spill the details of your vision please. Pictures, as you are well aware, are essentially required too.

Seconded. What happened to the last one?

Zach

Sold it to Tom, as a project after a bad financial deal forced me to file bankruptcy. I've been in contact with him a lot over the last 5y and I'm happy to report the car is on the road, and he's loving it. The plan was always that I'd buy it back from him some day, and that may happen eventually too, but he's not ready to give it up just yet.



Indeed! The 996 community is nice and all, but it's just not the same. Mostly because they're not all rotting to bits with an army of people trying to preserve them. The 6-series BMW people are a nightmare.

I'm going to do another proper Subie build. Properly built-up engine, with a big turbo. Looking to hit 400hp, although Scott always wants me to go bigger and aim for 500hp...

Steel flairs, Boxster brakes, 911 front suspension, bigger tires, and all the stuff that goes with making a modern drivetrain work in a 70's car.

I'm perplexed on the color at this point. Whatever tub I get will be sandblasted down to metal, so I'm able to start building with truly no rust. Was contemplating a "GT" version of a Bumblebee, but I'm not completely sold on that just yet. Going to look through pics this week.

Going to look at a 72 track car today that's local to me, but from Arizona. I'll post pics of the candidates here as I look at them to keep you all in the loop. I'm replacing so much, that a roller at this point would be ideal, but those don't really exist out here in the Cleveland, OH area.

Here are a few pics of the one I'm looking at today...

I'll essentially be taking it all apart anyway, so the old race interior doesn't bother me so much. I'll likely be able to sell the motor/trans/wheels/suspension out of it...so it may be a good start.

Bad part about this car is that the trunk has been cut out mostly, so I'd need to source some metal.

Welcome back!!! -Again!

i learned a lot early in my 914 journey watching and reading your builds and posts back 10-12 years ago, good to hear you are back in the saddle! BW that looks like a great car to start with.

Phil

This is the dude who ripped off Home Depot by "buying" a welder and returning it with ill intention after using it in the parking lot immediately.

Bad ethics bite. I'm not sure what I think about "Karma" but this guy tempts it.

Oh Rand.....what can I say. Maybe I'll just quote you from a PM you sent me back on August 30 of 2013...



As I explained to you many years ago when you shat on my post, your recollection of those events was very wrong. Again, it was a suggestion by the HD employee that I buy the "open box" one and do it, as they had none available to rent at that time. Moving on...

I truly am glad to see you back on the forum. Again. I hope you check your ethics at the door. Stay true. I am a fan of your builds.

Phil! Great to hear from you. I'm excited about the car, and it being so close. I've learned that if I'm excited about it, it'll likely be crap when I get there to look at it though. We shall see...

Both of you need to drop this NOW. It is old news, and does not need to be rehashed.

.

Right now, I'm just looking for color combos that I think would be cool. Here are a few 996's done up in ways that I think may be cool, or to do a GT version of the Bumblebee.

With the last build, I knew right away what I wanted. With this one, I'm an open book. my 996 is black, as is my XJS, LR4, and Julia's Subaru, so having a 4th black car out of 5 may be in keeping with the theme.

If I go the BB route, I'd do it matte, I think.

The Safari tribute could be really cool though. Trunk rack and all...

I've always thought that if I built another one it would be a grasshopper GT. I'm getting too old to start another car, but I'd love to watch you build one!

Doug - I’m glad to see you are back. We met a while ago at Hershey and now my car is at Scott’s, keeping your spot warm.

Hey Doug, Glad you came out of that shit unscathed. Looking forward to your build.

First parts arrived today. Boxster calipers that need a good cleaning...and eventual powder coat as soon as I pick a color.

Still Here too! Still in Cleveland? Pat's 240 is back on the road.

Catch up on some reading. http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=331266

Yup. Still in the Cleveland area. Moved up to Mentor last January and am loving it. A buddy of mine bought a building where we can work on cars about 5min from the house, so things are great on my end. Great to hear from you, Rick!

So on the tub I just looked at...

Looked at the car I posted pics of earlier. I’m perplexed. It’s a nice solid tub. All the gaps are good. Fiberglass hood, flairs, and duck-tail, but the trunk is completely cut out of it, and that’d be a pain to put back in. It’d also need a complete interior...dash to back-pad.

He’s asking $7,500 for it. I’m sure he’d come down a bit, as it’s been listed for 2y and it’s still there, but I think that’s way too much for a car that needs so much metal welded back in.

I’m sure I could sell the 2.0 and side-shift 901 that’s in it now to recoup some of that. But that still seems high to me. Maybe I’m still thinking in 2013 money the last time I bought a 914.

That was exactly what I was thinking when you mentioned color schemes. Do a GT tribute to a mythical model.

Here are pics of the car I looked at last night. Talked to him a bit, and he came down from $7,500 a bit, but there is a LOT of metal cut out of this, as it was a full-on track car. Last inspection on the cage was 1988 so it’s had a long retirement. Started right up though. 2.0 is running rough, but that’s sortable. I struggled to find rust of any significance that wouldn’t come off in sandblasting.


I don’t need a cage, but I do want a trunk.

The flairs are glass, but it has GT rockers, and a fiberglass hood. Those were on the “to buy” list anyway so that saves me $1,500. Not sure what a 2.0 goes for these days, but I’d be selling that and making some money back too. So I think I’d be into the roller for about $5k after all is said and done. It’s missing a lot of metal though...gotta consider that.

Trunk and engine bay

Interior

Up front.

not bad, it sat for how long? this is what i need for daily driver/AX car!!!! if you dont get it let me know

Not sure if you notice this area?

Yeah, I spent a few min trying to figure out how that happened. It almost looks like something from the inside pushed it out. There was no other structural damage that I could find. It looks like a twist or a bind or something. Happened after the car was last painted, obviously, but I can't for the life of me figure out how something like that would happen, as they're is no other damage spawning from it.

I’m even closer, now

That's a helluva twist to only happen in that one area...but I have no idea what else it might be.

Yeah, brother! I've got a MUCH better environment to work in these days.

Agreed...suspicious. I passed on that car. Seller and I couldn't get to a price that made sense for me to put the time into converting it back into a street car.

I was able to locate another car in Ohio and the seller sent me about 100 pics before I make the trek down there to inspect in person. A few other members have vouched for the car, and I think we have a winner. I'm headed down there on Saturday with a trailer. I'll post pics when the deal is done.

In the meantime, I was able to get a hold of Dan_the_Body_Man again, and he's excited to be on the team again to do the body/paint work for the project. It's all coming together!

Matt is doing the Subie engine/trans for me again. Scott is all set and excited to do all the fabrication. Dan and I are already shooting paint ideas back and forth. I'm all ready to do the final assembly. Just need to get a hold of my old interior guy and I'll be set to have a bad-ass build on my hands.

So I'm in "parts accumulation" mode right now. Boxster brakes were the first thing to show up. Located a set of 3.5" struts, hubs, and Elephant mono-balls. Ordered the Boxster adapters. Just going to be writing checks for a while...

Plan is to get the car I'm looking at on Saturday on the road as-is for the spring and early summer, and then start breaking it down and sandblasted. I'll have everything ready to ship down to Scott come fall. Still need to work out if I'm going to have the bodywork done before I ship to Scott or not. There'll be some additional cutting/welding he'll need to do on it, but it's mostly going to be on the interior, so he could cover up with a PPG mixed rattle-can to match the car's (undetermined at this point) color.

Been a busy week, but not a lot to show for at this point. The project is getting started though...

I'd keep the roll cage, just get rid of the door cross braces. To hard to get in when you get a little older like me.Click to view attachment

Tom gave me a ride in your past car at the first Northeast Gathering; it’s an absolute blast.

Good luck with the new one...

Found the car to get this project kicked off.

Me and the crew popped down to Dayton this morning to meet up with @ledfoot and collected a perfect car. 75 2.0 that I’ll be able to enjoy all spring/summer while I’m collecting parts for this fall when the construction starts.

We also stopped through Columbus on the way home to show @amenson what he’ll be working with over the winter. He gave it a big thumbs up too. We went over some procedural stuff about what state he wants the car and how we’re going to manage the build in stages. He also showed off some of the cool stuff he’s been working on. Always a great guy to visit.

Going to spend the rest of the weekend hooking the motor up and putting the car back together. It’s close, so it shouldn’t take us more than a few hours of work to get the motor started.

That's a great looking car! Almost TOO good to do a conversion on...

Glad to see you got it. And @ledfoot glad to see it leave your garage after you've been talking about if years now.

Also glad its gone so I am not temped to purchase it anymore

What's up with the color? Factory?

Yes, fantastic color!

The P-PO had the car stripped and the entire tub painted “Lexus” Champaign. It’s basically the color of every RX350 ever made. Not offensive, but not great. I’m still deciding on what color to paint it when I strip it all down this fall. Leaning towards Olympic Blue right now.

Spent the morning in the shop going over the 2.0 that’s in it now and trying to get it started. Replaced plugs and wires, and crafted a throttle linkage for the carbs. Just getting stuttering and popping. Gotta investigate that further.

While I was thinking that through, I fitted the stainless heat exchangers and exhaust so that part is sorted. Have some work to do on the shift linkage at the case. Need to bore out the old delrin bushing somehow so I can fit the replacement on.

So, right now she’s sitting on the lift among all the other underpowered cars in the garage.

This morning’s accomplishment.

That quite a collection of lite weight under powered cars. And two of them are on my list of cars to own or build at some point in time.

I got the 2.0 that’s in it now started and then realized that there was a lot more to be done to the car to make it roadworthy for this spring. Between ordering parts and rebuilding carbs, it’d be a lot of work for a car I was only going to really drive for a month or two so I decided this week to just start breaking it down and selling off the bits I’m not going to use in the future.

To do that, you’ve got to start somewhere, so I figured I’d start with the interior. I’m glad I decided to start breaking down early after seeing the amount of Dynamat that’s installed into this thing. I knew about the floors, and thought that if it was really bad I’d just replace the floors completely. But it looks like I’m in for a long hard road with Dynamat removal. After taking the pic, I spent about an hour on it and got about 1/3 off one door. Just going to take time.

The floor is going to be SO much worse...

Heat gun?

Dry ice?

I’ve heard both will work. Time to figure out which works best.

multi tool with a scraper works on stock tar. I don't know about dynamat

I’m hoping that I can get under on the floors enough to use it and the Dynamat will help keep it together enough that it is a relatively painless process. These doors are a notch because they just gum everything up. It’s like thick uncured tar. I wish the P-PO would have used the cheap stuff that peels right off. Nope. He bought the quality original stuff that sticks forever. There’s seriously $1k worth of Dynamat installed on this car.

Holy crap. Welcome back. Nice car from the looks of it. I've been wondering about what to use for refinish interior floor and door panels for sound, insulation, etc... Very interested in finding out the best way to remove dynamat.

Thanks, Gint! More than happy to BE back.

For me, the solution was to source 2 new doors for the project. They literally worked Dynamat into every nook and cranny of the doors...on every surface inside and out. It would be impossible to scrape it all out, and what was left would just end up with sand stuck to it from the sandblaster.

I’ll be able to work the rest of the interior to get it removed as it’s all accessible. Going to be a big job though. I’m going to tackle that job once I get the car on the rotisserie. Easier to do standing up, than hunched over.

Worked for about an hour on the interior and managed to only get this far with a heat gun. It’ll just take a lot of elbow grease.

Wow...that's a mess. Makes me glad that all I had to do was pull up my carpet...then the floor came up with it making is an easy decision!
Good to see you wasting money and time again like the rest of us!

Been really busy with work the last few weeks, so I didn’t have a chance to do much after I got the engine out. Got back into town on Thursday and the gentleman that bought the engine drove 10h to pick it up, so we got that all loaded and he was off. Time to get some work done...

Spent Friday at the nose, working my way back. Got the lights all out, and baggied for cleaning. Then the gas tank and everything associated needed to come out too. Not too shabby for a few hours of work. The P-PO really went all-in on painting this car gold. They pulled everything out. Had to laugh when I pulled the gas tank and there was more Dynamat behind it too!

Click to view attachment

A few weeks ago, I drove out to meet another member that had a few doors that I thought would be better than mine, and it would be easier than trying to get all the Dynamat off. Turns out after we got them home that they’re a little tougher than the ones I already have, so Dynamat removal it is. The glass in the other doors is better than mine, so it wasn’t a waste at all.

This morning I went over to the garage to attack the rest of the Dynamat situation. Goal was to completely break down and get one of the doors cleaned out. I was on a roll, so I ended up doing both. More secrets revealed. The driver’s door was replaced a few times. Looks like it started life as an Irish Green door, and then made its way to a Sunflower Yellow car, before this Ivory White car, and then was painted again the current gold color. Hell of a life for a single door! My buddy remarked that it looked like a jawbreaker.

So, both doors as good as I could get them took me 6h today. There’s really no way to get the remaining dynamat off of the ribs inside the door, so I guess I’ll take my chances with seeing how that fairs at the sandblaster.