Hello all
New project. 1970, no rust other than surface rust from 38 years in the Arizona desert.
I am going to convert it to electric.

This is an upload test:

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Electric!!?? What for?

Should be interesting. I found some car show about a company in Europe that converts classic cars to electric and on the episode I saw, they did a 914. I believe they used a Tesla motor. Anyone know the show I’m talking about? I can’t remember what it was called.

Anyway, would look forward to some documentation on your approach. Good luck!

It's called Vintage Volts – a series about wrecking classic cars by stealing their souls...

Some photos of that particular 914 EV at https://www.instagram.com/classicretrofit/

What motor and batteries are you planning on using?

I would like to more about the VW pick-up in foreground that looks like a project.

Looks like you have a great starting point for your build!

I'll be watching the progress on this one.

Good luck and keep the group posted!

Gasoline engines are like 25% efficient. I don't feel like dealing with a gasoline engine any longer. Electric is the future. Electric motors have instantaneous power. Quiet also.
Also, I wanted an electric car, and the 914 is a perfect conversion vehicle.

Cool. Should be a cool build. Please try to keep track of the minutia since these are the little challenges that tend to get overlooked in a build. The big stuff is usually easy to find, but what brackets you made or places you had to cut etc. would be very helpful for the next person.

Interesting article on the realities of the EV movement 8/22/21

The tough calculus of emissions and the future of EVs

Personally I wouldn't convert a 50 year old Porsche that's increasing in value as is. There are much better newer commuter vehicles to choose from.

The 914 was built as light as possible using the thinnest sheet metal possible. Putting heavy batteries in places it wasn't designed for stresses the chassis. I've seen the cracks. Calling a 914 the perfect donor is a naive lie.

Or swap to a Subaru with a cat and be as clean as a new car without the pitfalls and costs of EV.

Keep good notes and post them here. I am pretty sure I will go the same way eventually.

excellent article

So nobody else is going to comment on the split window single cab?

what's the story on that?

Are you gonna drop one of those new Ford electric crate motors in it?

Pat are you the Pat that did BAE kit on your SC years ago on the bird board?

Yup Ben, that's me. My wife said she knew exactly where I was on the track at Watkins Glen from the sound of my 3" M&K muffler!

I an selling that tub, BTW.

If spend you that kind of money you might as well put a Taycan motor in it and keep it Porsche. Of course it would require a whole lot of engineering to transplant. I give the conversion people in England about two years to figure that out. That is where I much of the bolt in swaps being engineered.

Congratulations on the new project, looks like a great start..especially being a desert car. I like the early cars - did the seller mention why it has a later front bumper?


.

I thought they had those bumper guards even in 1970.

Introduced front bumper guards in 1973 and rear in 1974 IIRC

Well, it had these bumpers on it. There was a pile of bumpers there, and I took these as being the nicest. I don't care about period correctness. I Actually have no idea what should be on it. I do need to find some better seats, and some fiberglass to replace the front and rear lids.

I think 914 Rubber is still working on improved fiberglass and carbon fiber lids. Is there more piles of 914 parts where you picked this one up?

Wow very cool. Let me know if you need any cool parts for your build even if you want to just hang a muffler on the back to look like a "poser" gas guy.

A 914 is a car from the past and yes it has a ICE. Thats what its made for.
If you you like something for the future, go out and buy a Tesla, or something from Germany, which will be available in big numbers in the near future. BTW , the Tesla Roadster is in the meantime as well an oldtimer.
But please , do not convert that poor car to an electic drive train

BR

Benno

Don´t convert a 914 into a "coal driven" vehicle.




...only if we go nuclear...

Give the guy a break-for those on the anti-coal train (understandable, though modern gasified coal burning is really quite clean), Florida is primarily NG power generation with lots of solar coming on in the next years.


Looking forward to seeing more of this project!!

Pats a good guy don't give him a hard time.

Still cracks me up how we applaud stuffing all kinds of crazy power plants into these cars but somehow EV is where the line is crossed.

I’m all for this project

I would like an electric 914 with a really light battery pack. 50 mile range would be enough for me.

Basically I‘m a big fan of keeping the original power plant in the car, with the exception of engines that have been used by the factory e.g. 4 to 6 zyl. boxer. This does no include any kind of v8 big blocks or similar.
But anyways, it is his car. He can do whatever he likes to do with it. Even converting a sports car to something which offers the performance of a golf cart.

my 2 cents …

Benno

yes sure, if there would be a light battery , which offers the energy to drive this car like a sports car.
If you make the math behind this, you will see, that only the battery will be 10 times the wheight of a full gasoline tank.
It’s no coincidence that cars like Tesla and others are heavy like tanks.
Even with a 50 mile range, that car would have the driving performance of a golf cart.
Maybe someone can shime in and enlight us with the numbers of the factory permitted additional wheight of our little sports car.
BR
Benno

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3

353 miles (568 km) Long Range AWD/Long Range Performance AWD

The Long Range version carries 4,416 cells arranged in 96 groups of 46, and weighs 1,060 pounds (480 kg) in a 0.40 m³ volume; a density of 150 Wh/kg.

So for the same miles (200hp -6) it will weigh roughly 700lbs more and need at least 11270 in^3 just in batteries.

That's kinda like doing a sbc swap and then storing another sbc in the frunk.

Want a fun EV, Nissan Leaf widebody

thanks for the numbers!

Imagine that, the 914 features an empty wheight of about 2000 lbs (ICE) and your going to put a battery of about 700 lbs in that car minus the wheight of the old engine plus that of the electric drive train.

What a nonsense….

Agreed, being lightweight is what makes a 914 what it is. My concern would be the added weight and how it will change the character of the car.

I don't see where the OP stated they expect the same kind of range as a Tesla or OE ICE engine. Let's also remember that it takes about 103 lbs. of gasoline to provide an ICE 914 with its full range. That needs to be added to the math. Half the range and half the battery weight would make for a fun and useful car. The Vintage Voltage project is shooting for 150 mile range.

Just a reminder here is that we (914world.com) are not being very welcoming to Pat. Pat was just looking to share his ideas not looking for immediate feedback. He was just sharing

You guys are being dicks. Seriously, knock it off.

Keep it up and there will be Time Outs passed around like party favors.

ALL 914s with ALL drivetrains are welcome here. If you have a problem with it, just don't post. Post in the threads with drivetrains that you approve of.

Taking off the Admin hat....

This is really cool and I'm looking forward to watt you are going to do with this car!

Zach

There’s an electric conversion by one of our members here that lives close by to me. The car looks great and he drives it to work. Getting a 914 back on the road is a good thing, no matter what’s under the hood.

Thanks Zach

Whether we like it or not electric cars are the future, the sooner we all come to terms with it the better off we'll be. I imagine it will be like when people transitioned from horse/buggy to automobiles. Some day those of us who cling to ICE classic automobiles will be in the same boat that modern horse enthusiasts are in.

Excited to see the project progress.

Wasn't it Henry Ford who said, "If I'd asked people what they wanted they'd have said faster horses"! Electric is an improvement that will be refined plus you will have a back up emergency power plant in your garage should the electricity conk out.

After a minor modification,

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My car goes VROOOOOOOOOM again after 24 years.

So you haven't read the part where there is not enough minerals on Earth to replace even half of the 1,000,000,000 ICE cars currently in use around the world. Which btw is only 4% of global carbon emissions. Electric cars are not going to save the world, but it might make your city air cleaner.

Me too! I'd like to have a six conversion, nice orig 4-cyl, and an electric 914. EV West right by my house has a ton of experience with these.

Somewhat related, I think the new Tesla Model S Plaid is really going to redefine sports cars and what it means to be a sports car or "a car for drivers". 0-60 in 2.0 seconds. The fastest production car ever of anything and it has 4 doors. What is the point of going even faster? A $200k top of the line 911 is slower than this much cheaper sedan. But is it as fun to drive? No.

Good luck with the project!

-Steve

So, I'm thinking about batteries. Tesla has the laptop batteries in the frame, so the 1100# battery package is pretty low. I don't think we can approximate the weight/CG of a Tesla Model S with a converted 914. However, If I get some fiberglass deck lids, and limit the batteries to around 600#, I should be approximating the stock weight distribution. I don't know where the CG lies in a vertical plane on a 914. It would be great if someone has this info. I can only speculate that the handling will be adversely affected if the battery weight is higher up in the car. I believe an AC-50 motor is around 120#. I will still have the 914 transmission (we do like to shift, after all). Likely only need 2nd and 3rd. The AC induction motors torque up pretty well at low RPM with the proper controller.

I need to probably change the springs in the rear, possibly some bigger torsion bars in the front. I may be able to sneak a couple of battery modules into the engine bay.

So, it looks like the first order of business is to do an analysis of the weight distribution. We want the 914 to come out of the corners like a rocket, which ain't happening with a Type 4 VW engine.

BTW, I have a fish scale hanging in the garage, so I can weigh everything in and out. The car was like 1900# on a CAT scale, but a CAT scale is really not that accurate. I had to weight the SUV and the 914 together, and subtract off the weight of the SUV. Must be someone in the area with corner scales.

A friend of mine has a Taycan. He calls the Tesla a fast electric car and the Taycan a sports car with an electric motor. He has a bunch of other high performance Porsche’s so I get what he’s saying. Fast acceleration is fun but (obviously to 914 owners) doesn’t make a sports car in itself.

@pek771 I Have an AC-34 in our Super Beetle with 4 banks of Chevy Volt batteries. Plenty of power for a bug, first gear is a rocket. Two banks are on place of the gas tank using the gas tank mounting hole to mount the battery box. The rear banks are being the back seat. The car ended up being about 160 pounds heavier than stock most of it ending up in the front. The controller is easy to program and adjust. The down side is the programming is done through a little 2" gauge.

My 914 has a Hyper9 motor with around the HP of a 6 but pushing the torque limits of the 901 and the CV joints. I plan on rebuilding the 901 as soon as it cools off. My 914 was converted 24 years ago and had a 9" DC motor with lead acid batteries by a school for and engineering competition. In the 90's we had EV races with high schools and colleges building cars.
On this one I am again using the Chevy Volt batteries. One bank in the front in place of the gas tank. They had added an aluminum shelf for the old batteries that I cleaned up and reused. I would have not done it they way they did but it was already there.
In the rear I am mounting batteries on both sides of the motor the keep the weigh low and close the same location. I expect the weight to be the same as a 914/6

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If I ever win the lottery, I am going to the Porsche special wish department with a flared 914 tub and asking them to put a Taycan drive train in it. Then I can show up at Parade and kick all the 911 butts in the AX.

If you look at the Taycan chassis without the body on it, it has a void between the batteries and the rear of the car used for the rear seat footwells. If you remove the void, it looks like it is the same length as a 914.


I think an electric 914 would be fun.

Clay