Hi everyone. I have been posting here and there about my recent re-discovery and acquisition of a car that I have known since I was 15 years old. In 1987 my father bought his fourth Porsche. A 914-6 born in 1970. It was a bone stock car in white over black that had been driven a little under 100k miles. It was well taken care of and had no rust. After driving his yellow 73 2.0 on the track and in PCA racing he wanted to retire that largely stock car to the street and get a dedicated racer.

The 6 was immediately sent to a body shop to get a chasis stiffening and flare treatment. An IMSA airdam was installed along with a rear spoiler. He took the BBS 7s and 8s off his 944 Turbo and shod them with cantilever slicks from hoosier. He then found a 2.8 RSR Bosch mechanical FI high butterlfly stack monster engine from PAR porsche in NY to motivate the car. Redline was set somewhere north of 9k rpm. Here is a pic of the original build:

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He drove the car in many events for around 20 years. During that time i bought his old yellow car and i turned that into a race car as well. We even drove together (in different groups when i had the yellow car) at some events. We would also share the racing duties with the 6. In 2008 he sold the car and moved on to other cars but this one has always held a special place for me.

Two years ago I ended up meeting up with John who had bought the car from my dad. He was great and generously asked if i would like to join him racing for the year as co-driver. I jumped at the chance and we got (and get) along really well. At the end of the season he offered the car to me and, after selling the silver 75, was able to make the plunge.

The emotional bond and connection to my dad who passed in 2018 that this object evokes is strong and in some ways unexpected.

With this thread i hope to honor that tie to my dad by sharing maintenance, improvements, and continued racing with this special (to me) car. And I hope my dad can see it all.

Best of luck and sharing the memory.

Here is the car as i re-discovered it in 2020:

It’s always special to get back a family car.

More from seeing the car 12 years.

Great story and I am so glad you got that very special car back in your garage. I know your dad is smiling as he looks down to see you enjoying his car.

Great story and nice looking car.

Once i purchased the car the first order of business was to go through all the critical systems and to address general condition of the car. There was a lot of cleaning to do throughout and as each area was cleaned the plan was to paint and update whatever was needed.

I started with the brakes. At Summit Point PCA race they were overheating so wanted to do a full analysis of needs there.


This is what they looked like in the front:

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I decided that all 4 calipers should go to PMB for full restoration and i ordered new soft and hard lines at each corner. Also, the cool brake ducting was in terrible shape and certainly not helping the cooling (and maybe i should brake less too).

Restored and installed:Click to view attachment

Also notice the stainless steel line - that is another story i will cover later.

I also replaced the brake fluid reservoir, lines, and master cylinder.

Keep up the good fight. Car looks great!

Matt

Excellent Bill .........love the story

Very cool story and history.

great backstory... very nice.

Awesome

Sorry the hear about your dad's passing.

Next i addressed the interior. The seats were very out of date having been in there since 2003! The belts were out of date as well so those needed updating. Once the seats went in the mouting in existing brackets worked well on the width but they did sit higher in regards to the shoulder belts. This meant an almost 45 degree angle upward to reach the openings from the wirewall mounts. This absolutely had to change so i had a new bar made up and a friend of mine installed behind the seats at the correct angle. Safety first!

Here is the bar with seat and harness installed. You can see the old mounting points in gold still in place as well.

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And the harness and seat setup.

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Great story... PLEASE share some more pics and details of this engine if you're able. I hope it is still with the car. From the other pics you posted looks like the MFI was replaced with carbs.

Next was installation of fire suppresion. The car had a single hand held extinguisher in between the seats. Meets race rules but not really adequate for a serious fire of any sort. Chose aqueous foam as it is proven and doesnt cut off my oxygen like a gas solution. There are two nozzles pointed at the carbs in the engine bay, two nozzles pointed at the floor/occupants in the cabin, one where the original gas tank was that now houses battery and fuel pump, and one in front section of front trunk that addresses the fuel cell. I also have a hand held Element extinguisher for minor issues that wont leave a huge mess like the foam will.

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That motor threw a rod at Watkins Glen in the early 90s. The super sweet mechanical injection i believe went to Jim Newton and my father switched to a less aggressive (and expensive) 2.7RS engine built by Chris Musante.

Shame it still isnt with the car. That injection setup alone would be at least $25k today if you can even find it.

Edit- will look for pics but not sure i have any. Chris musante sold off any salvageable parts a long time ago.

Next item to change was out of necesity. On the way back from the pro shop a wire ended up contacting something bad under the dash and i had a ton of smoke in the cabin. Pulled over and grabbed the extinguisher thinking the worst. I hit the kill switch and no active fire started thank goodness. Of course i had high confidence in my suppression tools but glad i didnt need to use them!

So the decision for what to do for the electical system? Choice A was to patch the melty wires and keep rolling. Choice B was to install brand new -6 harness. Choice C was to install aftermarket harness kit. Choice D was to go with an AIM PDM, dash, and smartycam setup.

Choice A was pretty hack and i really didnt want to have things done part way. B was very attractive but at a price point of $3600 gave me some pause. Option C i actually acted on and purchased a harness by Bare Bonz from JEGS. However I ended up going with solution D as, for around the price of just the original style harness, i could get a full plug and play setup for the track that was custom built for my needs. I need only a small fraction of wires and kept headlights, wipers, brake lights.

Major components are the Power Distribution module that serves as fuse block and central brain of the system, the Dash which is really configurable, and the smartycam which autorecords when you go faster than 25mph.

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In concert with the electrical system i wanted to address the dash.

The PO built a nice dash but it was rather heavy and not really in keeping with my vision so worked with an awesome friend of mine who took a stock dash and rebuilt the front out of aluminum for a clean look that will allow installation of accessories. I am really excited about it but still need to figure out a nice enclosure for the back of the gauge pod. The hoop and upper secrion of dash are stock so will try to mirror as close to original look as possible. Function trumps that though. Will be installing electrical kill switch in next couple days. Has the AIM keypad, fire extinguisher pull, and data upllink installed.

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The cage had a bar under the dash that was meant to keep integrity in case of side impact. However for me the bar landed about an inch away from my knee in my preferred seating arrangement. If i had any impact to the front i would likely impact my kneecaps in the steel and probably be permanently injured. Not so cool!

So had a bar made to fit higher up under the dash that provides the same protection without the same clear risk. My buddy Ryan again to the rescue!

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Bill that’s a fantastic back story. Glad the 914
came back to you. Good luck with the rejuvenation. Looks like you have it well in hand.
Would love to see any pics of the RSR power plant in that chassis.
So cool.

Next for safety was the window net. The old one had a bar bottom and top mounted to the cage through loops welded in. The spring loaded bar was from the bottom meaning that the net flipped up. This is not a safe nor legal to current rules design (my dad set it up this way originally) so it needed to go. Current net attaches directly to cage nascar bars on the bottom via 4 straps. The top uses the original cage mounted loops and has the spring mounted bar. Net drops down quickly and easily.

This pic i used already but shows the setup.

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What a cool story and a great car

Antoine

The pedal cluster, to my knowledge, had never been refreshed and it looked it. So i sent mine to Bruce Stone who did an awesome job. Here it is installed but prior to wiring cleanup:

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The original pedal board did not exist so i purchased and installed a rennline board, dead pedal, floorboard, and all three pedal grips.
Here it is today while i wait for the engine rebuild (more on that later)
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Exterior and interior needed a significant cleaning and i also wanted to rebrand the car a little more to my liking. My inspirations included the factory GTs and some privateers. I am also a little bit of a watch guy and really like the Heuer livery so focused on that. I am earnestly looking for a reasonably priced set of Heuer rally timers but they are soooo expensive so am holding off on that for more important things.

After deep cleaning, clay bar, and two stage polish with the orbital the car was ready to rebrand. Here is where the car is as of today:

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Front

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Passenger

Passenger

A lesson learned.

In february i went to Roebling Road to race with VDCA. Just prior to first practice we noticed some fuel leaking from the engine bay. Turns out a hose had failed and we quickly sourced a new one and replaced the entire hose that was faulty. However, this gobbled up the time that was to install the pedal board and integrated pedal stop. The car previously had a bolt installed below the pedal to serve as a stop as it had no board. I re-used that hole to run the brake pressure sensor for the AIM PDM. Thus no stop for the throttle anymore.

Lap 2 of practice coming onto the front straight the pedal moved further than it should and bent the throttle control arm and locked the throttle open. I moved off track to the right but shifted. Engine saw 9022 rpm before i shut it down. Result we would find was some bent valves only. Not terrible but certainly ended the weekend.

Lesson learned? Always always always check your equipment and never go out without knowing you are 100% prepped. Not realizing i had inadvertently removed a safeguard and then not installing the replacement when it is right there is not acceptable.

Just curious--what's the max size driver that can fit with those seats, and the cross bar behind the seats?

Not sure on max but i am 6' and have about 1" extra room on the rules with my helmet on. That is without removing the bottom seat cushion.

So since the engine needs to be rebuilt it is a good time to address the engine bay. The entire thing had a layer of grease/dirt/grime covering black paint covering the original white paint. I started out by simply trying to degrease but it was clear that it was wholly inadequate. Thus began the painstaking process of stripper and scraper.

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This took on and off around a week to get to a point i felt comfortable to paint.

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I did a self-etching primer followed by semi gloss paint. As i redo the interior areas i am using this in anticipation of a few years from now redoing the body. Have already cleaned and painted the cage and cabin, trunk, and now engine bay. Goal is to look for rust and provide a clean surface to work on mechanicals.

Also installed new engine bay seals as old ones were quite aged qith cracks and tears. Love that top and bottom in this area are clean!

Working through some of the needs after the last event i decided to add another kill switch in addition to the one outside. Dash mount so i can reach it easily.

Made some good progress this weekend. Got the engine bay finished:
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And engine is nearly done:

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Bill, looking great! What size engine are you putting in?

2.4 twin plug short stroke. Super excited to have a motor that will be in a class and be competitive! Too bad the driver is sooooooo slow.

What dizzy are you running?

That engine sounds like fun. What bore are you running to get 2.4 SS? I’m going to be tearing down the core engine I have soon to see what we have. The previous owner claimed 2.5L but couldn’t confirm what crank or bore.

I am running a new JB Racing dizzy. The original marelli ones are priced crazy high so this was a great solution. New parts readily available and built to spec.

Not sure on bore exactly but i know the crank is 66mm. Told him i wanted to be competitive and legal but not build a 10 hour motor either.

Big setback yesterday. Was planning on running with PCA at VIR this weekend but motor wasnt ready. Had it running and in the car but not tuned yet when an oil return tube started leaking badly. Not enough time to repair and retest at this point. Also have a broken tip for the accelerator cable guide tube on the firewall in engine bay which is preventing the cable from being installed.

Pretty depressed today as there has been a ton of work to date and this was an event i was very excited about.

wow you’ve really been busy getting it ready. sorry to hear that you can’t go this weekend. i hope to see this in person, let me know if you will run here at Roebling road or i around Charlotte in the near future!

Updated fronts to S calipers and installed new pads for the race at Summit in less than two weeks.

And in other good news the engine is completed and leak free. Have not run it hard but sounds amazing and excited to run it at the track. Will hopefully get some dyno tune time this week.Click to view attachment

Beautiful. Good luck on the Dyno.

that was quick, who built the motor for you?

Phil

Well a mixed bag but mostly good today. Started off the day learning that i could not get to the dyno before the event. Not a huge deal as it had tune time on engine stand rig and in the car a bit but would have preferred to do more diagnostics.

Then was doing a gravity bleed on the brakes and dropped the bleed bottle all over the fender, myself, and the floor. Super not fun that!!!

However had some pluses too. Got a really hard brake pedal after a friend came over to help. I could not get one from pressure nor gravity bleeding and was giving me fits. Very happy with that.

Lastly I put the "Dunpy" stickers that our very own #40 hero reproduced. Not placed where the factory car had them but i like the location i picked. @Maltese Falcon

With the GT lid installed and the air cleaners in place I am essentially ready for next weeks Jefferson 500 races at Summit Point.

@DRPHIL914 - John in Denver did my engine. Had the heads done at extreme Heads in Florida (they provide heads to Singer for their engines) and the twin plug distributor from JB Racing also in Florida. AA for Ps and Cs and the 66mm crank was from Johns personal stash. Reused the PMO 46s that were already there as welll as the case. Did get a new shroud made as my old one was pretty beat. New coils and msd digital boxes.

Dunpy sticker

Look how small it is next to the taycan. Crazy.

At a test and tune day at CMP in August had a rod come through the case. Bad luck for sure and now starting from scratch. Here is the starting point, a 7R case with all the tricks redone by ollies:

What a terrific car. So sorry about the engine issue. But the 7R case is very nice and will really be solid. Good luck and I hope it comes together quickly and runs great.