Many interesting guesses and suggestions but here's Martin's comment:
"Well, if all you need to do is move everything forward, why not just cut off the flange, move each tube forward by one cylinder and remake the one tube?"

Other than his use of the word "just", he nailed it!

Note, this is just tack/hack welded as proof of concept. But the interesting thing is that, you can see the there's plenty of room to get that front cylinder tube back to the collector while keeping appropriate length.

With this no longer an unknown, I can purchase a set of aftermarket headers knowing I can make them work.

Like it was made for it!

And that O2 bung was never going to work so don't worry about that.

I like simple solutions loooks good in there!!

That Martin…pretty crafty.

Very nice and practical.

The build may be seeing a major change. I'm looking into what it'll take to work up an adapter to get the Ferrari engine mated to a Boxster S trans. I got a great deal on a G86-20 and in putting together a pro/con list, the Boxster trans comes out ahead by a fair bit.
Things like off the shelf axles, no need for limiting straps, far lower costs, shifters that are actually available (!)...
It won't be a simple adapter in that, the Ferrari trans houses the dry sump tank and the low pressure oil return is in the lower right side of the engine block. That's it, circled in the pic below. This means the adapter has to have account for that passage and accommodate an oil line fitting that pokes out the side.

Oh, and like @clayperrine Clay, I have to make room for a starter on the trans side of things.

So, this will delay things a bit and I may end up going back to the Ferrari trans. Just need to see what's what before committing to the chassis fab.

Another example of "if were easy, everyone would be doing it."

Something rather poetic about a 914/6 oil tank feeding a Ferrari V8, if it can be done and is sufficient…

@horizontally-opposed Pete - it's better than that. If the Boxster trans is a go, I want to do a mirror image oil tank on the right side of the 914 - this because the oil return is on the right side of the Ferrari engine. Not that a cross-over line is a problem, more "because I can/mine is different."
And better yet: given this chassis is a '72, let's give a nod to the 72 911 and have an exterior oil door!

You asked for it



I looked it up real quick... no difference in function between the 360 and Box shifter so no reason you couldn't use it. You will likely have to make cables the right length anyways. Since you have both trannys you can easily measure the lever throw.

I also don't fathom how an adapter/flywheel/starter cutout/oil tank could be less work than Sway-a-way making axles

You might find 911/Bus/944/Box/996 axles fit just right since the Ferrari looks wider.

Have you measured the actual CV angle with the trans in place? I don't think it will be that much to worry about. You will need 930 size CVs anyways for the power.

Ooh, all inputs very interesting. Including 72 oil door (lol) as well as Chris's thoughts above.

Am I at 50/50? Not yet. But tell me this: Would there be a chance that the Ferrari box would have its diff peeking out from the rear, a la 288 GTO?

Easy fix, sell me the G86-20 and stick with the Ferrari transmission.

A pro/con list you say? So it seems you're applying rational logic to the act of stuffing a modern(ish) Ferrari V8 into a 50 year old sports car that'll need rampantly extensive metal & chassis modifications to accommodate it?

Pls, tell me more about your rational, logical approach.

- Tony

PS. I jest, of course. And, please keep the Ferrari transmission and definitely that funky oil container/ air separator. Someone went to the trouble of "clocking" the Ferrari logo (on the cap) in the correct orientation to the rear of the car when it is fully hand tight; how could you not honor that obsessive detail? ;-)

PPS. Genius approach on the headers BTW

In all these years I never realized the similarity of our 914 6s to '72 911s with the oil
tank in front of the rear wheel !
Our 6s could have had the oil fill door on the drivers rear quarter.
On the other hand.....our gas filler under the hood allows the entire car to be free of
extraneous "details"
This thread and the creative work it requires is very cool.
Great to see.
Thank you for allowing us to watch the process.

@tygaboy

Let me know if you need laser blanks of the oil tanks for your application. I have plenty of them.

Hey Ben - Great minds! As soon as the idea of running a 914 tank popped into my head, I immediately thought "I wonder if Ben's parts could be used...?" I have a way to go before I abandon the Ferrari trans but I will absolutely be in touch if I need a tank/parts.
Thanks for your support!
Chris

My vote is for the Ferrari gearbox, no need for a third party to get involved in this.

Amazing project, wonderful daily entertainment for the readers!

@Chris914n6 - Is that how you're doing it in your Ferrari swap?

Look, I know my posting style invites all sorts of input but, come on - you all should know by now that I don't give up easily. If I abandon the Ferrari trans, it'll be for reasons well beyond a set of custom axles.

And here's a pic to give you something to chew on: While I don't need an entire conversion kit, I do need some of these hen's teeth parts. I'm happy to accept donations to support the project!

Speaking of swaps, did the parts I made for your project work out?

No screwing around here! Some of you may be aware of Home Built by Jeff's Alfarrari build on YouTube. He's putting a 360 engine in the front of a vintage Alfa. He got wind of my build and I've been communicating with him. He was kind enough to share his adapter file! This is the Ferrari side of things, including the oil return passage.
Ignore the other side as it's for a Subbie BRZ trans (!).
Anyway, this get's me a good way down the "what'll it take" road. And let me say it again:
I haven't decided which trans I'll use. But knowledge is power and I'll know more, regardless.

Just working with what you posted

10,000 car repairs later and everything looks the same... Ferrari isn't that special when all the engineers are schooled the same. Plus I have a 20 year head start on conversions starting before the stint at Renegade. My Nissan is getting a Subaru trans because it's easy and the BoxS is just too involved. Just trying to help and share wisdom.

I take it now you are working with the F1 trans? What are the issues and what parts do you need?

Your parts came out great

Very cool project. Some the challenges with adapters are the added length for input shafts and starter depth. I really like the computer rendering. I don't have those skills. But with a tape measure and a router it can be done.

Click to view attachment

I like that exhaust solution, pretty slick!

$35K for the conversion kit and I think that is for parts only and they must do the install, figure another $10K or so.

The biggest issue I had with my Boxster trans adapter was the flywheel. A 964 uses a pull type clutch.
A Boxster uses a push type clutch. Making an adapter to fit a push type pressure plate to a 964 flywheel took some work. And a 944 turbo racing pressure plate. I would love to find a Boxster flywheel that would bolt to a 964 crankshaft.

The second issue was the starter. Not making a hole, but adding a mount in the right position so the starter would engage without grinding or sticking.

There are pictures in my build thread. I posting from a cell phone and can't get the link.

Clay

While I'm pretty good with my 2D CAD program, I've not spent any time in the 3D world. So after playing around with that file, I chose a far faster path and contacted @Mueller . Let me give a HUGE thanks to Mike for jumping right on verifying the file, dimensioning it for me and going the extra mile to locate a Boxster engine file and doing a quick overlay.
Yes, I have all the 3rd D to work out but this is a really big help to get me going.

Let me say it again: Mike - THANKS!! Simply couldn't do it without you.

No problem at all, this is almost like owning a 914 again without the cost or heartache

If I'm going to have any hope of having this running for WCR 2023 , I better get back at it.
My LS car is back on the road so the Ferrari build is back in the Red Barn. Today was spent fine-tuning the drive train location and taking final measurements so design, fab and welding can begin on the trans and engine mounts.
The trans mount cross bars and hanger are almost ready to be welded in - can't hardly wait!
But waiting is sometimes a good thing: Remember how excited I was to see the header in place, "just" moved up one cylinder? Good thing I didn't get too excited. Turns out that with the adjustments I made to get the drive train in optimal position for the axle height, that modded header no longer fit! Everything got lowered by about 3/4" and that was all it took for the header to, once again, foul on the suspension console. What to do? Well, if moving things forward by one cylinder helped the first time, I gambled it'd help again.

And it did. It actually looks better, too. The primary tube bundle nicely fills the area outboard of the front cylinders and I gain even more length for the post-collector exhaust.
In this location, there's more room under the bundle to re-route the two tubes that need to be re-connected to the flange.
As before, the collector still needs to be sliced off and clocked to clear the rear of the cylinder head. But overall? Win-win!

The under side, not that anyone will ever see this view...

Let's make some parts, eh? Here's the final design for the transmission hangers. One will live on each side of the trans mounting tab. Fabrication is underway!

Let's back up and get a better view of the "two forward" header. As mentioned, it nicely fills that area outboard of the front of the heads but will need re-clocking of that last section where it will join the rest of the exhaust.

That odd fastener sticking out of the collector? I'm told that's an EGT sensor location. Not sure if it was used on euro cars or the Stradale maybe but that's how these headers came to me...

Speaking of the exhaust, even though I can't use the factory muffler, the muffler bracket looks like it can be used. It mounts to the trans but is too long for the 914. A little sectioning (it originally had two of those oval holes in the outside walls - I removed one) and we're all set.

Click to view attachment

Transmission mounts nearly done, courtesy of Martin, his skills and machine shop. We make a pretty good team: He's got a great eye for design and unmatched fabrication talents - and I've got projects that need those things!

It starts as a 9" length of 1" x 3", .095 wall tube. It's interesting what comes up when moving from "how about we do this?" to actually making the parts. In this case, the design for these hangers changed because as the material was cut away to get the cool tapers on all the different surfaces, the remaining material wouldn't stay in plane during the follow-on machining operations. So the taper on the 3" face had to start farther from the lower hole than originally planned. In the end, no one will know and even I didn't notice until Martin pointed it out to me.

With a bit of luck, the trans mount will be in the chassis in the next couple days!

Wrapping up the wrap-around on the 2nd hanger then they both get a 2" hole and a final tidy up. A couple days of work. Worth the effort just so the hangers end up with a few style points?

Oh, hell yeah!

Test fitting the transmission mount. That bit of paper is just to model the "insert" that will close off the inner area of the hanger tubing. I wanted to see these in the car and determine if they really needed the insert. Yep, they do.
But other than that, I'm super happy with how they turned out! They are LOVELY.

And can I just say: It's so great to be working with Martin again.

As much as I generally like the full mechanical, simple look, I'm not a fan of the gap between the hangers, purposefull though it may be. I cardboarded up a few different cover panels - one that ran side to side of the hangers with a single, large dimple die hole, one that sat on center of the tubes, just between the hangers...
Then this one showed up and I think it's the winner.
It'll be removable, too, which means it could be made of nearly any material.

Click to view attachment

So clean and so beefy. I like the unadorned look that shows the fabrication detail. A spot where function is beautiful.

Is that a Chief Automotive frame machine? Those rectangular holes sure look familiar.

As usual for me, we're way far away from 914 content but I assume many of you enjoy this sort of thing.
Here's another look at just how time consuming custom fab can be. These are "just" the transmission mount hangers, as I've come to call them. Look back at what Ferrari used: essentially, just two plates with a break along one edge. These could have been largely the same and that would have taken almost no time to make. But I suspect you all know that simply wouldn't do, because, well, Tygaboy and Style Points!
So, along with all Martin's fancy pie cutting, welding and dressing to get those lovely tapers and a factory-looking edge radius all around the hangers, I asked him to close up the open area of the tube created when that cool shape of an opening was made in the outside wall.
A bit of 18 ga sheet metal trimmed and bent to fit and we have the wall.
That gets clamped in place, tacked all around and trimmed, leaving enough proud of the surface to fuse weld to the outer wall of the hanger.

Both sides all set for fuse welding and final dressing. After that, these lovlies get welded to the cross bars and into the chassis.

All said, there'll be over 20 hours into making these. Call your local fab guy to get an hourly rate and do the math...

Forgetting cost, folks generally have no idea of the time it takes to do one-off stuff like this.

But just look at those things. Works of art.

And I have to say: TOTALLY worth it!!

Gorgeous work, Chris!

I am looking forward to seeing all this when I next travel to the Red Barn.

That's the hangers done with the inner wall all tidied up. The goal is to get these and the associated cross bars welded in this week!

So very tidy. Well done sir.

BTW, do you have a favorite marking dye and scribe combo? I bought a protractor from eastwood a few months back and it couldn’t even make a dent in sharpie ink on carbon steel lol…

@Van B it's just blue dykem layout fluid. Any scribe will mark it. It's way better than Sharpie ink. I generally use a "regular ol'" scribe or one tip of the caliper.

Dykem. Awesome thank you! It’s only in this past year that I’ve been doing the kind of fab projects that made me wish I had some lol. Placing my amazon order right meow.

Also, I was thinking about those brackets and I think you should TIG them onto the tubing and see how it looks if you leave the weld as opposed to grinding smooth. I think a little fab signature might look good there.

@Van B - It'll all be TIGed. Those hangers were TIGed, too. But the goal was to have consistant corner radii and look manufactured vs fabricated. All the other TIG welds will be left "as welded", just like in my LS build. Pic of my door bar as an example.

TBH, I couldn't give two shits about a F360 engine in a P914. I only follow this thread because I like your approach to fab. You and I think a lot a like with regard to it being more of an art project vs a construction project. That's why I think about things like what welds to show and which ones to smooth. A weld is like hand writing, unique to each person.

"Weld it in time" for the trans mount! But to get the various pieces of the mount in the correct location, we first fit the upper bar: leveled to the car and positioned equally fore/aft on each side. Then, based on a handful of different measurements, located center.
Next, we got the hangers fitted to the upper bar, jacked the drive train into position, bolted the trans to the hangers and after ensuring one side's hanger as in the correct location, tacked it to the bar.
With the first hanger located, the assembly was removed and clamped to the fixture table.
I'd previously measured the desired distance needed between the hangers (trans mount boss + washers) and Martin whipped up a spacer block that we used to locate the 2nd hanger.
Here's the fixturing and one of Martin hard at work with the TIG.

With the upper/hanger assembly tacked, we slipped the curved lower tube into place.
Presenting one Ferrari 360 trans mount, ready for final fitting!

Nice work!!