Hello 914world!

I've been a long time lurker (literally years and years) as I was just prepping for a time in life where I'd actually have the space and time to work on and build a 914. I ended up purchasing a 1974 914 from another forum member here just a week or so ago that had, among many other great enhancements, an early Renegade Hybrids swap with a 350 sbc (fuel injected) and a 915 transmission.

Fast forward just a few short days after purchase and I manage to completely shear what I believe is the output flange on the trans while stomping on the loud pedal (doing about 20 mph in 2nd gear) giving some coworkers rides after work. It has a Quiafe LSD installed and I'm not sure if it's exploded internally or not, but I have no forward or reverse drive anymore, the transmission itself still shifts into each gear as well as it did before and the engine is fine, but it won't move under its own power anymore.

I bought this car for the rust repair that's already been completed, in addition to the full 911 suspension, chassis reinforcement, big brakes, flares, MS3, etc. This is going to be my street legal track car. I don't race, but I want to build this thing so it's reliable enough to get through multiple 20-30 min track sessions in a day.

I'd love to find a transmission shop here in San DIego who could help rebuild my 915 as I planned on driving this car "as-is" to get familiar with it and iron out areas of improvement while I slowly collected the pieces to ultimately do a watercooled H6 swap. Depending on what prices come back for rebuilding my 915 I may just be jumping straight into the flat 6 swap. I have megasquirt 3 with the car already so I was leaning towards the EZ30R engine, but I'm open to all of the suggestions and input from the 914 world community. I don't want to do forced induction though so I'm leaning towards the family of EG and EZ motors. It'll have plenty of power, eliminate the vague 915 shifting mechanism installed on this car, and ideally provide some worry free motoring for a while once everythings been ironed out.

I'll get some pics of the car up later today, and the damage that is now my unattached axle-to-transmission. lol. Gotta go upload them all to imgur to host them. Here's a link to the car I purchased, and no, the PO was not hiding anything. He is a very stand up guy and the car ran as great as advertised. I just didn't realize the limitation of the part and the torque of this V8... http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=360278

Looking forward to this journey as I've been dreaming about 914's since one was almost my first car as a young 16 yr old and now all I want to do is get this thing back on its feet!

-Bret

Here are a few photos of the car and the damage to the axle/transmission:















and now the fun mess that V8 made...

I have a 914 with a Subaru EZ30 engine…..and Subaru transmission for the same engine. Kinda crazy but engine and transmission work as if they were designed for each other.

BTW. Looks like some really cool stuff was done on your car.

Good looking car. I love the stance. Sorry your axle gave up on you so quick. If it were mine I would have someone built the trans as tough as possible and while the engine is out improve it. Assuming is got solid components and good compression through a cool fuel injection system on it like a cross ram with side stacks. It will look cool and you can tweak the power delivery to suite the car. Keep us posted on what you decide.

I'm no transmission expert but I believe the 915 transmission cannot handle the torque of an SBC. When Porsche designed the 930 turbo with 280HP, they upgraded the 915 transmission to the 930 transmission. Because they needed larger gears, they could only put 4 forward gears into the transmission.

If I've got the 915>930 transmission story wrong, someone will correct me.

The only obvious damage is the sheared axle flange. I would just replace it and see if that fixes it. You can do it the work in an hour or so with the tranmission in the car.
If there is internal damage to the transmission, you won't make it any worse.
Look in the internet for posts on axle flange seal replacement and you'll see how it's done.

I agree and could be on the road in a couple days or what could potentially turn into much longer (months or years)!

Cool car!

-Steve

All I can say is a flat six just feels right in these cars. Also that a complete stock subaru engine in good shape is a very reliable power plant. I did an EJ25 with stock ecu into another car and it provides great reliable power. One of the key's though is making sure the engine has had head gaskets replaced at some point otherwise it will leak.

You can be fast on the track with handling and brakes too, I will be faster on the track with my 120hp exocet over a 420hp mustang just because its a well balanced car.

I thought of getting this car before you bought it but I did not have the room for it.

I have no idea on your skillset but if I where you I would pull the trans and sent it out to one, Dr Evil back east of to one of the guys in Arizona. You can put it in a big Tupperware and send it by Greyhound or delivery it to the guys in Arizona to fix the trans. The 915 will work fine as long as you do not lay rubber in it all the time and even then, it is mostly the CVs that pop. I did it in my 1st 914 V8 with just a 283 in it. That was back in 1979

I would take what you have and clean it up very nice and you will have a valuable car that you can sell for a profit if you do not like it.


Bob B

SHE LIVES!!!

I am both very happy and very bummed with myself for not trying to get this figured out sooner. I missed several months of potentially great driving because I convinced myself this was only something I had to do in my garage (which was filled to the brim with moving boxes and misc things that couldn't go into our house yet because it was being remodeled) and not under the tree in the side yard. Needless to say... it was in fact something that could have been done under the tree in the side yard!

I'll upload pics this weekend, but at the end of the day my 914 completely sheared the output flange to the 915 gearbox installed in my car (as evidenced above) and it really was as simple as removing it, installing a "new" one with a new stretch bolt and washer, and then reconnecting my CV to it. I was conviced with some cracking I found in the Quaife LSD that it was going to have to be removed from the trans and replaced, but after a conversation with Quaife they told me that the pieces that were "broken" were in fact just manufacturing defects in the metal and that all should be good... so I put it back together, torqued everything down, and I now have a running and driving V8 914 again!

Very happy camper! I will still do an EZ30 swap eventually as I want to build this car into a reliable trackable street car, but getting this fixed without any major expenses has pushed that swap down the road a year or two.

Now it's time to get to refinishing bits of the inteior and working on the exterior as I still feel out the car as is and fix things that'll surely pop up.

Just wanted to update some folks

-Bret

Congratulations on getting her back on the road with minimal effort.