Cranked the engine w/o the coil powered to get oil pressure up. Yup, green light went out. Whew, one down, one to go. Poured some gas into the fuel tank. Connected the coil and cranked...and cranked...and cranked

Nothing.

Well, the dizzy cap and rotor looked worn so off to the store and bought replacements. Cranked. And cranked.

Nothing.

Poured a whole container of fuel injection cleaner and gas dryer. Poured in about 3 gallons of 91 octane. Fuel pump was indeed doing its job.

All wires connected and on the correct coil terminals. Oops, #1 and #2 spark plug wires on wrong post Fixed. And cranked. And cranked.

Nothing.

Pulled out the Haynes shop manual again and did the trouble-shooting in the Ignition section. Even switched coils. Everything was testing good but my engine analyzer was showing no spark from anything. Swapped back the original coil and...oh, I need to push down harder!...cranked. Engine analyzer flashed the red LED so that means it detected current in the #1 spark plug lead -- SPARK!!!

Cranked some more and putta puttta. Cranked and putta putta pop putta VROOOOOOOM!

Blipped the throttle and the mufflerless engine roared its mighty 2.0 litre roar and settled down to a lopy idle. The villagers rejoiced and there was much headbanging that evening

Here's the proof:
http://www.icbm.org/erkson/temp/914-lives.EXE
Self-extracting .zip file. 10Mb in size...sorry dial-up
The video does NOT do the exhaust sound justice. It sounds sooooo muscly

All vacuum hoses are in DIRE need of replacement. I adjusted the idle down via the dizzy timing as the idle was close to 2000rpm. New hoses that don't leak will change it all again but I can handle that. She lives, and that's what's important.

Oh, and the reason for all this news...no engine oil leaks (so far). Fuel lines not leaking any more as well Gotta love previous owners

P.S. She still looks like a crap-mobile but she lives!

Congrats!!!

I hope to share in your joy soon!!!

Carlos

Good for you!!!

The best sound in the world is when an engine you built kicks over.

(OK, maybe not the BEST, but close)

After some triple checking I drove her out of the garage and around the block (remember, the muffler isn't attached). I went thru all the gears as best I could while going 25mph and every one engaged. Well, I think 4th didn't want to go in initially but I was more concerned about any possible on-coming traffic because the sun was directly in front of me and with all the body dust on the windshield my visibility went to almost zero. Every single person that saw me literally stopped what they were doing and just stared. It was awesome!

I pulled into my garage and killed the engine. Set the parking brake and stepped out. Seven of the neighborhood kids (2nd-5th grade) were at the garage entrance and all seven of them were wide-eyed and asking a gazillion questions -- what is it? where's the engine? how big is the engine? you built that? how fast is it? how long have you been working on it? what else did you build? etc. It was a great feeling.

I wire wheeled the exhaust flanges, cleaning them up for the exhaust gaskets that I have to get tomorrow. Then the muffler will go on and I can get her plates renewed. And since she's a 1973...no DOT emissions BS! Though we all know the D-jet system actually does quite well. My last Porsche 914 had the 1.8L w/L-jet and it passed emissions no problem. However, exhaust noise was another issue

I can't make the link work

I want to hear it!

Works for me I'm using IE 6. Try right clicking on it and Save As... (or something similar) to your hard drive then use Windows Media Player to view it.

WOOHOO!

My engine sounds like that, but with the loud tack tack tack noise too!

Congrats!




M