Well, my 914 was in the shop so long, I went out and bought a Boxster. Now, looks like my 914 is coming home in the next couple of weeks, and I've got to deal with the fact I have four cars and only a three-car garage.

My garage has 12' ceilings, and it looks like to me that I could use a storage lift to stack my 914 over the Boxster (or vice-versa). I've got 98 1/2" from the floor to the lowest point on the garage door when its up. I measured the Boxster's height the other day, I think it was 45 1/2". Not sure what my 914's height is, but I suspect it's several inches lower than the Boxster, so it looks like it should work.

Anyone have experience with these beasts? This is one that I'm looking at:

http://eagleequip.com/page/EE/PROD/LI-SS/603-034

There's a series of old threads on corvetteforum.com about a guy who bought a 4 post lift and it collapsed.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=664238

I have a Bend Pak and am very happy with it. I have 11.5 ceilings and could stack the Mustang and 914, this is a old pic before I finished off the garage.

Click to view attachment

Anyhow, Make sure that the tracks that the car drives on are infinitely adjustable. By that I mean that at least one track or skid moves and does not have notches that it must rest on. My right skid slides for different width cars. A few weekends back we set it as wide as you could and still drive a 914 on, and dropped Brant's motor and trans engine bar and all no problem. If the skids had notches I could see where one setting would not be enough (engine bar not clearing) and the next biggest setting to much (tires hanging off on the inside)

Ferg

and you don't own either one of those cars anymore, even the photo is only 2 weeks old..........ironic?

Here is a pic from the motor drop, you can see we had the skids wider than what would be normal.

Click to view attachment

My model is 7000lbs, but I think the lowest they do now is 9000lbs about $2500 to your door at Northern Equipment. And mine requires bolting to the slab, which I like, for piece of mind while I'm under it.

I had my garage door raised so that when up it's only about 2 inches from the ceiling.
I lost my power opener though, but no biggie.

Ferg

9.5 feet is all I had in my last two locations and it was enough to stack two Porsches. You should have it made with 11'. I had to relocate a ceiling light fixture but you should be ok there too.
As to the garage door, if necessary you can adjust the limit switch on your opener (or rig a mechanical stop on a manual door) so it stops short of the car. I also had to move the arm of my opener from the center of the door to one side.
Here's a shot of 5 in a three car garage with 9.5' ceiling. The yellow 914 is on wheel dollies.

I'm getting a Rotary Lift in about a month. The lower priced lifts are Chinese steel and parts could be a bitch to get when things wear out. Also while the Rotary is alot more expensive, I got an installed price as there is a local dealer who takes care of all the professional shops. I figured I'm only buying 1 of these in my lifetime, so I wanted a quality piece.

T.C.

OK, turns out I have a handy photo of the garage area I want to put the lift into. Looks like to me I could stack the two cars with no problem, but of course, I'll measure everything VERY CAREFULLY before I pay big bux and have a thousand pound lift shipped to my house. Also looks like I could change the limit stop position of the garage door and position the lift deeper in the garage so that the 914's roll bar is beyond black "J"-shaped bar that connects the garage door to the chain drive. That would give me about another 8" or so of height to work with.

I think if you are willing to move the bench so the lift will be about two feet from the back wall and park the car with the wheels at the extreme end of the ramp you may be ok as is. Sometimes I have had to back the car on for slightly more vertical clearance from the door.
It is very easy to move the door opener and track to one side of the door. I thought it would cause the door to bind but not so. The option was suggested to me by a door installer.
My current limitation due to the low ceiling is that I can only store a low car on the bottom. If I had your 11' ceiling I could put the family sedan on the bottom. However I would either have to raise the door track (as Mike did) or move the lift further to the rear and lose access to my bench. If you raise the track I was told that you must add a "dummy" panel to the top of the door since the upper rollers must be in the radius of the track in order for the door to open when pulled horizontally by the opener.

Some pics:
I have 89" from floor to door.

Jim,
You're my hero (5 cars in a 3 car grage)

The other thing you could do, which i just did, is make your door taller and install new rails. The installer put an 8 foot door in my 7 foot opening, and now my door, rails, and opener hug the ceiling.

I did this in anticipation of buying a lift, which will ultimately lead to buying more cars

I'll see if i can find some pics.......

You can always look into something like the Liftmaster 3800, mounts on the torsion spring, no overhead opener!

To much $$, I'm cheap . I think it cost me 110 bucks for a garage guy to come out, add track, raise the rails, remove my opener, respring the door so it's easy to lift and add a lock.

I'm not fond of parking the car further back on the lift so that the door clears, I want my car as centered at possible while it's in the air. So raising the garage door was the first thing I did.

Ferg.

Ferg,
I'll take some pics of my door for you, with the opener still attached.

!!

I put a 2 post lift in. I think it is easier to work on the car with it, and it can still be used for storage of a 4 th car in my 3 car garage. This is a picture of my garage just after the lift was installed. Shows things really clearly. Having a lift makes things like engine drops a breeze. I unhook everything except the bolts holding the engine in, Lower it down and set the engine and tranny on jackstands, undo the bolts and lift the car off the engine and tranny. Then I work on it right there. So when I go to put it back, it is already lined up.

The lift came from a local company called Gemini Lifts. It was brand new, and was 2500.00. That included free professional installation.