I am about to pick up a 1.7 enigne minus intake. Owner says it ran, but has'nt run in a long itme since he took it out.
I have a 75 1.8 which runs fine, so there is no rush to rebuild.
My thought is I would like to rebuild this engine making more power (115-125 hp) and evenutually put it in car.
I am looking for more power but I still want driveability and durability. I also am going to be doing this myself and am looking to not spend too much money, I only paid $5000 for the car and am paying $50 for the engine.
Any thoughts?
I hear Jack Raby's stuff is great but it does seem pricey (no offense, just a $5,000 engine in a $5,000 car doesnt seem worthwhile.
thanks, Matt

I dunno, Raby's got a lotta believers. The disconnect is the cost of the car (screamin' cheap is what a 914 is) vs. the cost of the engine. I'm pretty sure that you would easily get enough pleasure out of a Jake motor to justify the cost.

You don't have to buy an entire kit to rebuild your engine. I did mine using some of Jake's parts, reused my heads after having them refurbished. It was a bit cheaper.

I don't know how good of a wrench you are but for ease I would sudjest you

check out one of the kits. But if you feel like you want to dive into this then

use the 1.7 case and watch the classifieds for a 2.0 crank, rods and heads.

Find a set of good german cylinders, have them bored to fit the set of 96mm

pistons you are going to buy (give the pistons to the machinest to mic for the bore)

When you get all your parts together speak with Jake, let him know what you

have to go in to it and what type of induction you will be useing, he will set you

up with the correct cam, followers and a dizzy set up for what you have.

you can use the exhaust, FW, tin, pully, alt, senders etc. from your old engine.

My .02

Listen to Jakes rebuild on a budget show from the Fourth Dimension and you will get all the info you need and be well on your way. For type fours, Jake is the man!

It's not that Jake's kits are expensive, it's that our engine parts are expensive. Download the excel spreadsheet for the kit you are interested and then put a price next to each part and add it up. Price a new set of heads, h-beam rods, KB pistons, etc.

That said, you can build a stocker 2056 that puts out 110hp for half the price of one of the $5,000 kits. You save money using old heads, stock crank, stock rods. Since you are starting with a 1.7 you'll need to source a 2L crank, 2L rods, 96mm cylinders/pistons, and 1.8 or 2L heads to have rebuilt.

Or to do it cheap, build a 1911cc engine out of the 1.7.