Well, with all the work that I'm doing to my car lately, I might as well start my own progress thread.
Backstory
I bought 4702912742 from my pops about a year and a half ago for $600 dollars, but it wasn't a steal. It had been sitting for about five years and needed a lot of work. He A couple years later he had been looking for a teener for a little while and picked this one up cheap at a dealership in Pomona Ca. He drove it for a while, but it had tons of problems, and soon he decided to sell it. However, the person who test drove it blew first gear, and out to the back yard it was sent.
Fast forward five years to when I was financially ready to get a car to start racing. Long story short, after deciding that I wanted the 914 instead of an older Miata, I told him I was interested. He said that if I bought him a set of mufflers for his bike, we'd call it even.
After that I spent about another 4K just getting it drivable. I replace all four rotors, rebuilt all four calipers, replace the brake lines with braided steel, replaced the hard lines that I broke, replaced the master cylinder, resealed the motor (after my socket and extension locked the motor up), bought two trannies for it (the first one was no good), put a new clutch and pilot bearing in it, put new rubber on the ground (Khumos), fixed and lubed all kinds of latches and hinges to be able to get into all the various compartments, replaced most of the vacuum lines and fuel lines.... the list goes on.
These were all just stock replacements to get it running well. I further had to fight with the injection system for a few months until I figured out that I had it hooked up wrong. Of course, this is the very abbreviated version of the story. As anyone with one of these things knows, the words it takes to describe what parts you changed don't even come close to showing the blood, sweat, and yes, sometimes tears that you put into your work. But anyways, it is running decent now (the motor is still a little tired) so it's time to do some improvements. After all, racing is what I bought the thing for. So I'll try to bring anyone who cares up to date on some of the things I've been working on.
Mark D.

Then
Click to view attachment
Nowish
Click to view attachment
Progress pics will be uploaded soon, but not tonight. It's bed time.
Mark D.

Number 419. Ha. Or rather, Ah.

Yeah... And I had NARVW on the rear trunk.
Mark D.

Well, let's start with the first custom fabbed piece on the car; the motor mount. When I did my side shift conversion, the mount bar that I got was bent. It looked like the car had been rear ended, because both ends were bent back, like the engine and tranny got pushed forward. So instead of finding another that may be bent, my brother talked me into letting him build a tubular one for me. I'm very happy with what resulted. It feels about 1/2-2/3 lighter, and looks way cooler than the stock one.
This part was built about a year ago and I posted pics, so some of you may remember it. I can't take any credit for the design. It was all my bro.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

The main bar is 1 1/8" DOM steel. The ends are machined and center-drilled bar-stock that were welded in place.
Click to view attachment
The center mounts are 1 1/4" non-DOM tubing that are capped and center drilled for the rubber mounts. The hole for the shift rod is hand bent 1/8" flat bar. My brother bent the center piece in about three minutes, and then traced that shape onto the pieces for the gussets. I'm amazed how fast he did it and how well it came out... He Rules.
Click to view attachment
The welds don't look as good as they could, but he said his welder was acting up. I'm still very happy with it.
Mark D.

A couple months ago, I had an electrical short under the dash that took forever to find. I thought it was the ignition switch (which has had problems), but I was wrong. I ended up taking my vacation from work to fix it, as it was the only car I had at the time. I ripped the whole dash out and found my electrical problems. It turned out there was more than one. Anyways, the stock dash was thrashed when I bought the car, and it looked even worse by the time I got it out of the car. Since I got the electrical fixed way earlier than I expected to, I decided this was a good time to do my stripped out dashboard.
All I did is take the steel frame, cut it down to a flimsy framework, and then wrap some aluminum around it. Unfortunately, I don't have a 53" sheet metal break, so all the bends are hand bent around random pieces of angle-iron and 2X4. The long bends on the top and bottom had to be relief cut to facilitate this. The look isn't as good as I'd like, but it's alright.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

Center-punch marks for the future gauge centers. That's a project for a later date.
Click to view attachment
The ECU and starter are on toggle switches now, as well as the rear trunk solenoid. The headlights and flashers may be as well in the future. The top is riveted on and painted in a bad, half-assed coat of wrinkle finish black.... That's why it sucks when you need your project car for work.
Click to view attachment
There's no cover for the main gauge cluster right now. I tried to make that piece a couple times. It was a bitch and I needed my car, so I said, "I'll do that later." That was four months ago. lol
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

If you look closely, you can see some of the old framework in there.
Click to view attachment
Having the lower panel removable helps a lot when it comes to working on the mess of wires above it. As you can see, the aluminum has already had it's share of scratches. I'm thinking that later I'll move the fuse block to the far right, where the glove box used to be.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

If you plan to race, read the rules of the club(s) that you plan to run with before you do too many modifications.
For instance, to run with he POC, you have to have a stock dash cover or you will have to compete with the Z classes- unlimited- categorized by engine size only, so you'd be competing with tube frame cars with 3.0 RSR engines.
You can probably slap a dash cover right over your aluminum dash and fix that problem, but this kind of thing comes up all the time.

Agreed. I am familiar with the SCCA rules for GT and Production classes, and am fairly familiar with NASA classes. I don't plan on running in POC, but it's a possibility sometime in the future. I think I'll be running in NASA PT and TT mostly, until I get the thing to reasonable GT preparation. I'm broke, though. That'll be years from now; after I finish school, get a REAL job, get a house. ect. Thanks for the tip, though. I'll keep that in mind.
Mark D.

The next item is harnesses. This is the project that I'm working on right now... As you may have guessed, I'm not doing these projects in any meaningful order. I don't have the money for that. My buddy, who I build various race cars with, had a customer with some expired 5-point harnesses, and he offered them to me for free since he had no use for them anymore. They're functionally just fine, but the production dates are over 3 years. However, since I'm just doing autocrosses and weekend mountain attacks, that's fine. However, I did have to fab some harness bars and reinforce the mounting points on the firewall. I'll get all this done, and then when I'm ready to do full fledged, wheel to wheel racing, I'll just have to get new harnesses and bolt them in.
Driver's side assembly after striping the paint and glue off of the firewall.
Click to view attachment
This is the reinforcement plate for the mounting point of the two shoulder belts on the passenger side. There will also be a plate on back side of the firewall when I'm done.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

These little plates were fun to make. I made the driver's side first by taking a piece of cardboard and mapping the major folds and cuts. That way, I was able to flatten it back out to cut the flat pate before folding it. I did have to do some minor trimming to get the metal piece to fit the way I wanted. This is the passenger's side (obviously), and I just got that by mirroring it onto another piece of cardboard.
Click to view attachment
To get enough clearance for the harnesses between the bar and the firewall, the bar had to stick out in front of the angled area on the outside. To alleviate this issue, the angle for the firewall was cut through the tubing, and then the end was relief cut, bent to angle it in, and welded back together.
Click to view attachment
The inside was much more simple.
Click to view attachment
Again, all the welding was done by my bro.
Mark D.

While trying to figure out how far down to paint, I decided I should look at the floor and see how bad it was. I knew there was some serious rust issues, but I wasn't sure how bad. Here's what I found.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

More...
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

After I stripped the rubber crap off.
Click to view attachment
I then cleaned it with a wire wheel and threw a coat of primer over the top to prevent any further rust.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

I decided to double it up by fabbing some new floorboards for now. When I do the complete tear down later, I'll probably put some of Restoration Design's floors in. However, I don't have the time or money to go into that kind of work right now, and this was a bit of an emergency. While working inside, I more than once put my foot through the passenger's side floor. These should hold for now.
Cut floor pieces waiting for the sheet metal break.
Click to view attachment
Bent and trimmed pieces with a layer of primer on the bottom. These are ready to weld in. Yes, those are my footprints on them.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

You have done a lot of nice work! I know you want to keep the cost down (BTDT) but you do know that the floor pan sections are available at a pretty fair price don't you? Restoration design and AA both have them. I used pans from restoration design. Very nice fit and heavy gage metal. The stampings also make them stronger. Not too bad to replace. Lots of luck!

Yeah, I'm aware of those. They look really cool, and that's probably what I'll do eventually. I'm just not ready to do that job yet. I want to completely strip down the whole car (three different paint jobs that I can find) and repaint it within the next couple years, and I'll replace what pieces I need at that time. This is just a temporary fix. I have a race in three weeks which I need to be ready AND have the money for. That's another factor.
Thanks for the compliment. I'll post pictures when I get the whole firewall and everything painted.
Mark D.

i hope your seats have a belt hole in them.

or you are reaaaally short. Harnesses should be at your shoulder level, or a very small angle below your shoulder (10 degrees from what i recall)

if they have a steep angle upward toward your shoulders... and you crash. you will compress your spine....

The SCCA GCR calls out 20 degrees, which is approximately what I've got.
Mark D.

Great

Nevermind

Anymore pics of your work?

Okay, I haven't posted on this thread in quite a while due to being so busy with work and school. Now is really no different, but I just wanted to catch up. All I finished painting the firewall and got the harnesses installed. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get the hardware that I needed and some other things took some time, but I finished this portion of work forever ago and wanted to share. Let's see.... Where was I?... Ahh, the floor. Here's a couple pictures of the floor panels tacked in. My brother suggested just tacking them in to make them easier to take out later, when I do the job right with full reproduction floor panels. They're still plenty strong this way.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Painted pictures later.
Mark D.

Now to actually mounting the harnesses. I made some plates for the anti-sub belt and had them welded to the frame bracing under the front edge of the seats. I was afraid it might be too far forward, but the geometry actually came out pretty good.
Click to view attachment
The reinforcement plates and metal under them were partially drilled with about a 1-1/4" drill to make a sort of chamfer. This was done in order to get weld engagement on both plates of metal.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

The lap belts were done much the same as the anti-sub belts, but first I had to holesaw out the original bosses. At first, I wanted to just drill and tap the bosses to the size that I needed, but there wouldn't be enough metal left for thread engagement due to the existing threads. So instead, I took them out and welded in some Grade 12.9 nuts.
Click to view attachment
The holes were chamfered in the same way the anti-sub belts were.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

After that, I was ready to paint. These next few pictures were just taken today, and I didn't feel like removing the harnesses, but you get the idea. Rustolium Satin Black.
Click to view attachment
Notice the battery shut-off in the middle.
Click to view attachment
I know you just love how the stock seats are just bolted through the floor in the back. It's ghetto, I know, but the hinges were completely gone (probably rusted out), With no real metal left to weld in new ones. This'll work until I get some real race seats which will just be bolted in too.
Mark D.

Close ups.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

Grade 10.9 M12 X 1.5 bolts threaded into Grade 12.9 nuts, torqued to 85 ft/lbs with lock washers. Those aren't going anywhere. I don't particularly like the weight of all this hardware, but harnesses are one area you don't want to skimp on.
Click to view attachment
Ten minutes with a wire wheel and some new sheet metal screws does wonders on these little trim pieces.
Click to view attachment
One little problem that I don't have a picture of: I got the bolts just a little long, and on the right side of the driver's lap belt, the bolt went through and interfered with the shift linkage. This prevented me from getting into 4th and 5th..... oops. Simple fix though. I cut the bolt down about 10 mm and it's fine, and it's still threaded completely through the nut.
Mark D.

Your work is looking good. Keep it up, and keep posting your progress.

With the seats in:
Click to view attachment
I actually run without a seat cushion for more 'support' in the corners. My skinny ass allows me to get away with this. However, I would like to make some pads with a hole for the sub belt sometime.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

I've also been working on getting some gauges installed. The car originally had nothing but a tach, speedometer and fuel gauge.... well, and an oil pressure light. I bought a CHT, oil pressure, and oil temperature gauge from E-gauges.com, and have been gradually getting them wired up. It's not like I'm risking anything by taking my time as the car isn't even running right now. Anyways, the first thing I had to do was run some loom material under the front section of the tunnel. I actually did this a while ago when the PO's shitty wiring (under the trim piece on the longs) decided to short itself on a screw and melt the carpet.
I ran a fisher through the path that I wanted the loom material to go, while pulling a string along behind it (from back to front). I then poked a couple holes through the material, tied the string through those holes, and greased up the piece I was pulling through. It actually came through pretty easily. I then sent the fisher down the loom material and pulled a string through. The string is double the length of the loom piece with a washer on both ends, and it just stays in there so it's easy to pull wires when I need to.
Simple pic. Note that this is before I got the interior repainted.
Click to view attachment
As you can see, I split the loom material where it comes up for air between the seats for accessibility. The back section was done with a hole saw and some rubber grommets from NAPA. I strung it up the same way to help me fish wire.
Through the firewall:...
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

... and up to the top side of the engine bay.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

The last little section back to the CHT sensor (on cylinder #3) and the oil pressure sensor was attached using nylon Adelish Clamps.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
I'm ashamed of my dirty engine compartment.
Mark D.

Now for the scary part; cutting giant holes in my hand-fabbed dash. In actuality it went very smoothly. Nobody that I found makes a 2-1/16" holesaw, but a 2" and some massaging with a rotary file worked just fine.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
How do you like my Dewalt floor mat?
Mark D.

I don't yet have the Oil Temp sensor in, but the others work just fine. The power is daisy-chained from the 8th terminal on the fuse box, and the lights from the 7th terminal. I don't know if this is technically correct, but the PO seems to have the changed the wiring all around. The ground is run to the bolt on the lower brace of the dash. Everything seems to work like it should without catching on fire or repeatedly blowing fuses, so I'm happy enough with it.
Loom up from the tunnel. There will be more wires there later.
Click to view attachment
Tight fit back there.
Click to view attachment
Mark D.

Oil pressure sensor mounted VIA adel clamp on the air filter bracket.
Click to view attachment
Random picture of the afore mentioned battery shutoff.
Click to view attachment
And that's probably all for quite a long time. I'm VERY broke right now, but hopefully that will change soon as I'm looking for a better job. I need to fix some things on the brakes and get into the motor to see why one cylinder is so weak all of the sudden (I think I broke a ring). Hopefully I can do a cheap re-hone/re-ring job and get her back on the road. I'd love to just build a 2056 or, better yet, a 2365 for it and be done with it, but that's not really financially feasible right now. Anyways, after she's on the road again, I'll work on fabbing a front swaybar for the old girl. Thanks for watching.
Mark D.

Thanks, man. I really appreciate that coming from someone with such a gorgeous 914. Mine's not much to look at right now, but, in time.... As soon as I make more progress, I'll put it up, even if only for your enjoyment.
Mark D.

Looks great. I love these threads. Doin' it your way.

PM me your address. I have a part that's been sitting for 2 years that will work great for you.

I ran my car with a stock 914 seat with no cushion for a long time until I could afford a race seat. I glued a piece of black carpet to the shell because I found that fiberglass slivers in my ass distracted me from my driving.
I like what you're doing.
I'd like to say "keep going and you'll get there", but most of us never really finish our cars, we just wear out jackstands.

Depending on who/what/where group you're going to run with, you may have a problem with your seat/harness set up. For PCA DEs, it's illegal. Some regions (most, I would think) are also going to enforce the new rule for AX.

In a nutshell: Your harnesses must run thru slots in the seats (at the shoulders & sub belts).

RTRB.

Is it a 3.2? J/K... Will do.
Mark D.

The stock seat w/o cushion works great. I have a neoprene cover for the bottom of my bare-bones seat.

JP,

What if he were to weld up some "hoops" on top of the bar for the belts to go thru?
It seems that would provide the desired belt location and stability.(?)
I'm not familiar with their rules though.......

In my experience whenever you go beyond the letter of the rule book, you cast your fate to the wind...or who ever is teching the car. If you spend time/effort trying to work around the "letter", you will probably be disappointed.

This particular issue is PCA liability insurance generated. As a past PCA AX chair, were it my decision, you wouldn't run in the event. No reason to put the region in jeopardy for one guy should something go wrong. WAG.... any event chair is gonna feel the same.

Your best bet is to find a used race seat....2 if you want a passenger.
Look for a used Kirkey seat. They are used by lots of circle track guys and can be had cheep....not very comfortable on the street tho.

Yeah, I was supposed to get some sport seats(with harness hoops) before I got the stockers that are in there now, but they turned out to be unavailable by the time I got there. Good info, though. I'll talk to Mugs and see what he thinks, as the next event I will HOPEFULLY be able to make will be the GPX AX at Streets of Willow. In the meantime, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for cheap race seats.
Mark D.

yeah i have got a kirkey seat i love it, it'l keep u in fornt on the wheel in agresive corners, though after an hour your all will hurt. good luck on the car its looking great!

The PCA DE rule also states that the driver and passenger side must have equivalent restraint systems which includes the seat.


just my $0.02

Updates: They are many actually. I'm pushing pretty hard to be ready for the 914 Shootout in August. That's three and a half months away and I need to rebuild the motor(already started), build a front swaybar, replace the rear springs, and build some headers (can't afford to buy them). After the motor is built I need to break it in and remap the D-jet. The new job is giving be a better budget to work with, but finding the time to do the work is more difficult. Even so, the budget will still be tight, since I also need to buy a helmet.
Below are some pics of what I was doing the last couple days at school. It's obvious that this was done by a machining STUDENT, but I'm happy none the less. 12 pounds is heavier than I wanted to start with, but I couldn't run the CNC milling program I wanted to, so I had to chop it the old-school way on a manual lathe. Gotta love cutting that good-ol' German steel!
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Mark D.