At the suggestion of the board, I am bringing my 76 914 with a 73 2.0 (dual Webers) to Chris to have the engine and drive train looked at. I already have a new cam on the list. I'm also considering SS headers and break and fuel lines.

Any one else have any constructive suggestions OTHER THAN dropping in a V8 from a Cayenne GTS?

Thanks.

How much money do you want to spend? What else does the car have? If it has sagging 75# springs in the back I'd do something about that. If the pistons and cylinders aren't too fresh I'd throw a set of 96's with higher compression at it too. Valve job and maybe a wee bit of porting?

Thanks I'll add that to the discussion list!

Are you looking for more engine improvements or will you upgrade anything. Replacement springs and shocks might be good? Or a sway bar? IDK what is on your car.

Chris is a good guy, I'm sure he will have suggestions once he sees the car.

Suspension wise, what do you have?

From what I understand, the car is stock other than the engine that had some work done to it by Black Forest Racing in Fla.about 4-5 years ago.

No harm in getting lots of opinions but, as Jim D suggested, your best advice will probably come from Chris once he has looked the car over.

That's the plan, but I have to have my "list" or my wife will have to stop calling me compulsive.

Well, Chris does have quite a bit of cool stuff in his shop . . . you very well could get impulsive once you get there anyways.

how far do you want to take it. CFR does awesome fenders too.....widening that is. maybe he is up to the lambo doors too...well if you have money to spend CFR is a good place to spend it.....i know i shop there myself !!!!

Make it MassIVe :-)

Chris knows all about installing my engines....

give it to me and you wont have any more compulsive problems

It's amazing what you find wrong with these cars when you go looking. Some of the work done in the past left a lot to be desired for sure. The previous owners and shops who serviced this car were guilty of very poor workmanship/maintenance.
Whoever "upgraded" the engine to a 2056 got a piece of the tin caught between the cylinder and crankcase, causing the large oil leak that began our involvement with the car.
Someone installed new floor insulation in the passenger compartment, right over the original sound deadening panels without even cleaning off the dirt and loose crap.
The latest item Ed found today is that the shift linkage was operated without a cup bushing for many, many miles. The shift coupler is worn so thin that there is a pinhole through the side.
The engine is back in the car as of today, and we are finally nearing completion of the project.

All this begs a good theoretical question-
Chris, If someone came to you and said, "I have a decent 914 and $3000, how do I make it better?"
What is your answer?
Suspension?
Brakes?
Engine (of course we ALL want a MasIVe, but that is whyI set the cost figure that challenges that choice)?
Exhaust?
Cooling?

I'm picking your brain for the experience you have, but I guess this would be a road car, not track. I have my opinions too, of course. I would go for trans rebuild first then Mallory and SSI/ tangerine and koni and Kumho (or better) and all bushings and a dead pedal. I think there might be money left for one tank of gas!

Its tough to answer that on a purely theoretical basis due to the variables of specific condition of the vehicle and what is "better" in the eyes of the owner.
Does the owner want the car to handle better, look better, sound better, or just accelerate better?
Lets assume that NO needed repairs are discovered when the car is in the shop, and that the car is a mostly stock 2 liter -4.
Taking each of your categories in order, the things I would consider important to upgrade are: Suspension - adjustable front anti-sway bar and bigger rear springs, along with Bilstein or Koni shocks (choice depends on customer preference); Brakes - you don't need to spend much money to have good brakes, good pads with a high coefficient of friction and a M/C brace to prevent firewall flex; Engine - for $3K you might (barely) squeeze in a cam swap, head work and dual carbs for 20 or more hp gain; Exhaust - a Tangerine Header by itself will give approximately 9% more torque and hp nearly across the entire rpm range, and make the engine sound more like a Porsche than a VW; Cooling - the engine will run cooler with a Tangerine Header installed.
I think if you do all the installation yourself you could get the exhaust, suspension, and brake upgrades mentioned and meet the budget. Having a shop do the labor will cost about another $1K.

Another approach would be to spend the $$ for 911 front suspension and calipers, 5 lug rear hubs and good wheels/tires. Also needed would be a 19mm M/C and replace the prop valve with a tee.

Chris as long as you are here


what is the difference between today's exhaust and this?

Click to view attachment

not to interrupt this portion of the thread, but Chris is almost finished with his recussitation of my 914 and I will post pictures and a review of the surgery once it's completed. I can not thank the board enough for the CFR reccomendation and I only have extremely high praise for Chris and Ed.

You car looks good Lee. I saw it sometime after you dropped it off.

Yeah, it sounds like Chris' services were deperately needed for your car.. 914s are often "screwed up" by people that should not be working on them.

I am glad to see Chris branching out a bit to offer more services- thats befeicial to everyone.

Chris and I have chatted about him being a NW rep for our products and engine kit assemblies.. I'd think after a week of training here at Heaven Ed could be a competent assembler of MassIVe power pretty easily given his experience.

Glad ya'll hoked up..

Thanks for the great response Mr Foley! My next project is taking shape (in my mind) now...

George,
I'd prefer if you started another topic for me to explain the evolution of my exhaust systems, instead of hijacking this thread. Send me an email so I'm sure to find it. Thanks.

I was finding it very interesting

Ok

In order to keep things interesting here are a couple of pics of the R&D we did today using your car as the test subject.
This is the new master cylinder brace we developed after studying the pros and cons of previous solutions created by other 914 owners. This product is relatively cheap to produce, is sturdy and easy to install, doesn't interfere with the bolt-on cover panel, provides adjustment to account for vehicle variations, and removes quickly for master cylinder replacement.
Two 8mm bolts get welded to the crossmember.
Click to view attachment
An angle iron bracket slips onto the righthand bolt,
Click to view attachment
and rotates into position on the other bolt.
Click to view attachment
The nuts are adjusted to press the bracket against the front of the master cylinder,
Click to view attachment
preventing the firewall from flexing under hard braking.

Nice! A much simpler design, but why not flip the angle iron so it supports the bottom of the MC too?

When I say flip the angle iron to support the bottom of the MC too is: When you watch when someone pumps the brakes you see a lot of up and down movement at the snout of the MC - here's a pic.

We thought about that Travis.
There are three primary reasons: 1) access to the rear nuts is compromised, making it difficult to tighten in place; 2) the angle iron would sit lower and interfere with the cover panel; 3) the lowered angle iron provides less stiffness where the m/c makes contact. At present the angle iron is in an ideal position for direct in-line pressure. I think that the master cylinder won't move up and down if the bracket makes firm contact but we haven't tested it yet. We'll know tomorrow.

I'm truly impressed!

Sounds good to me... now we just have to convince the boss.

There is a little movement - about 1/16". I will add a little weld bead at the bottom, that the m/c will stop against, and easily put an end to that.

Giddyup!

We ran the engine today. It needs a little tuning, but sounds better already.
One thing we discovered though, is a faulty ignition switch that makes it hard to activate the starter. Also Ed found that the fuel pump works much better when the cutoff switch under the dash is turned on.

I found the same thing with my wife's credit card. Let's replace the ignition switch and kill the cut off switch. If I want to safeguard the car, I'll kill the battery. All that I need is to mistakenly hit the cut off switch and have the car flatbeded to you so that Ed could snicker and smile!

Actually my first thought ( after ) when I found the "installation" was this has gotta go... Tomorrow I'll drop the fuse box and see how skillfully this "mod" was done...if some of the other stuff is an indication..

For those of you who are having some difficulty following this thread, the long and the short of it is that Chris and Ed are board certified cardiovascular transplant surgeons who have been operating on my 914 for the past month or so. The patient has had good days and bad and it is a constant battle to right the wrongs of a prior porsche butcher.

Once the patient is released from the hospital the complete story with pictures can and be told. For years I thought that it was Moses who came down from Mt. Sinai with the 10 commandments. But I have recently learned that it was really Racer Chris and EJM who came down from the mountain with a shop manual in hand and with the g-d given ability to part the Red Sea, talk to the burning bush and make me feel that there are still skilled, trustworthy, honest and really nice guy's who make this passion as enjoyable as it is.

I just added a switch like that. It kills power to the ECU and coil. One of the peculiarities of crankfired waste spark ignition is if the crank is in just the right spot in it's rotation the transistor can be active and either it goes or the coil goes if the ignition is left on If I want listening to the radio with engine not running I can without fear of cooking something. It gives me an accessory mode and anti theft.

Its the little things that keep her from feeling well enough to go home at this point.
Today's Rx included rearranging the wiring to the combination guage. The initial diagnosis was a faulty charging circuit, since the Gen light never came on. It turns out the Gen light socket was inserted in the parking brake light position without a bulb; the brake light was in the low fuel indicator postion; the low fuel light was in the Gen light location. So, the alternator wasn't charging due to the missing bulb, the low fuel alarm was blinking because the new master cylinder warning switch needed to be reset, and if the fuel tank had been near empty the Gen light would have come on. In addition to the gauge circuitry functioning properly now, we replaced the ignition switch, hooked up the windshield washer, and started lubricating the wiper arm pivots so they won't bind anymore. The patient is resting quietly for the weekend.

Whenever my fuel light starts blinking, I always pull over to check the alternator. It usually means the blinker fluid level is also low, so I fill up that tear drop bottle it the front. I pull the headlight knob and my reverse lights come on, awesome in traffic
Sometimes I think there are no 2 914s exactly alike

I'm so glad that my major medical policy is paid up. Medicaid on a 76 doesn't kick in for another 30 years.