My 10 year project is learning the piano, I hope I'm as successful!
Good job I admire the staying power!

Damn good job! You rock dude!

Holy Macaroni! I log in for the first time in a while and get rewarded with this.
Nice work!!! Such a Rad project.

So I was just looking through old bookmarks, and came up on this one. Decided to see if it ever got finished. And 10 years to the date your driving it for the first time! Love it!!

Such a cool build.... must stop viewing this thread as i get too many ideas!

Sorry for the short notice but if you want to see the Anklebiter in person we will be at the car show at railroad days in Snoqualmie, WA tomorrow! Come on out and say hi!

http://www.railroaddays.com/events/legends-classic-car-show/

Wow! Love seeing this on the road again!

I just left north bend on Wednesday. My mother in law is in snoqualmie, and my sister shows art at railroad days. But I miss out. Congratulations.

Any pics of this event..

Had a lot of fun today, our kiddo had a blast too. By the end of the show she could correctly identify half of the cars there. Good turnout, about 150 cars.
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I let any kid that wanted to climb in the car, my daughter had a lot of fun showing people the car
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Lots of pretty confused people, "is this a miata?" "is that a boxster engine?" "did you mean to do this?" "did you lose a couple parts on the way over?" etc... Good conversation starter!
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My Dad brought over his 1960 Rambler as well, good family outing! When I was driving out the local cops were just pointing and laughing, hopefully they are as kind the next time they see me take it out!
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Sweet...Thanks for the Pics..Gotta B fast..

Very Cool! Glad it didn't rain.

I thought I recognized that Rambler!

The Anklebiter personifies the minimalist ethic at this point. I was talking to a friend of mine from the Mercury Cougar world and he was telling me about this amazing 914 build he'd read about. He said it was called The Anklebiter.... Your fame is spreading Dane!

Have you got plans for picking up the bodywork yet?

Street legal. Very cool.

Marc, I like this build enough to have joined this group. I; like I'm sure many others here are waiting patently for the body to return and be installed.

So now that the car is running kind of reliably I am trying to go through the engine, replacing some of those things that might be negatively effected by sitting around for a decade... Seeing as this is an interference engine a timing belt was high on that list, while i was in there might as well do a water pump as well.
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There is a really annoying design flaw in the Subie EJ Engines, the captured nut that the timing belt covers mount into are captured in plastic, right next to the cylinder head, so when you go to remove the bolts they just spin. did some googling and the best way to fix this is drilling a tiny hole into the captured nut, screwing in a wood screw or something similar then bracing that and backing out the bolt... had to do this 6 times... grrr.
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Pulled the belt and pump.
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New stuff in, bled the system again and got the new belt on, aligning the 4 cam pulls is no annoying, especially because one of the cylinders is under compression, so you even breath on that pulley and is spins at a million mph out of your hand, finally got it perfect after what felt like forever, the engine runs great so i think I got the cams aligned correctly. One step closer to reliability!
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Whoo hoo. Nice Dana.

What cosmetic changes are in order if any?

Ferg

The body will be fairly stock other than the chopped roadster part, it has GT flares, the lids will be welded to the fenders to make clamshells, don't forget the Ferrari Diffuser, oh and I am shaving the headlights and mounting new tiny modern headlights in the turn signal buckets. I don't want it to be too over the top, just modernized.

I really wish I had tried harder to get the body on the trailer, I can't find a way to get it out here for less than a grand which is super lame...

I was looking at the first page of your thread right after I got a Moss Motors catalog. I think your project might. Might. Look good with cutaway doors so you can put your elbows in danger. Of course then you have the option of leaky side curtains. Also, the thing is probably way too fast for rain to touch it.

You do have a point, I have found it is a lot more fun to drive without doors, I pulled the doors off for the car show and enjoyed it so much that I stole the mirrors off of my cafe racer and bolted them into the hinge mount so I was still "legal".

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Where is the body now?

At my in-laws in Cheyenne WY
Both lids and intact front and rear, at least it is nice and dry there
I could probably split the nose and tail into 2 halves to help with shipping but don't really want to...
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So the car is crazy loud, I thought the turbo would nock the noise down a bit but I really can't drive it with the level of exhaust note insanity that is coming out of this thing. I mocked up the diffuser, and yes, I am doing big double tips that center dump through the hole in the diffuser.
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It is impossible to find the type of muffler I need with anything larger than a 3" inlet so I am making a funnel that necks it down while simultaneously bending around the cage and lining up a straight shot to the diffuser hole.
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And here it is, my adapter bend from 4.5' oval to 3' circle, ohh shiny!
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So space is pretty limited, and I felt like an integrated tip would help with packaging, I also figured out that my muffler would sit at about a 45 degree downward slope.
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The DTM style mufflers have a 45 degree kick up of their tips when mounted "correctly" so when mounted at a 45 degree angle the tips are dead straight, perfect!
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Got everything welded up and mounted, even used the stock muffler mounts on the tranny, muffler is stainless but way too much bling for my tastes, painted everything except the end cap and tips matt black. Fired it up to bake the paint and test out the sound, hard to tell without driving it but i think it sounds pretty good.
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Nice stinger!
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Here you can see the tip placement, pretty pleased with this. I also cut out the license plate holder from my temporary light bar and remounted it, plate is getting the zip tie treatment somewhere else for now.
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It is still going to be a while before i mount the diffuser for real, might rework the rear opening a bit with fiberglass or do a trim piece but I think this is in the ball park as far as how I want it to look
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Nothing like mounting dirty Ferrari parts with 2x2s and old wire, keeping it classy!
Should be nice and dry this weekend, looking forward to taking it out for a spin to see how it sounds at speed!
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Hey Dana, did I see a '37 Plymouth in the back ground in the barn?

Yup, that's my first car, next in line after the 914! I built that car when I was 15, needs a full going through but all of the original hard to find bits are there. Pretty rust free too. Was lucky enough to buy it before anything with 2 doors disappeared and found all the parts before eBay showed up and ate them all...

One of the things I really love—and appreciate—about this build is the lack of visual bling and colored/polished/etc stuff. Everything looks purposeful, and that has a cumulative effect that is very, very cool. I even liked the body in naked steel when you had it on the car, and the way you've respected so many elements of the 914 when you could very easily just throw them away. I am very curious to see which way you will go with exterior color...

Re: headlights and putting them where the turn signals usually reside, I am likewise curious to see what you will do there. The treatment has been done in the past, but I have set to see a result that looks right on the 914. As an addition or alternative (or focal point?), have you considered mounting one headlight in each bumper opening, cutting the top and bottom of the lights off with the upper and lower edges of the rectangle? Might be a nice look with the rest of your build, but it's a thought offered respectfully. This is one of the cooler builds going on a 914, and it's been fun to watch it go along.

Yeah, I don't know about the color, won't even pretend to know, the original phoenix red is a great color, so is viper green, and slate grey metallic, and classic Porsche silver, dark blue too. Once I buy paint we will know what it will be

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In the last iteration of this car it had shaved popups and the KC hi-lights I am running now mounted in the fog light holes. That is always an option, not legal though (not that I care). I saw Neo-914s attempt and others, hopefully I can tread that fine line between new and old. worth a shot, although now that you made me find this photo it does look pretty good!

When do we get to hear it in person?

GOOD group of colors. Of those, Phoenix Red (which is orange to these eyes, and a shade you just about never see...) or a non-metallic dark blue (Meerblau from Zwart's 911R, which is an early Cayenne color?) stand out as particularly cool (and rarely chosen) colors. Hard to go wrong with Slate Gray Metallic or silver—though these will make the car blend in a sea of white/gray/black cars, which cuts two ways.

Excited to see what paint you buy, when that time comes. Whatever color you choose, this car is gonna be a stunner.

Glad you dug that photo out....thinking about this from another angle, those turn signals are a signature element of the 914, and one of the better ones as time goes on. Dark blue will make Euro or US lenses really pop, while Phoenix Red would make clears pop, or US units blend in. Hmm again. You've got a lot of great options ahead of you...

The problem with the HLs in the FL location in Washington is minimum light height. Sure fire pull over mounted low driving at night. I got stopped driving at night just for having euro rear lenses.

Or were you stoped for driving too slow?

No billy. The trooper felt the Amber portion of the lense would confuse driver's behind me. So he said. Bottom line is US spec vs illegal/nonDOT euro. I played the ignorance card and 'they were on the car when I bought it'. In all fairness, it was 11:30pm and I had been to see the Blasters play in Seattle. No alcohol involved. That was question 3 or 4. Told me to get the correct lenses and sent me on my way.

Not sure I followed what the US spec vs illegal/nonDOT euro issue is. I see many cars with amber rear turnsignals. Do your amber turnsignals light up at night when not flashing?

^ Guessing this is what the officer was focused on? If so, that's one sharp cop, and/or one with too much time on his hands or looking for a reason to pull you over.

Turn signals can light up amber on U.S. cars, but I don't think their rear marker lights can? Really surprised rhodyguy got pulled over, even by a sharp-eyed officer. U.S. 914 taillight housings illuminate their outer section as a result of corner marker bulbs, which of course end up glowing orange with Euro lenses. After running that way for years, I replaced the U.S. housings with Euro housings (would have been just as easy to simply delete the side marker bulbs in U.S. housings, but mine were no longer very bright and U.S. replacements were either NLA or a lot more $$, can't remember which). I suppose I could be cited for no side markers, but my 914 is rarely driven at night anymore. As for headlights in the front bumper, there's a minimum headlight height in CA and many lowered cars are probably in violation of the same law that would prevent one from mounting headlights in the front bumper. Would be curious to know if WA's laws are the same, and if a magnetic (or?) setup could be fabbed up to work at night and/or satisfy a fix-it ticket. They might have to be mounted on the cowl of Project Anklebiter...

He was a younger trooper with supervisor. It was prob part of a 'emphasis program' combating impaired drivers as they were setup on the shoulder and bars would have been starting to empty. I saw the cruiser long before I got to it and made sure I was doing 60. The 6 pack came on right after I passed them. A lawful excuse for a stop. "Have you been drinking tonight sir?", "I don't consume alcohol".

Sorry for the highjack.

Not a hijack at all, I have been studying the Washington laws a ton trying to actually make this thing legal in it's current form. Washington requires a minimum height of 24" measured to the center of the headlight, and 15" on the tail lights.

As for the euro tail light issue the wording of the law is actually pretty strange:

RCW 46.37.200
"Any vehicle may be equipped and when required under this chapter shall be equipped with a stop lamp or lamps on the rear of the vehicle which shall display a red or amber light, or any shade of color between red and amber, visible from a distance of not less than one hundred feet."

Sooo, like orange is okay? Whole law is here: RCW 46.37.200

Took the car out for a long drive yesterday, made it about 20 minutes before getting pulled over, the guy was pretty nice, mostly just curious. We were having a fairly pleasant conversation but the whole time he was looking over the car hard, best he could come up with was that I was missing the license plate light. Not bad, $12 on Amazon will have that sorted. He didn't give me a ticket but made sure to tell me his co-workers would definitely be looking for me. Which made me even more invested in making this thing perfectly legal, mostly out of spite. I am making a book of relevant laws to carry in the car, lots of obscure exemptions in the laws for collector cars, like a beautiful one that makes fenders, hoods, and bumpers optional, lol. My headlights are about 4" low, will move those, add a lighted plate frame and see what other "conversations" I have with our friends in blue.

Find a second hood. Add headlights to it. Reinstall the first hood for pictures and shows.

LOL. Sounds like orange brake lights are okay, but orange rear taillights are not.

Forget a second hood. Liking magnetic headlights for when you need them. Was looking at another thread here today, and it looks like Garland's 914 nails the bumper lighting treatment on a GT-flared 914 I saw in a single photo in Excellence many years ago, a photo that burned itself into my mind. Interestingly, Garland's car has your hood setup, and also looks like it adds "headlights" up higher. I'd do the bumper lighting (while keeping the stock headlights) on my car if I thought a narrow 914 was aggressive enough to get away with it. I've never loved the foglight grills in the 914...but have never found anything I like better, either. Except this. Something very Miura/Mangusta—or is that Le Mans/Spa?—about it.

if some how they can get to slc Utah I can bring em to WA.

Geez Dane, just pay Jeff to run over to Cheyenne and pick up the body. It's only a little over 400 miles. But warn your folks, he likes to drive in his pajamas.

as long as the body makes it out here he could show up naked for all I care!

I am targeting spring to get the body out here, need to expand my storage and garage space first before I can receive something that big. I am finishing the attic in our house so we will have storage up there this winter, which means I can empty out all of the crap in the garage, it will be tight but after moving our storage to the house I should be able to get the body in here. Thanks for the offer Jeff, I may take you up on that eventually. I am running out of stuff to do on the chassis so the body will need to get out here by spring or so.

Better watch out what you wish for.

Slits taught me this one..

After driving the car a few weeks ago I couldn't help feeling that it wasn't as fast as I thought it should have been. My boost sender hasn't been working so on a hunch I pressure tested the intake. This is pretty easy to do, find the appropriately sized pvc cap to fit your intake and pop a couple holes in it. Screw in a couple schrader valves, then use random objects from around your garage to plug all of the ports in your intake. Once everything was sealed I tried to pressurize the system and found it failed to build any pressure at all, turns out the seals around the intake butterfly shaft in the throttle body were totally shot, I think this thing has been running on no boost!
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I found a billet intake on ebay, I liked it because it was simple, didn't have all the stuff for cruise control etc... Unfortunately although this thing was machined pretty well i am pretty sure someone described over the phone to the machinist what it needed to look like, but neither of them had actually ever seen a WRX. Everything looked right but was totally a part for a car that doesn't exist. Needless to say i returned it...
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Got a super nice remanufactured throttle body, should have done that to begin with, installed it and reassembled the engine, pressure tested, had to tighten a couple clamps and now it is holding 10lbs of pressure, once it stops eternally raining here I will take it for a spin, i think i just gained 150HP!
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So I got a little spooked when I got pulled over the last time I drove the car, The officer was nice but he made it pretty clear he wasn't impressed. I decided to take another crack at increasing the legality of the car so it follows the law perfectly. One pretty obvious problem was the lighting on the front of the car.
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Washington State law states that headlights need to be mounted at a minimum of 24" high to the center of the lens, so I moved the light buckets up to that height. It also states that turn signals need to be at least 15" high, so I moved those up to the old headlight mounts.
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So these lights are just some old KC hi-lights that I used to run in the fog light holes in the bumper, and state law says that if you plan on traveling over 20 mph you need high beams. I will never run this car at night in this form so I just need to check the box, not actually create a functioning dual beam headlight. With this in mind I swapped in some H4 bulbs into the light buckets and wired them up, good enough for now!
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There, "legal" front lighting! One less thing to worry about as I drive around in a naked car
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after seeing and reading thru this thread and seeing these comments of the previous page, it appears that most state have same or similar rules but many including you policeman may be mistaken about what is legal and what is not.
In South Carolina , I just looked this up here, it reads that the "rear clearance and maker lamps, rear or side-rear shall be RED, but "except for the stoplight and signal device, which may be Red, Amber or Yellow"
so , here in SC the license plate lights must be white and not blue green or orange, but the signal light maybe red or amber, . the brake light may even be red or amber or yellow, just the running or marker lamp in rear must be red. -

interesting, but good to know in case your local or state police are not aware,
you just may need to keep that information on file in the car to "educate" them in the future.
- my wife got a warning for her license plate light being out last week! they are big on that around here.

BTW awesome to see the car on the road and driving! hope to see soon what you do with the panels too!

US DOT FMVSS says your rear turns can be amber or red. FVMSS trumps all state laws.

"The color of the light from turn signal lamps shall
be red or yellow (amber) to the rear and yellow (amber) to the front
of the vehicle. (See SAE J578.) "

I have some JW Speaker LED driving lights that are DOT / SAE legal if you need better lighting.

Well done. Registration, licence, Proof of ins and you're golden.

Argueing, with the guy holding your ID in his hand and wearing a sidearm, about who's rules count at 12:30am can be counterproductive. First thing you know you're out of the car, flashlight in your eyes and walking heal to toe for no reason. A simple "I'll fix those lenses straight away" is much easier and one is on their way.

When do we get to go for rides?