“It was the best of ideas, it was the worst of ideas.”

Sometimes a project can get out of hand. I’m not sure if that’s what happened in the case of my first 914 (originally a ’73 2 liter car); or if instead, it’s the product of a lot of thinking and re-thinking what an interesting end result could be. I can’t even remember what my original intent for the car was except to learn and have fun doing it. I researched a Porsche six conversion, V8 conversion, big Type4, turbocharged Type4, etc. and ended up rejecting all of these for various reasons (usually monetary). After getting over the idea of putting a radiator in a 914 I started gravitating towards a Subaru engine conversion. I liked this idea because: - Subaru engines (like aircooled VW and Porsche engines) are in a boxer configuration (low center of gravity) - These engines have a good reputation on the rally circuits and can be picked up cheap on the Japanese Domestic Import market - Kennedy Engineering has already developed kits to adapt many Subaru engines to the Porsche 901 gearbox - A conversion of this type has already been done (see Eric Tischer’s page), so engine fitment shouldn’t be a problem. This isn’t to say a Subaru conversion would be easy, but it should be straightforward. You can see the original condition of the chassis on the pictures page. It was pretty rough but running and drivable. It had an old, low quality re-spray in a different color. The floor panel under the passenger seat was rusted through in many places but that was the worst of the rust on this car.