Suby-engined rustoration, 21-Sep-2024 update: more racing-related carnage! Options

[strawman]

Hi All --

This is my second post, but I've been lurking on this fine website for a while now. I've wanted a 914 since I was in high school, but always seemed to stumble upon other projects... until recently.

My neighbor gave me this 1973 Porsche 914 about a month ago. He told me he blew a head gasket and parked it in his parents' driveway in 1992. When his parents finally told him to move it or they were calling a local junkyard, he offered it to me since he knows I'm a gearhead. In for a penny, in for a pound...

I hauled it home, knowing that it has some rust issues in the battery area and rear trunk. But it appears to have never been in a wreck and it is complete. It turns out that an exhaust stud pulled, so he coulda fixed it for a couple hundred and probably kept another 914 from languishing but I guess all things happen for a reason (namely, so I would undertake this project!).

I sold the engine to a local Craigslister for use in his Meyers Manx dune buggy, and bought a wrecked but running 1993 Subaru Legacy turbo wagon. This is the closed-deck 2.2 liter engine, and 250 hp is easy with boost control and an open exhaust. I've already done a Subaru into a VW Vanagon and my daily driver is a 1992 Suby Legacy, so this won't be too much of a stretch for me. I plan to use the Suby 5-speed transmission (out of a 1998 Suby Forester) with the Aussie-sourced RWD elimination coupler and custom-mated 914/Suby axles.

I've got a suburban home with a crowded two-car garage (my 125 shifter kart and my daughter's FJA kart will likely get lonely!), a MIG welder, and a wide assortment of air/power/hand tools -- so the adventure begins! This project will likely take a year to finish, so please be patient.

I've attached some pics of the car as found in the driveway, some rust areas and the rear trunk repairs I've started. I'll chronicle the build as I go, so feel free to chime in!

Geoff

[strawman]

Now that the transmission is ready to go, I started on the mock up of the shifter and cables. I am using an AW11 model Toyota MR2 ('85 to '89) shifter that I picked up at a local Pick-n-Pull for ~$25, including the shifter cables. Here is a pic of the shifter on a module that I welded up and bolted to the top of the transmission.



Next up are a couple of pics of the business end of the shifting mechanism. Obviously this is a mickey-mouse mock-up -- but I wanted to see how tall the shifter upright needed to be, and where to locate the left-right stand-off. I clamped the upright to the shift-rod connector using Vise-Grips until I got the height of the upright correct, then tack-welded it. It shifts great, despite the extreme angle of the fore-aft cable. Custom cables will take out the these kinks...





It should be noted that the movement of the shift rod fore-aft and side-side is very acute. Below is a series of four pictures that depicts the side-side (note the rubber boot is scrunched when you compare the top two pics when moving the shifter from the 1-2 gate to the 5-R gate) and fore-aft (note the differing distances of the upright in comparison to the rear of the trans when the shifter is moved from 1st to 2nd).



I'll make the whole mechanism much more pretty, and weld the stand-off to the trans-to-body mount. I'll probably have to make up a new module for the shifter, too so that I can accommodate the length of the cables, which will use rod ends at each end. Stay tuned!