Ben's 914 TURBO Official World Premier, 'cuz it didn't blowd up. Options

[airsix]

Ok, so it isn't as cool as Chapman's 914-6 Turbo 3.0, but it's a turbo 914 all the same. Ladys and Gentlemen, at about 10:00 PST I got boost and there was much rejoicing. I took the car out, filled it with premium, tuned it with the laptop a little to make sure it got plenty of fuel under boost, and the mission was a sucess. Boost starts to come on at ~2,700rpm and is going full-steam by 3,500rpm.

I stand (ok, sit) here before you my brothers to declare that yes indeed, you can turbo a 914. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/clap56.gif)

Details:

Engine: '73 1.7, stock internals
EFI ECU: Perfect Power MIC3 (Cost ~$500 to get on the car and running 3 years ago)
Misc EFI stuff: Subaru 1.8T injectors, Holly throttle body off a 3.0 Chrysler, BMW 5xx fuel pump, foam motorcycle aircleaner (temporary)
Turbo: IHI off 1.8L Subaru (including wastegate)
Misc Turbo stuff: Bosch blow-off valve (for a Saab I think). Cheap. Plastic. Works great.
Total cost to add turbo: $175 (EFI was already on the car. Use Megasquirt+turbo and you can do this for <$400 easy)

I tried to modify my fuel pressure regulator with a boost-reference port like the in the dune-buggy.com article but I broke off a wire guage drill bit about 1.5" deep into the bolt. Dang. Only had about a quarter-inch to go too. So I just bolted it back on the car and set the fuel pressure at the 30psi I have the ECU turned for. I tried to crank up the injector pulse width under boost to compensate, but they hit 100% duty cycle at 5,000rpm because at that point they only have 20psi effective pressure (because there's 10lb of boost by that point). So I'm keeping it under 5k rpm until I get a rising-rate pressure regulator. The wideband O2 says mixtures are just fine below that point. I estimate I'm getting 110hp (That's not a WAG. I really did the math) which doesn't sound like much but is sure better than the 80hp I had before. I would still like to add an intercooler which could put it in the neighborhood of 130hp without getting too boost-happy. Even as it is now I would say it's 100% more fun to drive. I'm really happy about it. I'll get the pressure regulator issue squared away so I can run it up to 6k and I think it'll keep me happy for quite a while.

Rick said "This thread is worthless without pictures" so here's the best I could do. If you missed the earlier thread I'll throw in one of the earlier pics too. I tried to make a video but all you hear is wind noice and the blow-off valve between shifts.

[andys]

Well, the quality of the gas is certainly a factor. That 11.5:1 Z28 I mentioned would be tough to find gas for these days, no question. Turbo's didn't take in the '60's because big cubes were by far a lot cheaper to produce than were high tech high HP small motors. If you notice, that was the evolution back then (US cars). Turbo's re-appeared in an effort to bring small (fuel) efficient motors to a higher HP/performance level.

The '63 Olds had different (and better) heads than the Buick version. The only reason the Buick heads became popular as a retro on the Olds, was that they had smaller chambers (Buick used dished pistons) and you could get way more compression for cheap. Another reason the Buick got attention, was that it was easy to swap the dished pistons in favor of the Olds flat top's. Consequently, the Buick was more popular amongst the backyard hotrodders. Notice however, that the racers of the day tended to use the Olds motor. It really was a sweet power package. The NA 215 V8 four barrel motor was rated at 195HP.

As a 914 swap, these were somewhat popular early on....maybe someone here can chime in with who made the adapters. In the mid '70's, the woman that cut my hair had such a 914 with the 215 aluminum V8 motor (her husband built it, and she occasionally drove it.......I still have the vision of that car; it was a green '73).

Andy