75 914 Laguna Blue Project Options

[Graydingo]

Hello everyone, my name is Duane and I love me a Porsche project. So much so that I've had five air cooled cars (mostly projects mind you) in the last few years. I've pared that down to a mere 2 911s (one massive RSR project and a pretty good little driver 75.) By fate, every single one of them was a 75, or a 77 model year.
I guess I love an underdog and a project! Any-who, here's me latest acquisition...



A 1975 Porsche 914 2.0 in Laguna Blue L50C. What a color!



It all started when I found a 76 2.7 911 motor on craigslist. I inquired and got a snappy text back from a known number. Turns out, it was a friend and the owner of the local Porsche specialty shop. I went over to check out the motor and ended up buying it. A pretty clean 2.7 core, missing a few parts, but had a set of Italian 40 IDTP carbs on it.

While there, I was shown the 914 which the 2.7 was actually destined to go into at one point but then the owner decided to go nuts and planned to put a 3.6 in it.



He had acquired thousands in parts but lost motivation in the project. He had flares, elephant suspension and all kinds of stuff. Sadly (or perhaps fortuitously,) he had sold a lot of the new parts to another 914 enthusiast, so what was left was just the original car.

Already having a big project in my 74 RSR tribute, I passed on the 914 and headed home with my new 2.7. My 75 911 has a similar motor and It's ready to rebuild. I thought I would take the best parts off both motors and make a 2.8 twin plug beast for my 75. Ya never know what condition the crank or heads are in, so I figured it was a good plan to have more parts at the ready for cheap, and then sell everything left over later.

One thing that struck me about the 914 on that first visit, was that the car was extremely dry. Here's the ....ahem... heck hole.



Though the car was taken apart, the previous owner seemed to have all the original parts (though many of them were in his storage facility and not with the car.) Another cool factoid was that the car was actually purchased in a nearby Audi/VW dealership right here in Las Vegas. Vegas in '74 was very, very small, so to have a survivor 914 in the same town that it was 46 years ago is pretty cool in my opinion.



The car was more or less stripped in preparation for a GT conversion. I remarked in my mind about how solid the car was and went home that day thinking it was a good deal but that I'm a snobby 911 guy who doesn't buy anything but 911s :-P The car was definitely marinating in the back of my mind...

Fast forward a few months later and a younger friend was talking to me about project cars, and it got me excited about the 914. On a whim I reached out to see if it was still there and bought it the next day. I think I just really liked it and I fell in love with the color. It feels like a mix between Gulf Blue and Miami Blue. I'm actually painting my RSR Gulf, so I absolutely love all the cool blue colors.

The shop had a bunch of waterpumper parts stored in the back:



PO had the original Fuchs 4 lug wheels, but no tires. the 914 was also on a pretty sweet dolly, but unfortunately that wasn't part of the sale.



I took the wheels to a discount tire and got the cheapest tires I could buy, just so I could make it a roller for the impending flatbed trailer pickup appointment.



I had to scrounge around and find some lugs to mount them. Luckily I had some open 911 lugs as well as some 996 studs to complete the temporary fix.

After getting it back to the shop I thought: "I've got a complete project build going already, wouldn't it be fun to try to build a total survivor driver with original paint, dings, dents, damage and all, but have a bit of a sleeper engine and nice interior. So mostly original, but everything works and is nice in terms of get in, turn the key, take it to the grocery and not worry about parking it. "



Stay tuned for the paint correction...

[Graydingo]

More progress:
I removed the pedal cluster and shipped it to Bruce Stone for a refresh. While I've refreshed two 911 clusters, I just felt like farming it out this time. With all the work of plating, powdercoating etc it's a lot of time to do it by yourself. I even made a video of me doing my 911 cluster if anyone is interested in the process



I think mentally, I just didn't want to do it again. Plus Bruce replaces the aluminum nut with his own part if I recall so he makes it OEM +

I like reaching out to others in the 914 world to get to know the community. So often I learn something when I talk to people who've been doing this for years.





Removed the EGR counter, sourcing a single speedo cable instead of the two piece setup used for the EGR counter.



I may replace the gauge surround plastic face with a non EGR/CAT version as I don't really want or need those lights in my dash now.


Photo by Dr. B Johnson from his excellent book (restorers guide to authenticity III)

I was also thinking of adding brighter turn signals in those spots as the gauge turn signals are notoriously hard to see.

More inspection on the wiring harness is revealing a lot of funkery. Many cuts all over the place as well as melt damage, outright wrong wire replacements, and copious amounts of electrical tape. As I mentioned the ignition harness was cut and then hastily wired back together. Every. Single. Wire. While ultimately whomever did it, only needed to cut two or three of the 6 wires. Ugh. Here's the harness after I cut out the offending wire nuts, electrical tape, and odd soldering.



I believe I've found a full harness out of a 76 with only very mild differences. I'm swapping out the 914 Tach with a 911 2.7 midyear tach, and I'll need to choose a wire for oil pressure and maybe AFR. I run a dual AFR gauge made by John Bell in my 911 and it's pretty badass. :-D

This week I'm going to break down the 2.7 and get it off to Ollies. They will do the heads, crank, case, rocker re-bush and cam towers. I'll put new JE pistons in for 40 webers and new cams. Not looking to reinvent the wheel or go nuts with twin plug. Just a higher compression simple carb 2.7 will be plenty for 2k lbs.

Yall might find this interesting; Carl's place had an original 914-6 tank. I took some photos for reference. Note the holiness:





As I mentioned previously, I did buy Ben's setup as it's a hugely important piece of the 6 swap and it did not disappoint.



Finally, when removing the EGR counter I found a weird blob of sealant just to the right of the tunnel on the passenger side:

After popping it out I discovered a bullet hole:



This is wild to me because here's the story of my 911 that has a bullet hole in the passenger floorboard.

A closeup of the bullet hole. I reached out to the PO, and he more or less confirmed what it was.



Finding a bullet hole in my 914, which is the same model year (1975) as my 911, which ALSO has a bullet hole in the passenger floorboard (and made just one month early in 8/74) is a little freaky. To top it off I was born in June of 75, meaning myself, the 914, and the 911 were all started in the 'factory' approximately the same time.

While no bullet holes in my body (yet) I did shoot myself in the face one time with a BB gun. Does that count?

It endears me to the cars as I refresh them because I'm reminded of my own aging body as I'm exactly as old as this 914.

The bullet hole thing is wild though. To be fair I also own a 77 911S (and previously another 77S and a 67 912) and none of those had bullet holes anywhere!