Safari 914 project, “Sufari” Options

[East coaster]

I’ve been out of the 914 game for quite some time. The last 914 I built was back in 2006 and was quite a build. I’ve had about a dozen 914s over the years and my 2006 build was to be my ultimate 914 (for me at least). It was a GT flared 3.6 six conversion and was a great car. I sold it in 2015 and moved to other things. I’ve been getting the itch to build another teener for a while, but to go in a different direction. I’ve seen a couple Safari builds and that seemed interesting.

I picked up pretty well worn ‘72 914 for the base of my project. My plan is to build a budget conscious (it’s all relative) Subaru powered Safari mod. I plan to go with a normally aspirated 2.5 Subaru from a 1998 Forrester along with the Subaru tranny.

I’ve been working on removing rust and getting the tub suitable for my plans. This will by no means be a concours resto type build, but should prove interesting.

Here’s the base car being picked up for the project start



I stripped it down and sold the engine and tranny (it was a partially completed V8 conversion). Then started cutting out rusted areas a welding in new metal.

Some Radom rust repair pics in no special order….

[East coaster]

Then it was on to rear trunk hinge pivots. The drivers side was a mess of bubble gum welds holding a stock replacement pivot. I cut the off and got down to clean metal. The passenger side had an aftermarket heim joint setup (jwest?) and they had drilled multiple holes before they got it right. I welded up all the holes and got back to clean metal as a base.

I made a little jig for proper positioning the pivot, it works for either side.