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]

Thanks for the kind words Chris. You’re one of the folks to blame when it came to choice of drivetrain (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

This is a pretty far departure from most builds, but I’m actually trying to do the safari mods so that it could be fairly easily put back to stock. Most of my mods either use stock mounting points, or at least leave stock mounting points intact. I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy the safari mods, along with Subaru drivetrain, but if someday post my ownership someone wanted to revert to stock it shouldn’t be too difficult.

[Chris H.]

Thanks for the kind words Chris. You’re one of the folks to blame when it came to choice of drivetrain (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

This is a pretty far departure from most builds, but I’m actually trying to do the safari mods so that it could be fairly easily put back to stock. Most of my mods either use stock mounting points, or at least leave stock mounting points intact. I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy the safari mods, along with Subaru drivetrain, but if someday post my ownership someone wanted to revert to stock it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Guilty as charged sir (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif). You'll like the Subaru drive train. The engine mounts for most of them are the same configuration so in the future you can update/swap as needed with very little effort. Seems like you saved that car, which had the usual fixable rusty areas and mods for a V8 swap. Enjoy it! Hope to see it someday.