Interesting 914-6 at a winery in Fairfield ca Options

[yellowporky]

Took the wife to a winery tonight and the owner had a great collection of cars and one was a interesting real 6 that is for sale.

[technicalninja]

I saw that and thought "what a shame, someone did that to a real 6."

Since it sold on BAT last year 11/17/22 I looked it up.

The BAT auctions seem to be archived in their entirety and the low down on that car was not what I expected to see.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1970-porsche-914-6-76/

Most of the mods were done 25+ years ago and it's all been hand fabricated by what appear to be reputable 914 competition shops.

It's not my cup of tea, but it's period correct and was done to a high level at the time the conversions/mods were done.

He bought it for 38.5 which seems pretty well bought to me.

I would have expected that to go 50K when he bought it.

The 85K price seems excessive now but beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

It's got an extensive paperwork trail and the "walk around" video is the best one I've seen on BAT yet.

At 7.13 in the vid he shows the paperwork for the AC install.

PO got their head torn clean off regarding the AC system.

In 2003 they had 1725 in parts and 80.3 hours for fab and install. UNBELIEVEABLE!

The part prices are good in today's world and the labor is astronomical at any time...

They used a standard aftermarket 914-4 condenser and under dash unit (used stuff) and they adapted a Toyota (Denso) compressor to a 911 engine. The compressor was "rebuilt" (this is impossible due to NO internal parts available ever) and the system was converted to R134. These are good compressors but not top shelf, even for 2003 when it was done. I currently sell that compressor (new OE Denso/not rebuilt) for less money than they got two decades ago.

I'd have kept that R12 back then and it would work 25-35% better today.

The modern compressor and lines would mean zero leakage with R12.

They list 38 oz of R134 and it should have been less than 30 OZ.

The ac work looks fine, but they got charged Brumos prices for mid-level work.

I'd put AC in damn near ANYTHING for 80 hours...

Be even better if I had the evap and condenser already done.

The single most important part to upgrade for a R12 to R134 conversion is the condenser and they did nothing.

It also doesn't have a high-pressure cutout switch listed.

Moral of this is "just because you paid 4 times what the mod should have cost DOESN"T mean it's better."




WOW, I'm in the wrong end of the automotive AC repair industry. I need to do completely custom stuff if customers will pay this much...