Labor of Love: A Build Thread, Or: honoring my fathers 914-6 Options

[Dion]

Bill that’s a fantastic back story. Glad the 914
came back to you. Good luck with the rejuvenation. Looks like you have it well in hand.
Would love to see any pics of the RSR power plant in that chassis.
So cool.

[BillJ]

Next for safety was the window net. The old one had a bar bottom and top mounted to the cage through loops welded in. The spring loaded bar was from the bottom meaning that the net flipped up. This is not a safe nor legal to current rules design (my dad set it up this way originally) so it needed to go. Current net attaches directly to cage nascar bars on the bottom via 4 straps. The top uses the original cage mounted loops and has the spring mounted bar. Net drops down quickly and easily.

This pic i used already but shows the setup.

[TRS63]

What a cool story and a great car (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

Antoine

[BillJ]

The pedal cluster, to my knowledge, had never been refreshed and it looked it. So i sent mine to Bruce Stone who did an awesome job. Here it is installed but prior to wiring cleanup:



The original pedal board did not exist so i purchased and installed a rennline board, dead pedal, floorboard, and all three pedal grips.
Here it is today while i wait for the engine rebuild (more on that later)

[BillJ]

Exterior and interior needed a significant cleaning and i also wanted to rebrand the car a little more to my liking. My inspirations included the factory GTs and some privateers. I am also a little bit of a watch guy and really like the Heuer livery so focused on that. I am earnestly looking for a reasonably priced set of Heuer rally timers but they are soooo expensive so am holding off on that for more important things.

After deep cleaning, clay bar, and two stage polish with the orbital the car was ready to rebrand. Here is where the car is as of today:

[BillJ]

Front

[BillJ]

Passenger

[BillJ]

Passenger

[BillJ]

A lesson learned.

In february i went to Roebling Road to race with VDCA. Just prior to first practice we noticed some fuel leaking from the engine bay. Turns out a hose had failed and we quickly sourced a new one and replaced the entire hose that was faulty. However, this gobbled up the time that was to install the pedal board and integrated pedal stop. The car previously had a bolt installed below the pedal to serve as a stop as it had no board. I re-used that hole to run the brake pressure sensor for the AIM PDM. Thus no stop for the throttle anymore.

Lap 2 of practice coming onto the front straight the pedal moved further than it should and bent the throttle control arm and locked the throttle open. I moved off track to the right but shifted. Engine saw 9022 rpm before i shut it down. Result we would find was some bent valves only. Not terrible but certainly ended the weekend.

Lesson learned? Always always always check your equipment and never go out without knowing you are 100% prepped. Not realizing i had inadvertently removed a safeguard and then not installing the replacement when it is right there is not acceptable.

[bkrantz]

Just curious--what's the max size driver that can fit with those seats, and the cross bar behind the seats?

[BillJ]

Not sure on max but i am 6' and have about 1" extra room on the rules with my helmet on. That is without removing the bottom seat cushion.

[BillJ]

So since the engine needs to be rebuilt it is a good time to address the engine bay. The entire thing had a layer of grease/dirt/grime covering black paint covering the original white paint. I started out by simply trying to degrease but it was clear that it was wholly inadequate. Thus began the painstaking process of stripper and scraper.



This took on and off around a week to get to a point i felt comfortable to paint.

[BillJ]

I did a self-etching primer followed by semi gloss paint. As i redo the interior areas i am using this in anticipation of a few years from now redoing the body. Have already cleaned and painted the cage and cabin, trunk, and now engine bay. Goal is to look for rust and provide a clean surface to work on mechanicals.

Also installed new engine bay seals as old ones were quite aged qith cracks and tears. Love that top and bottom in this area are clean!

[BillJ]

Working through some of the needs after the last event i decided to add another kill switch in addition to the one outside. Dash mount so i can reach it easily.

[BillJ]

Made some good progress this weekend. Got the engine bay finished:


And engine is nearly done:

[infraredcalvin]

Bill, looking great! What size engine are you putting in?

[BillJ]

2.4 twin plug short stroke. Super excited to have a motor that will be in a class and be competitive! Too bad the driver is sooooooo slow.

[troth]

What dizzy are you running?

That engine sounds like fun. What bore are you running to get 2.4 SS? I’m going to be tearing down the core engine I have soon to see what we have. The previous owner claimed 2.5L but couldn’t confirm what crank or bore.

[BillJ]

I am running a new JB Racing dizzy. The original marelli ones are priced crazy high so this was a great solution. New parts readily available and built to spec.

Not sure on bore exactly but i know the crank is 66mm. Told him i wanted to be competitive and legal but not build a 10 hour motor either.

[BillJ]

Big setback yesterday. Was planning on running with PCA at VIR this weekend but motor wasnt ready. Had it running and in the car but not tuned yet when an oil return tube started leaking badly. Not enough time to repair and retest at this point. Also have a broken tip for the accelerator cable guide tube on the firewall in engine bay which is preventing the cable from being installed.

Pretty depressed today as there has been a ton of work to date and this was an event i was very excited about.