75 914 Laguna Blue Project Options

[Cairo94507]

Great progress Duane; thanks for sharing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[Graydingo]

Great progress Duane; thanks for sharing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

Cheers!

Was able to finish tearing the engine down. timeserts galore, a little over half of the timeserts came out with the head studs. I heat the stud with a MAP torch, then used my trusty snapon collete stud remover. It's one of my favorite tools. It just works awesome and trying to do it any other way would be nearly impossible. Double nuts? maybe. But this thing is quick and easy.

I split the case which was easy. I made absolutely sure all nuts were removed, then just gently tapped with a mallet.



Then I removed the crank. Bearings are in good condition actually, but will obviously replace.



I looked through my storage and found a flywheel (wasn't one on the engine when I bought it) Dug it out only to find it was a 3.2 flywheel from my widebody project and wont fit the early 6 bolt crank. I'll have to remove the rods on the bench horizontally.

The oil pump came out and looked good as well. I have a fresh Glen Yee Pump from years ago when I was planning a more mild rebuild on my 3.2 engine. I've since gone nuts on that one with a gt3 pump, so I'll probably put the 4 rib carrera pump in this engine.



The IMS gears are good, no chips in the aluminum gear that I see yet. Chains have been replaced previously, but will get new ones obviously.



My buddy is heading to Ollies tomorrow to drop off some other stuff so I'll get it all packed up today for the journey.

[Graydingo]

Progress on the 914, mostly in parts acquisition.

Ollies called, crank had scoring and grooves. (I definitely felt a fingernail groove on one of the mains before sending it) So it's a 10/10. That means oversized bearings for mains and rods. I think they are like 3X more expensive, but I haven't looked lately. The trouble is that I CAN find a 2.7 crank, sure, but then I gotta send it to ollies and hope it doesn't need a regrind. I'll be 500+ into it for a guess. Unless someone has a 2.7 crank that has already been to Ollies that is STD/STD and they want to sell, I'm interested.

Case needs typical 2.7 stuff, case savers etc.

In the mean time I got 6 engine tin from Ben, really nice stuff, very well made.

I also received my locks back from Curt, and my pedal assembly from Bruce Stone. All that looks and works great.

I bought a full replacement wire harness out of a 76. And, extra switches and the gauge cluster from the same guy. My guage cluster has the EGR holes in it, so now I have an option for a smoothie.

I also dug out a oil temp/ press gauge from a 77 i parted out and sent it along with the fuel gauge to John Bell to make a 3 gauge cluster for the 6 conversion.

My idea is to keep this sort of a sleeper. Narrow body, 914 looking dash etc.

I bought a new dash, it was arrived damaged with white drip staining all over it, and a manufacturers defect right in the middle of the dash. It was also maybe 3x heavier than the original dash. Not that big of a deal in terms of the weight, but the between the weight, the defect right smack in the middle and the horrible drip stains all over it, obviously it had to go back.



I had to move the car out of the shop to swap the 911 front end. That project is taking much longer than anticipated with a bad case of "while you're in there" Follow me on IG for weekday stories on that.

I'm not sure if I mentioned I picked up the 901 side shift trans as well. I'm still waiting on the PO to get me the rest of the parts. Seats, gas tank, lights. Those are some of the big things. Oh yeah, title and keys would be nice too.

I also took advantage of Maddogs black Friday sale and have boxed reinforcements for the trailing arms incoming as well as the side frame reinforcement plates.

Lastly I acquired a set of Italian Weber 40 IDAP 3c carbs. I'm well versed in these as I run them on my 75 911. The seller advertised 34 main venturi (chokes) but it actually came with 32mm chokes. In the market for 34mm if you have some.



The carbs were serviced back in 2017 by Paul at Performance Oriented. Paul did the butterflies and shafts and some basic JB weld fixing from pitting.

They came with PMO tall manifolds, Sheridan amber rain hats, Jerry Woods throttle cable setup (Very cool!), and PMO fuel rails. Seller also threw in a fuel pump, and fuel filter.



If working on my 911 webers have taught me anything it's that you absolutely have to completely tear down any carbs you get used. All the way. I found so many issues, so of course I'm glad I did. Gaskets missing, o rings missing, wrong chokes, old fuel residue etc.

While they were packed pretty good, they failed to reinforce points that stick out with cardboard. Guys it's a must. They just poke through bubble wrap. Just take 2 minutes to make a little cardboard brace around stuff that sticks out. All the rain hat stands were bent from ping ponging off the sides of the box through the bubble wrap. Just assume the carriers are going to THROW your box. Base your packing on that.



Now I need a new shaft. I've pressed this one out already, but still, costs me so much time and energy to fix something that the seller could have easily prevented.

Also if you ship something that had gas in it at some point, either hide it with sealed plastic bags or take them apart partially and completely clear the gas out and let them dry.

My fed ex driver was livid. His whole truck was saturated in gas smell.

When I broke them down, there was probably 3-5 ounces of fuel in the fuel pump and carbs. :-/ Not to mention the danger of shipping this. I can't believe it made it to my house at all and didn't get flagged by the carrier.

Anyway, rant done. Pack stuff nicely, we all know each other. Actually, i would say go out of your way and overpack everything. And be 100% transparent in your For Sale ad. We're going to see each other at Luft, or a rally, or something right? It's a small community.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Graydingo]

More progress on the 914. Currently it's sitting under a tarp outside my shop as I complete work on the 911.

Haven't had as much time in busy December to get to the shop and a lot of unforeseen supplier issues with the 911 parts I needed have slowed work, but I continue to source parts for the build.

Anywho, I did spot a front bumper on Facebook marketplace for a decent price (I already scored a clean rear bumper for the backdate locally.) The front bumper met a few requirements, mainly that it was not chromed and not severely rusted. Seller sent me a pic of his kitchen sink too! :-D



It looked pretty clean so I made a deal to have it shipped from NC to WI where I asked Ben Mcfarland to apply his metal skillz to customize it for the GT opening.



He sent me a few pics of his progress already and I'm excited to get it mounted up.



I also asked him to delete the license plate holes. That's something I did on my 911 valance and I really like the smoothie look.

I really dig this car.



Definitely the direction I'm heading. Clean, narrowbody with GT front, and I think that's the Patrick Motorsports "Limited Edition" valance, but not 100% sure. Anyone know who owns this car? More pics!

I also picked up a new manifold bell crank stud from Larry over at youroil.net. He's been a great source for PMO parts. If you recall from earlier, the Webers got a bit banged up in transit to me from the seller and the bell crank stud arrived snapped in half. I'll get the new one pressed in and it will be good as new.



I like dealing with Larry, I get an old school vibe from him, though I've never met him in person. He's pleasant to deal with and always delivers. I was curious how hard it would be to get PMO parts given that Richard Parr had sold out to Empi. Not sure how Larry got the part, but it happened.

PO of the 914 called me out of the blue and said he had the remaining parts from the car. I dropped everything and went to his place of business where he had piled the parts he found into a big shipping crate. I loaded it all in my SUV and headed home.

Parts included : Gas tank, seats, seat rails, seat backer pad, engine sound pad, door sills, door cards, front headlight assemblies (with sylvania halogen - looking for Hella set), antenna, original front turn signals - (Those were Hella), rocker panels, washer reservoir, engine crossmember (2.0), and one of the missing engine grille side pieces (still missing one).

The only bummer is that both rear tailights are missing. The entire assemblies. Maybe they'll show up yet.



I guess that's the AC cover for the frunk sitting on top of the seats?

The backer pad is a bit warped from storage, and not quite sure if I can steam it to straighten it out or what. I might not even have to reupholster it.



Door panels are in OK condition but I already took advantage of 914rubber's recent group buy deal for new ones. Plus I'm deleting the door pockets and handles and running an RS style panel (Need all the interior space I can get!)



Finally, I also got a spare AWC cast Fuchs Replica. So now I have 5 of these.



I'll probably run my cookies that I had powdercoated bronze. I have 6 cookies, 4 15X6 and 2 15X7. The 7 might squeeze in back as it has a 205/50 on it.



Next up is to ship the seats and dash to my Upholster and to buy a carpet kit. Heard the ebay kit from Germany is solid.

[mb911]

Great thread thanks for sharing. Your bumper will be done this weekend.

[Graydingo]

Wanted to add a pic of the 901:



And also forgot to mention that I sent the onboard oil cooler of the 76 911 motor to Pacific Oil coolers in CA. I've had multiple coolers done there, and they've always turned out excellent.

I hadn't heard from them in a while so I called up and was surprised to find out that my core was flagged as unrepairable!



Never had that happen. They asked if I wanted to scrap it. That's a pretty expensive blow. :-/

Also interested in the Patrick Motorsports rear side shift kit. Looks like a nice kit that I'll need for the 6 conversion. Any feedback from yall on this kit?

[mb911]

Wanted to add a pic of the 901:



And also forgot to mention that I sent the onboard oil cooler of the 76 911 motor to Pacific Oil coolers in CA. I've had multiple coolers done there, and they've always turned out excellent.

I hadn't heard from them in a while so I called up and was surprised to find out that my core was flagged as unrepairable!



Never had that happen. They asked if I wanted to scrap it. That's a pretty expensive blow. :-/

Also interested in the Patrick Motorsports rear side shift kit. Looks like a nice kit that I'll need for the 6 conversion. Any feedback from yall on this kit?

I have no experience with that kit. I offer a much cheaper alternative that I have done one multiple conversions and they all shift really well.

[DC_neun_vierzehn]

Next up is to ship the seats and dash to my Upholster and to buy a carpet kit. Heard the ebay kit from Germany is solid.

@Graydingo

Loving your updates and super jealous of your bravery, skill, and available time to tackle all of your projects.

Can you share a link to the carpet kit referenced above, pls?

[Graydingo]

@Graydingo

Loving your updates and super jealous of your bravery, skill, and available time to tackle all of your projects.

Can you share a link to the carpet kit referenced above, pls?

Thank you! I don't remember where I spotted this, maybe it was here, but they are about $100.00 more than one of the big US suppliers, but A couple of reviews from those that installed it were very happy with the fit, finish and quality.

Black carpet kit for Porsche 914 LHD Made in Germany Loop carpet

Since I'm bumping the thread again, I got another pic from Ben now with the license plate holes filled and some additional finish work. I'm just learning how to weld but for something like the bumper that is quite prominent, I thought I would trust someone with a few more hours on the welder! :-)



I did receive my box control arm reinforcements and rear frame reinforcement plates, so my goal is to weld those on by myself.

Someone on FB marketplace had a set of fog grilles from AA. I picked those up for a great price and hope they survive the shipping process. I'd like to use old school lights.



I personally don't care for halogens, or LED headlights on vintage cars. I do 90% of my driving during the day anyway.

It's fun to parts hunt like this and pull the trigger on low risk items, because in a few weeks when the project is maybe in a lull, I'll get a random box in the mail and my brain will say "Oh yeah, here's that part I found." That will motivate me to move forward on the project and it helps keep up momentum in these long term projects.

Here are the steel rocker panels. Likely roll those though I do like the aluminum ones offered by a member here on 914World.



You can also kinda make out the beat up fiberglass front and rear valance. Obviously can't use the front anyway, but maybe the rear if I fix the cracks...

Here's the 2.0 crossmember. I'll list some of these items on the WTB eventually.



I'll have the cookies, but I also have Group4wheels Torque Thrusts that I think will look awesome on the 914. That's the beauty of having a narrow-body midyear 911 is that the wheels should be interchangeable when I want to switch it up.



The TT have a 32 ET which allows for a wider tire to be run in back. Haven't test fit it on the 914 yet, but I'm anxious to see if I can squeeze it under there with a 225/50 like I can on my 911. The 911 front donor suspension has 65mm steel studs. So I'll match the back with the same.

Those longer studs are nice for a 911R replica Fuchs back there if I want, which will give me the ability to run more tire on the inside to clear the stock flares. Who knows until I start stuffing tires and wheels under there. I know of at least one gentleman who's running 911R wheel in back, I think he modified the control arm to be skinnier though.

[Graydingo]

Little update today. I knew I'd want to keep an eye on the temperature and oil pressure for the flat 6 conversion, but I'm not interested in running a center console for moving the gas gauge or other gauges down in the middle.

Enter John Bell who agreed to make me a custom combo gauge out of my 914 gas gauge and a 77 donor oil temp gauge out of a 911. Here are the donor gauges:



And a close up of the 914 stock 75 gauge. I love the simplicity of these VDO gauges.



I sent the donor gauges off around 2 weeks ago and today received this pic -and should have this beautiful example in my hands tomorrow.



John has laser cut faces for the triple combo style already made up. For a moment I considered a quad gauge, but they are too busy, and it was going to be quite a bit more. I want VOLT meter so maybe I'll update the speedo at some point to have a subtle volt meter in the bottom.

I'll need two wires and I think the EGR wires may work as they will already be in the harness running up to the cluster from the engine bay. I actually removed the entire EGR harness from the harness of my 75 full harness. If I remember there's a blue and a blue/white stripped, and maybe a third that was emissions related that I can commandeer for my purposes. I have a 76 harness going in that should have that same sub harness, but if not, there are myriad wires I can snag for the pared down flat 6 conversion as I'll be running carbs. So anything that had to do with the 75 2.0 motor can now be a donor line.

[Graydingo]

Minor updates to keep the project in motion.

Mainly it's research and planning stuff, so not much in the way of fun build photos to look at.

I was able to get my interior bits down to Autos International in SoCal. Initially, I had my buddy take just the seats, the dash upper and lower, and the rear pad behind the seats.



My friend John had some extra interior bits that he brought down to give to our interior guy and without me knowing. John offered to let me have them, and after thinking a bit more about it, I decided to use the targa pieces he brought down. There were two front targa pieces, the back and the two back side pieces.



While the originals are still here in Vegas, I had only planned to reuse the side pieces as they were serviceable as is. I already purchased new front and back pieces from 914 rubber, so I thought I was done with those pieces.

After looking at the 914 bits, they are OK, but I thought it would be better to have all the interior bits recovered with the same material from the same place.

That's going to be a nuts bill when it comes up, but the Targa interior pieces are so important. They need to look great and feel great and they are high visibility for the project. I want it all to match too. It would have been a shame to put nice seats and dash in and have it not match.

Speaking of rubber, I picked up AA new front and back bumper tops.



They teased a sale a few weeks ago and I jumped on it. I haven't unwrapped them, but they hyped them as being great quality reproductions.



Now my backdate parts list is complete. I have the front valance lower which I will modify for the GT cooler opening to match the bumper.


Engine is still at Ollies. I expect that it will be done here in a month or so.

Here's the 10.3:1 CP Pistons and Mahle jugs I got for a song.





I'll have about 17K in the motor in parts including the Webers I picked up. That's not too bad knowing the astronomical cost of air cooled Porsche flat 6 motors. It will take another couple thousand to get it finished up, but I think I'll have a fresh 2.7 for about 25k in the end. That's very very reasonable these days. Of course this is me doing the full teardown, rebuild, and tune.

I still need some big parts like a 901 clutch/flywheel/pressure plate, on board oil cooler and heat exchangers. That's about 6k right there.

I think it's worth it. I love the flat 6 motors. Thanks to Nathan's Design for the visualizer!

[Cairo94507]

Coming along nicely Duane. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[Graydingo]

Some updates on the Laguna Blue Project.

I've taken on a friends 911 project so the 914 will be delayed a bit, but I'm still working toward getting big things done, like the engine rebuild and now the 901.

I'm pretty sure this is the cars original transaxle, and after opening it up, it definitely looked like a 156k miles had been run through it.



Notably, the pinion gear is trash. Check out the valleys of pitting!



So I'm in the market for a new R&P for this 75 if anyone has a good set.

The gear (don't know what it's called) that drives the reverse gear is also chipped. Not sure if it's savable.

I thought it would be cool to give the case the black mag treatment from Childsmotorsport. I called and talked to Chris Childs over there and got a price to do the case. He bead blasts and then applies the same old school factory (Chromate?) coating like some of the early race boxes had.

Here's some of his work:



Removing the studs was pretty easy and fun. I love my snap-on stud remover. It's one of those tools that I got from my late dad and so I associate it with him and using it gives me nostalgia and joy.

A little MAP torch to loosen things up and out they come.



Next up is removing the races, which I've never done. Any tips? Then I can clean the case and send off to Chris for his coating.

In other news, my interior guy Dorian from autos international reached out. There were definitely some hurdles namely the rear piece behind the seats was in pretty bad shape. He doesn't have a correct panel on hand so his trimmer was worried it wouldn't fit right because the backing was water damaged and warped.

Luckily Scott over at 914 rubber came to the rescue and supplied me with an old backer pad. I can fit that in my car, then send to Dorian to get the German vinyl applied.

Speaking of interior the dash is done. Though it was more expensive, I wasn't happy with the aftermarket rubber dash, so I decided to rescue the original. The original always fits perfectly and it's way way lighter.

Here it is in the sun, getting that vinyl to tighten up. Or is it leather? Can't remember what I opted for for the Dash. I think I went all German Vinyl. Dorian uses the real stuff. That shop is amazing.



I went bold on the seats and I can't wait to show them off, but I'm going to keep it a surprise for now until I get a picture. So excited!

Lastly, I haven't received the case, heads, crank back from Ollies yet. Word to the wise, if you get a project, send the case right away. It takes time.

[Graydingo]

When it rains, it pours. I got a call from Ollies Engineering AND Autos International telling me my engine machine work and interior was complete. I was hoping to space those two bills out a little more, but you never know with items that take long lead times.

I haven't been able to swing on down to ollies yet, but I did have a friend pick up the interior this weekend and bring it back to Las Vegas.

Here are some pics from Autos International:



















The backer pad turned out beautiful, I want to thank Matt Whitesell, and Scott from 914 Rubber for the assist on that.

I thought it would be really fun to do the interior in Pascha. The material is a beautiful authentic Pascha Cloth that I think was sourced from Germany.

I've always loved that pattern and I think it will look great inside. I know the 914 never had Pascha as an option, but since this is an outlaw build anyway, I'm just having fun.

What do you all think?

[tygaboy]

Details, details, details. Autos International nailed it and just earned a future customer! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

[Graydingo]

Details, details, details. Autos International nailed it and just earned a future customer! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

Yeah, I've had a several sets of seats and two Porsche dashboards done there. Autos International is the best Porsche interior shop that I know of. They completed the project in a timely manner too. Highly recommend those guys and tell Dorian hello for me.

[914work]

So did AI supply the Pasha or did you source it & provide it to them?

[Graydingo]

So did AI supply the Pasha or did you source it & provide it to them?

Autos International sourced it. They didn't have it in stock, but they did have sample Pascha in the 3 colors (Blue/Black) (White/Black) (ivory/black). It was tough to choose as all three had their merits. Blue was a close second for me, as the car is blue, but in the end I just love the black/white Pascha and it's really bold which I think is fun. I was afraid the ivory/black would just look like dirty white Pascha.

It took a few weeks to get it in once I agreed, it was $500 upcharge for seats and door panels to cover the material. I think it runs about $140/yard typically if you source it yourself.

When I uses a vendor like that I don't try to goof around and supply parts. Some of the profit from the job comes from material upcharge. It's not easy running a small business so I don't try to mess with saving a few dollars and causing a bunch of headaches for the shop. I'll be saving a lot of money doing the engine build and building the car on my own, but interior and paint is probably the one area I'll pay out for.

In other news, I found an original 914-6 oil cooler. If you recall, the original 2.7 cooler was flagged as scrap metal by pacific Oil coolers.



This one's coming from Europe, I paid the guy a little more to pack it carefully and should arrive in the next few weeks.



The 6 cooler is pretty unique as it has the 90 degree turn for the oil tube. I think it will be much easier to run the oil line this way as the original 914-6 are setup this way.



I read a little from Ben M. about this issue so I'm happy to find a cooler that will hopefully help with oil line fitment.

[Graydingo]

Hi yall. Some small updates here and there as I finish up an 85 carrera project for my friend.

Regarding the previously mentioned cooler that I purchased out of Austria, I had it sent over to Pacific Oil Coolers and they red tagged it. Making it the second red tagged cooler in a row that I've sent them. This one had multiple core leaks unfortunately. These old coolers are aging out now at a high rate it seems.

I reached out to the seller on Pelican and he said it wasn't his problem. Imagine selling a $700 item that is completely useless and then saying "tough luck, not my problem"

I disagreed and luckily had buyer protection via paypal. Long story short, it took 6 months to get my money back and I was out about $150 in shipping costs and testing from Pacific on this bum cooler.

Seller was completely unreasonable, but I'm glad he had to (mostly) make me whole even though he drug it out as long as he could. Initially I offered to take a loss and offered for him to pay me a fraction of what I paid. He hardened his heart and said it wasn't his problem, so I went for the full purchase price with shipping and that's what he had to pay me back. Just a shame he wasted both of our times and soiled his reputation in the process. Steer clear of this seller is my recommendation.

So watch out for a used 914-6 cooler out of Austria. My experience is that this unethical seller will try to resell this bad cooler as I had to ship it back to Austria to do the paypal refund. It'll probably show up here in the classifieds or Pelican again. It looks brand new because Pacific cleaned up the outside when they tested it. He also hid damage to the outside in his pics and didn't mention any of that damage in his sales ad.

It's such a small community, I don't know why you wouldn't just say, "my bad, the cooler is trash, lemme refund you."

I sold many parts on Pelican and other Porsche sites. One time a guy reached out to me a year later with an issue. I offered a full refund on the spot. It wasn't even anything my fault, but my reputation is way more important than that.

In a case where a part is bad from the start and then verified faulty by a reputable third party company, why this individual would try to keep my money is beyond me.

Anyway, rant over, the silver lining is that CSF just introduced a really nice 914-6 cooler to the market so I'll be buying one of these babies! Pic courtesy CSF:



In other news, I reached out to Chris over at Childs Motorsports near Redding CA and inquired about using his chromate process to treat my recently torn down 901 side shift for the project.

I've been following him on IG for a while and like what I saw so i sent my 901 and some other parts off to him.

Chris was awesome to work with. Good communication and reasonable prices. His process is a chemical conversion coating. The parts get dipped into a bath that reacts with the magnesium to convert the surface layer. The bonus is a nice black sheen like early Porsche race boxes. I guess it's similar to the Dow 7 process and provides a corrosion resistant layer. He then sprays some wd40 to further help with corrosion resistance.



I also sent off for George Hussey's "How to convert a 914/4 to a 914/6 manual. All the info can be found here on the forum of course, but it's nice to have a little guide book and I discovered a few things about the process I didn't know before.



Lastly, I came across this cool build by FP Martinez, pics are his too.

I like it because he retained the narrow body, but he pulled the rear quarters out and "pie cut" them. I hope he doesn't mind, but I'm sharing his pics here, heck he might even already have them somewhere on here.







Car looks really good. He's opting for 16" X 8 wheels in back which I think I'll stick to 15X7"



I'm mostly set on running 15X7 in back with a 225/50 so it may not require much cutting, just some careful pulling and rolling.

[Graydingo]

A few updates as I continue to finish up a custom 85 911 for a friend.

- Received parts back from Chris at Childsmotorsports near Redding CA. The 901 case turned out nicely.

Sorry no pics on that yet, will get some posted when I do the rebuild.

The chromate finish should keep corrosion to a minimum on this vintage box.

I also sourced a spare 901 side shift for parts for $300. I figure it was a gamble to see if I could get a better R&P than the one that came in my box.



I'll blow that 901 apart soon and hope that it has a much better Pinion than that one!

My friend was clearing out his storage and I sourced a few 914 misc parts including gas tank related bits, some extra suspension parts, a dog bone, and some misc tail light parts. Hey free Porsche parts -amIright?

He also had a full stock 914 front end, but I have no use for that as I have a donor 911 front going on.

Lastly, I picked up a Rennshift 901 shifter and ordered the Tangerine racing firewall bushing. That will really improve the shift feel and look at home in my new interior.



Here's another rendering I did for fun using a friend's plugin:



And just a cool car I found for front end reference: *always tempting to go GT flares! Especially since I just got a set of 7,8 X 15 Fuchs in trade....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm