Let’s go back to my initial enthusiasm in acquiring a 1974 914 2.0, certainly the most desirable model of the entire run of 914’s. I was mostly concerned with the integrity of the body and rust and since this car was stored and maintained, it was in excellent shape for it’s age. I figured the mechanicals were no concern because the car started and the documentation was with the car. BOY WAS I WRONG!!!

I failed to pay attention to this little sentence uttered in the course of the transaction by the seller “I took it to a mechanic, but he had trouble making it run well. He recommended switching it over to carburetors and since that is $1200.00, I decided to sell it.” That was a prescience statement and I blew by it in haste. I missed that “that” bastard of a mechanic took all the proper Porsche specific parts off the car and swapped in VW parts that did not match the displacement or the Bosch EFI setup. I recognized this folly once I started to work on the car and realized that I needed to gain expertise in the EFI components and try to secure them through EBay and other means. Of course many parts are NLA, so this proved to take the better part of 3 months and it involved my getting scammed a couple times. I discovered that the NLA Porsche parts market is very tricky and you need to be really informed about the part, what can be swapped and the specific details of how that part will work in your car. This is common sense for sure, but compared to Detroit vehicles, the details are critical and the prices 10-20 times more.

Here is what I needed to acquire…

• Proper Distributor for 1973-1974 2.0 (231 174 011). Thanks so much to Brad who documented all of the important details. Eventually I ended up with a 1975 2.0 Dizzy that was in excellent shape and although it is not documented as a swappable part (231 174 021), it works perfect. I ended up buying 3 distributors before I got one that worked well. The first one was the proper part number in the EBay listing, but the seller sent me something completely different (a 1.7 Dizzy) and after I asked, he refunded my money. The second one was so worn out and sloppy that it was terrible and the third one was near perfect and in great shape.
• MPS - Manifold Pressure Sensor (280 100 043) – This is a NLA part and one on the car was from a VW bus and had been hacked (removal of the screw adjuster) and in a sense could have probably worked if everything else was tip-top. But it is not the right part for the car and so I ordered a remanufactured unit from AA and it works great.
• Bosch 2.0 Fuel Injectors – These are the big problem areas for me. When I started the car and did my initial troubleshooting, I noticed that the car ran rough. First I noticed that one injector was unplugged, bingo. Wrong, plug it in and the car ran worse. So I backed up and tested that the injectors are all spurting gas, this involves putting them into a baby food jar and seeing the gas spurt. The design of the 914 EFI has triggers built into the distributer to fire the injectors, when a plug fires on one side, both injectors dump into the cylinder on that side. All four injectors seemed to work and I don’t have the equipment to measure volume, etc., so off to the Witchhunter for cleanup and tuning. I reinstalled the injectors and things still seemed rough, so I rebuilt the fuel system deliver end to end with a new Fuel Pressure Sender and new German high pressure fuel hose.
• Throttle Body Sensor – This part was in okay shape, but I did have to pull it, clean it up, readjust it, make a gasket for it and reinstall. These parts are NLA and it is based on a circuit board that uses tension across a set of three leads to change resistance, like a drive by wire system built by a steampunk.

That last mile…

Once I had done all of the above, the car was still not up to snuff, but it did run. It missed and backfired through the throttle body and so I was stuck. I ended up taking to a Porsche shop and he fixed the timing and other sensors, but I forgot to bring the air cleaner apparatus and so the car could not be tuned for idle. I certainly thought I had all vacuum leaks covered as I had new hoses and the proper installation of the pieces, but the idle would not adjust and it hunted up and down indicating a leak and the car would cut out once I hit the road. So I started to think, injectors again. This time through the wonderful documentation of the folks on the 914 World forums, I tracked down the replacement injectors that would fit the car and offer the same performance for a 2.0. These are the Neihoff 57512 injectors for a MB SEL 450. I swapped them in this week and fitted new rubber gaskets into the injectors. This proved to be an issue and I removed one injector, I could see that the gasket was compressed and likely leaking. I also had new rubber boots to install on the injector connectors to hold them fast in place. This involved pulling the wires from the plugs and reinstalling. In doing this I notified that one injector wire as cut through in 2 places and I had never noticed this before because the harness covered it up. It was not all the way through, but just a couple strands holding it together. Fixed, installed the injectors, fastened the boost and fired it up. YES! The car idled now and was only showing issues under acceleration. I then swapped in the new Dizzy with a Hot Spark Ignition setup to replace the point and set the timing.

This journey is near its end to really get the car running great and just needs some optimization tweaks to get it where I want it. There’s a couple little issues in the power curve at 4k RPM, etc, but easy stuff from here.

What I learned…

These kinds of things are frustrating to most people, but I enjoy the learning that comes from a project like this. Taking a 35 year old car that would not run worth a dang and getting it back out there and enjoying it is very rewarding. Learning the “ins and outs” of the Bosch EFI was fun and I am now in the expert camp and can tune it and troubleshoot one with confidence. I also learned the Porsche NLA parts market is something to be very, very wary about. There is a reason someone is selling something and likely it is because it is worn out and they think that you understand that risk. I didn’t and it was really a drag opening a box for a part you had been trying to track down for a month and it was all wrong or a waste of money. Stick with forum’s and ask lots of questions, I did many hours of research and found almost every situation documented on 914 World and that was they key to success.

We have been wanting to get a tent trailer for a number of years, but the price and the number of years we would use it seemed to make the price too high to justify the purchase. I looked at used ones and did the research and you can easily get into $1500+ of costs just replacing canvas, tires, springs, etc. So it was great that last weekend we ended up being given a 1984 Coleman trailer and it met my lowest price of “FREE” and it is in decent enough shape for being 25 years old. The canvas needs some attention to patching, but it is worth keeping. The undercarriage is intact and with some POR-15 treatment, it will last a long time. The paint and sheet metal showed no “rusting through” and so I figured it was a candidate to easily fix up and paint. The last issue is to repack the wheel bearings, replace the springs and get new wheels and tires. All told, I figure 500 bucks should do it. I plan to replace all the electrical (after I just rewired the Porsche, this should be a piece of cake), add new lights, mattress covers and new water & gas lines.

I have been wanting to test the internet legend of the “$50 Paint Job” using high density rollers and thinned Rustolem paint and the Tent Trailer Restoration is the perfect project to test this out and see if I can recreate the results everyone is raving about. We ended up doing a lot of work this weekend to get the trailer prepped for painting and have most of the sheet metal and aluminum exposed and ready for primer.

I will update the posts over the next couple weeks as I finish the restoration and get camping!