912 restore/mod intro

[michael ohsann]

I've been working on getting my 912 driving for a few months now, and am starting a thread to keep myself accountable, and motivated! The car is a '68 912 in pretty bad condition. I bought it as a rolling shell, with glass flares and a terrible collision repair and a fair amount of rust. Here's a picture of it a few months ago, being used for storage... It came with 4.5" steelies, which I cut and welded on 8" hoops for the rears, and 7" hoops for the fronts and spare. At this point I must add that the backspacing is far from optimal as far as performance goes. But I am building this car as a cruiser, and if it ever sees a track I will put proper wheels on it. The car came sans engine, so I found a cheap 1.7 complete with fuel injection from a 72 914 on craigslist. I would like to do a tdi swap, but its just not in the budget at the moment. So I'm starting with this. I'm hoping the lack of proper cooling tin will work out ok! If it doesn't I'll be forced to make some ducting to the fan. I would love to put a dtm on it, but again the budget doesn't allow for such luxuries... You may notice I've put the fuel pump in an odd spot. The car doesn't have a return line obviously, since its a factory carb car. So I'm doing the return in the engine compartment for now. After I get the car running and driving, I plan on tearing it down to fix some rust and bodywork issues, and paint it. I know, it's a little backwards, but I'm a bit intimidated by the paint and body aspect, so I'm saving it for last. When the drivetrain is out I'll run the return line to the tank. Here's the fuel line setup. The line running up the driver's driprail going to my five gallon fuel jug. I couldn't resist firing it up before I had the gas tank back in! I've also installed megasquirt, and for some reason it idles pretty well on it even though I have not tweaked any of the settings! Here's my ecu connector, waiting to be run to its home under the drivers seat. Well that's all for now, I'll post later showing the awful previous bodywork and THREE color paintjob... original green, then orange, then red.

[Doug&Julie]

Wow...this will be interesting!

[Otto H. Wegkamp]

Michael,

The tin between engine and body is a major part of the cooling system. Make or buy (912E) tin and don't drive the car without it. If the injection system works fine, keep it. Replacing the injection system by carbs often introduces more problems than solving them. Mount a proper exhaust system. More noise is not equal to more horsepower...

Do the bodywork first, now you can repair all the hard to reach places before the car is reassembled.

I hope you will have the energy to finish the project to a car you like. Take your time, work step by step en keep us informed.

Otto

[michael ohsann]

Otto,

thanks for the advice regarding the cooling tin. I was hoping to get away with the 914 tin. All the tin is on the engine, but the parts that seal the engine to the bay are cut off, as they did not fit the 912 bay.
I am going to wrap the headers to keep some heat away from the engine, and try to run the tins as they are. If this doesn't work, I'll tin it as the factory did.
And my exhaust is not finished! Although it sounds like a race car as it sits now, it would be all bark and no bite... I've got a turbo from another project, and will be installing it soon, turbos always make nice mufflers!
I must get the car driving before bodywork, I can't be trusted to fabricate around a nice paint job.

I just received my new decklid, since the car didnt come with one I bought it from 20th street auto and they sent it straight to Gary Stratton. It looks great!

[michael ohsann]

[michael ohsann]

and I'm definetely keeping the fuel injection! I converted to megasquirt, and the engine runs.