Which Engine?
 

I've finally had enough time and money to start restoring and upgrading my 914. I was wondering what type of engine would be the best to put in to make a better autocross car?

I am in the market for a 914 and asking the same question. Most replies have been to get no bigger than a 2.0. having a 6 or a V8 will not help develop your driving skills. At least that is what I have been told.

many autocross classes are determined by the amount and type of modifications done to the car. it's possible that with modification, a car is placed in a class in which it would not be competitive. that may be OK to the owner (or not). in my opinion, i would start STOCK and develop driving skills, then modify.

If you're looking at upgrading your car for autox, there are three important steps to take before you do anything.

Read the Rules
Read the Rules
and... (you guessed it)
Read the Rules

All the clubs will have their own rule sets, and you really need to decide in what club and what class you want to prep the car for. In many cases, seemingly simple modifications will bump you into a class where you're competing against trailer-riding-fire-breathing-monsters. For instance, in the SCCA, adding an aftermarket cam will take you stright to the Prepared category where the cars there are gutted, heavilly prepared, race engined, dedicated competition cars.

If you're not concerned about competitiveness, and you're simply looking for the biggest grins, then by all means find the biggest six you can afford to transplant into the car and have a blast!

If you don't want to drop a fortune on a six conversion, then the 2.0L four cylinder is a great motor. If you keep it stock, you can probably run (depending on what else you did to your car) in the lower level classes in most clubs. It's got plenty of torque to make the 914 lots of fun to drive. Then again, they're always fun to drive. I wish I was driving mine today... <sigh>....

-Josh2

In the class I'm in now all the cars are 30 years newer and have 100+ horsepower on me I can come within 5 secs on about 1:30 courses.

I was thinking something along the lines of a 914-6 conversion and I was wondering which engine size is the most reliable anf which has a pretty good power to weight ratio.

A 3.2 six motor seems to have nice power to weight ratios for AX. Also for street driving.
Geoff