blower motor arrangement

[deckoffa]

Most of the pictures I've seen of 914 engines show the blower motor mounted amidships near the fire wall, with hoses running to either side of the car. On my '74 1.8, the blower is located behind the driver, next to the relay board, and there's only one hose running down to the duct on the driver's side of the engine compartment. The duct opening on the passenger side is sealed with a rubber plug. Is this an acceptable arrangement? Or does it contribute to the really lousy defrost I get from my car? Any thoughts?

------------------
Anthony

[Pritchard]

That is exactly why your defrost is not all that great. There is a kit that will convert your style of ductwork to the improved style. It has a splitter for the fan output which allows another hose to go to the other side of the engine bay where the rubber plug is located. I'm sure that PP has this product. It costs around $50 I think.

Good luck
Pritchard

PS- If you're not going for authenticity you can make the ductwork yourself. Just takes a sharp knife and a little creativity.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The illustrations you've seen were of 70-72 engines. The 73-74 cars had the fan where and ducted as you describe. The 75-76 cars had the same fan location, but had a splitter with hoses going to both sides' J-tubes. (That's what Pritchard is describing.)

The lousy heat is probably due to rusty heat exchangers more than a lack of extra air blowing into them. The engine cooling impeller is always pushing air into the exchangers, pretty much in proportion to RPM. At idle, the "auxiliary blower" helps a lot. At higher RPMs, it doesn't do all that much in my experience.

I have pretty good heat myself. I upgraded to the SSIs from rusty stock units, and upgraded the blower hoses to the 75-76 style. I did the hoses first, and the SSIs made a bigger difference in my case. Plus the exchangers don't blow fog onto the windows when I go through a puddle any more...

--DD

[campbellcj]

FWIW - I noticed a significant increase in heat output on my 911 purely from going to the SSI's from the original crusty-but-not-too-holey heater boxes. (The slide valves and ducting were in fine shape before and after the change.) The stainless seems to heat up much quicker and transfer heat to/from air better.

In the 914, well I get some heat, but if not enough I just toss on a sweatshirt, or god forbid, put the top back on

[This message has been edited by campbellcj (edited 04-02-2001).]

[SteveStromberg]

See: www.shoptalkforums.com/bbs/NonCGI/Forum21/HTML/000009.html Steve

[This message has been edited by SteveStromberg (edited 04-02-2001).]