How much rust is too much?

[SiberianDVM]

I'm going to look at a sad 75 2.0 tomorrow and I would like some help determining if it can be saved. I'm not worried too much about cosmetics, as I plan to turn it into a Chump car, but I am worried about structural safety.

If I'm prepared to put the car on a rotisserie for structural repairs over a period of time, what is the limit to how much frame rust is acceptable for a starting point?

If anybody can point me towards a written primer for 914 body repair, I would appreciate it.

[Jack Stands]

Kind of depends how much you want to repair! There have been some 356s that have been just about totally rebuilt from rusted hulks, but it takes great amounts of time and $$$$$.

Obviously, the hell hole/ longitudinals areas and suspension pickup points are the most important. However, any unibody is only as strong as it's weakest (rustiest) points.

[Cairo94507]

It may be worth your time to check out 914World.com if you haven't already done so. There are some pretty good threads re rust there. Good luck.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

"Acceptable" depends entirely on your budget, your skills, and the time and effort you want to put into the job. For Chumpcar, I would be tempted to leave all of the rust intact, and make the roll cage the primary structure of the car. That is, if I could weld and had a tubing bender at my disposal. (Safety equipment doesn't count toward the budget, right?)

Tubes can make up for a lot of lost strength.

Patch panels will need to be fabricated or purchased for anything you are fixing. For some areas, you can probably find people selling pieces from cut-up cars, but for the more common structural rust areas, parts cars are vanishingly unlikely to have those intact. So you'd have to purchase new, which will blow your budget almost instantly.

I guess the other answer to "how much rust" is--enough to make the car cheap enough to fit your budget.

--DD

[SiberianDVM]

Thanks. I'll take the camera and get some pictures.

Car will definitely have a welded in roll cage, but I will probably pay somebody for that. I don't trust my welding that much.

Any thoughts on reworking a 2.0 Type IV to withstand 24 hrs of running hard and maybe make a few more horsies? It needs to stay visibly stock.

[TheCabinetmaker]

Bigger pistons like 96 mm will bump up the power by increase displacement and will work with the stock FI system an increase in compression will also help but you may need to run higher octane gas if you do that.
also consider having the MPS fine tuned for performance. the MPS was originaly set for real gasoline, todays government mandated oxygenated crap gas (thanks corn farm lobby) not only cost more, delivers worst milelage, it as less energy content that real gasoline. The MPS needs to be corrected for this new gas, just as n carborated cars, that require bigger jets for the new gas, the mps needs adjutment to give te optimal mixture. use of head temp, and wide band O2 gages will assit in tunning for optimal performance without destorying the motor.

use of an electronic ignition rather than points will give a a better spark and help insure timing stays dead nuts on target for best performance.

Of course all engine parts should be carefully balanced. a more gressive cam will also offer power increase . ElginCams offer a nice performance cam for the 914 that runs stock D-jet.

with more power you may need an extra oil cooler to keep temperatures reasonable

[mepstein]

914's are very hard to do on the cheap. The least expensive way is to buy a good running, low rust car. Rust repair and engine work will cost time and money if you ever want to get it out of the shop and on the road.

[SiberianDVM]

I went by and looked at the sad 914 yesterday. I left it there.

Aborted rebuild effort by current owner. Engine and transmission out of car for 15 years. Interior ripped out. Windshield has big crack. Bumpers and lights all off. Rust everywhere. I estimate it would take me 5 years and at least $12k to have a decent, running car.

Nice people, so I couldn't tell them the car was a complete write off. I did tell them I thought they out to part it out.

Oh, well, back to the hunt.