My 1974 Carrera

[11BC2]

Where to begin to tell the story of this particular Porsche?
The first time I saw it was circa 1985/1986, when my best friend’s father acquired it from a former business partner. I was 16 or 17, and only kind of liked cars at the time, including this Porsche.
Bernie, essentially my stepfather, was an instructor at Bob Bondurant school of driving at Sears point, California, as well as being employed at Huffaker engineering.
He took me for a drive in it, and even let me drive it for about an hour or so.
And I was absolutely hooked! I knew I had to own a Porsche before I left this world.
Over the years since first driving this car, I was in the military, went to college, got married, and had three kids, worked as a mechanical engineer, and finally opened up my own automotive repair shop.
I passed up numerous opportunities to pick up other Porsches over the last 40 years or so, but I never pulled the trigger.
Then came Covid.
In May 2020, I reached out to Bernie to inquire if he still had the Porsche. He said yes, and I made the following proposition to him: I will buy the Porsche for an agreed upon amount, get it running and stopping safely, and allow him to drive it until he couldn’t drive anymore.
He initially agreed to the terms, and a date was set for me to go pick up the car. The night before, he called, and I could tell he was sad. He said that one of his children decided they really wanted the car and he couldn’t go through with the deal.
Yes, I was very disappointed, but I completely understood, since they were all family to me.
Fast forward to about April 2024, when Bernie called me and told me to come and get the car!
I was absolutely beside myself; I told him to give me a day or two, and he agreed. I called them back a day or two later, we struck up a deal. He then reminded me that the engine and transmission had been removed back in 91 or 92, due to low compression on cylinder number five and was sent to his younger brother’s shop out in Columbus, Ohio.


This first picture shows it on the trailer after picking it up. More on the blue paint later on.


This is how this Porsche looked the first time I saw it back in high school.


Interior had not been replaced by the body shop that did the paint job, more on that and another post. However, it still had the UNGO box and associated crappy wiring!







in August 2024, I drove out to Columbus, Ohio, to retrieve the original engine. It had sat in the corner of a storage room since being received 30+ years earlier.


It was a mix of emotions for me, once I opened up the shipping crate to retrieve the engine. I mostly felt like Ralphie when he got his red rider BB gun, but it was accompanied by slight disappointment/sadness.
The engine had been sitting in a non-environmentally controlled room, meaning, there was a lot of corrosion on the aluminum and magnesium parts. But it didn’t matter, as I had the engine, and was heading back home to California.





This is the first time in over 30 years, that this engine and chassis have been in the same room with each other

[11BC2]

Once I got the Engine back home, I waited for the correct engine, stand adapter to arrive, along with some specialty tools needed for engine disassembly.

These pictures show just how corroded the engine had become out in Ohio!

[11BC2]

Once the engine stand adapter and specialty tool showed up, I got straight to work and disassembling the engine. Even though I was super excited to finally be working on a Porsche, I will admit I felt very overwhelmed by the entire project.









I had read up in a few publications and a lot of posts here on Pelican, that the magnesium case was definitely going to need some loving and a ton of TimeSerts!

[11BC2]

After initial cleaning in the parts, washer, followed by a quick touch up with the vapor hone machine, it was time to start installing the cylinder, head stud TimeSerts.



Mounted each case, half to the Bridgeport milling machine table and squared/trimmed each part to the machine before drilling out the old threads.


After drilling each hole, the hole was then counterbored before being threaded to accept each insert.


Applied a dollop of Loctite blue to each insert before installation.

[PeteKz]

You're off to a great start, and the car has a story that includes you. How many miles on it?

[IROC]

I love stories like this. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

[11BC2]

Originally Posted by PeteKz

You're off to a great start, and the car has a story that includes you. How many miles on it?

~90k and never crashed.

It was “featured” in a movie titled The Principal, starring Jim Belushi.
Bernie was contacted by someone in Hollywood, asking him if he’d rent his Porsche out for a movie being filmed in Oakland. The deal almost fell apart when Bernie told the property manager that the Porsche was black; they wanted a red one.
Bernie told them he’d paint the Porsche red for them.

The scene;
Jim’s sitting at a bar when he sees his ex wife drinking with her divorce attorney. Jim holds s over the bar, grabs a Louisville Slugger and chases the attorney into the parking lot.

I’ll let the pictures tell the outcome:




Bernie was kind enough to give me the bat that Jim used on the Porsche!



The body shop, that charged $21,000 in current dollars, did a horrible job on the prep/paint work. Bernie picked the GM blue color, instead of returning it back to black.

[11BC2]

Using the Bridgeport, I drilled out the piston squirters, threaded each one using a 12-24 tap. I got this information from the Pelican forum.


Had a hell of a time sourcing 12-24 fasteners! None of the local hardware shops carry that size. Unfortunately, Amazon had 12-24 all thread. Using the dowel pin removal tool…it’s just a small slide hammer…the squirters were easily removed.

[Queefchief]

Love to read/see builds like this. Also, cool story behind the car!

[11BC2]

Took a break from going through the engine components, to get the front suspension sorted out.
Removed the strut, assemblies, front control arms and related components, and sent them all to my local powder coating company.

[RetroSC]

Great story and great car! Love seeing it come back to life.

[eastbay]

Subscribed! Great rescue thread, looks like the car has the 'early style' aka the good A/C.

[11BC2]

Originally Posted by RetroSC

Great story and great car! Love seeing it come back to life.

Thank you!
I’ve been lurking here for a while, and I figured it’s time to start paying back for all the information I’ve gotten from this great community.

[11BC2]

Originally Posted by eastbay

Subscribed! Great rescue thread, looks like the car has the 'early style' aka the good A/C.

It did have a York AC compressor on it, and some really old style compression fittings that had no O-ring seals. All of that is going to be replaced with more modern air conditioning components.

[11BC2]

As I had to remove the front crossmember, I figured why not, let’s go ahead and pull the fuel tank out.
As the tank was about half full of that good old 1991 MTBE premium fuel that they had here in California, I figured I’d send it up to the shop that could boil it out and clean it up for me.
I removed all of the stone material, shot it with self etching primer, and then reapplied a fresh coat of Würth stone coating.
I don’t have any pictures of the fuel tank as it was installed in the car, but it was not gray in color, as I’ve seen other Porsches have. I don’t know if the previous owner at some point painted the fuel tank, which seems odd to me, or if it was painted at the factory.

[ducatiroger]

What a great back story for the car.

Looking forward to following along.

Nice work so far.

Roger

[11BC2]

Since I dropped the front crossmember to get it powder coated, I looked at the steering rag and decided it needed some attention/refurbishing.
As you can tell, the tie rods had never been upgraded to the turbo variance, so those parts were ordered from our host.
After disassembly, the housing was first ran through the spray cabinet to remove grease and oil. I then spent about 20 minutes in the vapor hone getting it back to as new condition.

[11BC2]

Even though this Porsche has been stored in doors, this master cylinder looks like it spent most of its life at the bottom of the ocean. Once removed, there was some light/moderate rust on the body panel. I simply wire, wheeled it clean, applied some primer, and then rattle canned black for now.
Also pictured, is a sample of the hard brake lines that I fabricated to replace all of the old original parts.









This device was in line to the right front caliper; no part number or manufacturing mark of any kind was on it. I can only assume it was a proportioning valve for that wheel.

[Druepy]

Great story man and you are doing a good job getting thing sorted! The vapor honing results for intriguing. I have a sand blaster but this looks even better. What unit do you have and what are the cfm requirements?

[11BC2]

Originally Posted by Druepy

Great story man and you are doing a good job getting thing sorted! The vapor honing results for intriguing. I have a sand blaster but this looks even better. What unit do you have and what are the cfm requirements?

https://vaporhoningtechnologies.com/vh800p-b-open-loop/

It’s an OK/good Machine, but it’s very particular about the media that you use.
If you simply run the various baking soda, powders available at Harbor freight, the result is not that good.