However, given how nice the engine bay would turn out, it would be a shame to just stick the 3.2L back in without at least cleaning it up. As we took the intake system off for detailing. Ideas about a Mass Airflow Sensor system started to fly around.

While a MAS does improve performance it is a fairly significant investment with all sorts of unknown pitfalls in engine stability; the exact adverse effect I am looking for. After some research, I decided to leave it alone and save those $ for something else. It is not like the car is slow – the 914 weighs under 2000 lbs which makes it very respectable indeed.

Wes at H&H in Plano, TX has done a great job as always of making things look great.

This is how the motor looked as it came out of the car. It is fairly evident that the motor had not been detailed en route from the donor vehicle to the 914.

Let’s look at some before-and-after pictures: The above is before, below is after.

The sheet metal was exchanged to actual metal pieces and painted Seal Grey to match the new color of the car.

Here the 3.2L seen from the rear – first the before shot:

And rear “after”:

Some shots from the side, completed:

And finally, some installation pics:

This is a good shot of the Rich Johnson 914-6 mount with the motor installed.

A view of the oil lines installed.

… And a view from the top to finish off this post. Sheet metal and fan shroud in the car’s new color looks great in the redone engine compartment. I am looking forward to getting it all back together now.

The engine had been sitting for a while and per advice of several of my 914 mentors it was time to fire it up. Total run time on this engine was under 15 minutes till this point.

We decided to take off the sheet metal and vent ducting to gain better access to plugs, valve covers and head studs. Our intent was to get the engine warm throughout and then perform a valve adjustment  as well as re-torque the heads. Wes of H&H who built the engine recommended these two actions at this point.

The engine came to life immediately; no hesitation. While it is a subject of some debate, I do like the exhaust note of the Bursch muffler on this 4-cyl quite a bit.

Besides checking the oil level before we ran the engine, we checked the oil pressure with a gauge to ensure that the high melling pump was operating as it should. Oil pressure was great, and underneath the valve covers there would be a fine film of oil over all the rocker arms and a small puddle by each tube after the run.

One thing we quickly noted was the alternator belt was wobbling quite a bit. After checking the fan in a lathe, it became apparant it was not perfectly circular which caused the wobble. With so much attention to counter-weight balancing the crankshaft with pushrods it made no sense to have this rotating mass out of balance. Rich dug deep in one of the caves and returned with an early fan which was very circular.

There are so many nice parts on this engine!

• 2.0L Type-4 based on GA case
• NEW dual 44 IDF Webers with steel cross bar linkage from CB Performance
• Intake manifold heads matched to ports of heads
• Highly modified heads with enlarged stainless steel valves (48×38 mm) with new hardened seats suited for unleaded gas, dual H/D valve spring set, bronze/silicon valve guides, flycut heads, un-shroud the intake valves.
• Raceware head stud kit
• Elephant feet valve adjusters
• 156 dual valve springs
• Chromoly 3/8″ pushrods
• Crane XR700 electronic ignition, Crane PS 20 coil

• Bosch 022 905 205 AA VA 1.8L distributor
• Melling high-volume oil pump
• Lightened flywheel (11 lbs)
• 2.0L core crank shaft, counterweighted and balanced, main and rod polishing
• Mahle EURO spec 2.0L piston/cylinder set, match weighted and balanced
• European Racing “H” (.475L/286D) cam shaft
• Modified oil breather box
• 8.5:1 compression ratio
• Stainless steel heat exchangers and refurbished heat system components
• Bursch tuned muffler

We added some 30 minutes of run time this Christmas – the engine is now back in the corner, waiting to be used at some point. It is such a nice engine and I can’t believe the amount of thoughts and work that has gone into it.

Thank you, Rich & Wes!

As such, we will not go into underside painting but rather invest in a very clean presentation from the top. The engine is already being detailed and cleaned up so we need to prepare the engine bay. The Vellios motor mount is now removed and the area is being prepared for the Rich Johnson mount.

This was taken right after the firewall had been repaired and the old mount was taken out.

After the clean up and respray of the firewall. The RJ mount is in place ready to accept the 3.2L back as soon as possible.

The engine bay is now clean and pretty. The new motor mount can be seen under the orange rag.

The oil tank was also exchanged to an OE tank, properly installed. In the below image you can see the opposite side where the battery area looks crisp and nice.

Next up is the exterior paint job. I have already revealed my color of choice. In case you were wondering, this is the Porsche Carrera GT “Seal Grey” color.

I am hoping for other similarities, too

Some piece of machinery! The sheet metal around the engine was plastic so that had to go for a replacement with a 5 piece steel set. And while we were at it, the intake system came off too for detailling

When the conversion had been done, the PO had selected the Vellios mount. While the Vellios is a tested and tried solution, for an engine of this power (250+ HP) you really want all the stiffness and rigidity possible. Rich has been (and still is) making one of the very best engine mounts for Porsche 914-6. As part of my signature on the car, the Vellios came out and an RJ Mount was installed in it’s place. The picture below shows the difference, maybe I can get Rich to chime in and write a few words about his mount and the design considerations behind it.

Well, back to the coming-apart part: The paint of Silver was actaully not that bad – just not new either. And with the amount of spraying in the engine compartment one thing led to the next and before we knew it we were budgetting a quite extensive makeover.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Silver’s Makeover!

About a year and a half after I got the car I decided to have this repaired and also have the engine compartment detailled. There was a lot of glue from an insulation mat that wasn’t pleasing to the eye that needed to go.

This image shows the firewall after we had the engine dropped at H&H in Plano – now that’s one big hole! I am sure it did not do the car any favors in terms of rigidity.

The piece out on the ground, with glue-gunk and all. Next step is to weld it back in:

There we go – all better and patched up done with such excellence that you could not tell it had been out when seen from the engine compartment side. Finish behind backpad still reveales some scars. For the avid reader these last few pics are somewhat of a tell-tale – more to follow.
 

The Dansk muffler is very, very nice and it installed quickly. Aahh, the sound it makes, and I was happy to have made an improvement to the car.

Yikes – glad to have it go!

The car is equipped with headers and thus has no heat. Whatever, I can wear a sweater if needed. So far I have not had problems of the windshield fogging up even during rainy days.

The new muffler looks 1000 times better, sounds better and was a drop-in replacement – $1000 was all it took