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.

Since I had already decided I did not want to take Silver completely apart some tinkering would be necessary not to fall into the category of poorly executed color changes.

The Porsche 914 is a relatively easy car to access both for the trunks and the interior. There is not much trim or padding anywhere and we decided to take out all but the dash board from the interior.

Here, the door jamb and firewall has undergone the transformation to the new color.

The rear trunk. Of course, we do take the car apart as much as needed. In this pictures you can see the tail light assemblies has been removed as well as all wiring.

It would be VERY hard to tell that this 914 has not been completely taken apart for the respray. Note the gas shocks for the lid that has replaced the original spring-loaded lifters. Such a nice upgrade – has the sound of a modern car as opposed to the original clunky sound.

I am very pleased with the quality of the paint job. You are looking at the underside of the rear trunk lid, reflecting the bottom of the trunk. Richard Fischer has done an awesome job – huge thanks!

The front end, just back from the painter. We took out the gas tank to allow access to the area behind and under all the ventilation housings. The gas tank is very easy to lift out, which is in stark contrast to all the vent houses. Anyone who has tried this will tell you “don’t do it!” and we didn’t.

Here you can see the area where the gas tank normally sits. Again, a really great job by the painter.

The area just below in the wind screen is where all the vent housing is and this is a typical area left undone. But not here – it would be very hard to tell this area has not been taken apart. We decided not to paint over the glued area as it will be carpeted again once the car goes together.

Had the trunk continued to look like this it would have been an unfortunate contrast to the car’s exterior. I am happy we went the extra miles and did this right!

The targa top was actually untouched and in an okay shape. To complete the look of the car, the top was sanded down and smoothed , and finally coated in the same body color as the car.

Those were the finishing touches of my painter. The car now needs to go back together, have the engine installed and possibly see some upgrades in the interior department.

I am thinking original seats, leather covered as well as leather covered back pad. A tan or even biscuit color is tempting but I sense I will be happier with a black interior. We’ll see. Until next time, thanks for reading!

This is surely a great brake setup. The caliper mounts to the 914-6 strut with the aid of an aluminum adapter. The rotor also needs an step-down adapter ring to fit the wheel hub. The system is a proven method and by all said to be a fine solution. I ran the car with this setup for about two years with no alterations or problems of any kind.

I have always fancied the calipers from the Porsche 944 Turbo. Rich has used these calipers on Ole Yeller and in brake conversion kits for lots of customers. For me, the appeal is the way in which the 944T caliper mounts to the strut without the need for any adapters. Same goes for the rotor which fits the hub directly. The 944T setup is a very clean and stock-looking installation and is recognized as a very high performance brake upgrade.

The 944T is a four-piston aluminum mono block caliper as can be seen here:

New rotors, pads and all hardware needed to be sorted which can be seen in the picture.

But let me show you some more of the 993 calipers that were coming off.

As you can see, the calipers are not exactly small for the 914. The rusty rotors had lots of life left in them – they just get this way from sitting too long as the car was back and forth to the painter and H&H for the engine work. Both the strut adapter and hub adapter can be clearly seen.

I decided to refurbish the 993 set and sell it off. I left the calipers unpainted as my likelihood of choosing the color my buyer would want was slim

Here you can see all the components of a (very) big brake 914 kit. In the below corners are the wheel hubs with the 5-lugs you need for 911-type/moderne wheels. Above the two hubs are the brake pads; and above those the rotors. The rotors are bolted to the back side of the hubs and thus become one unit.

The adapters I mentioned earlier are the blue pieces next to the brake pads.

Here are the plated rotors and associated hardware. Sure does look prettier. The set sold quickly – but oddly, ended up back in my possession. But as they say: That is a different story altogether!

Back to fitting the 944T calipers on Silver:

Here is the seal being installed in the wheel hub – you can see the rotor is now bolted onto the hub.

Still a big caliper – I chose glossy black as color as I have some plans for new wheels where I would like the calipers to sit a little understated back there…

Ready to go – pads installed, dust cap on hub. The old wheels will go back on for now – stay tuned.

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