The latest project to arrive at the Flashback Racing garage is this 1975 Porsche 914 2.0. The previous owner had finally given up on trying to make the repairs that this mid-engine German roadster needed. We found it happily running along on 3 cylinders with little or no compression in the fourth chamber. Time for a complete mechanical rebuild.
While we were into the car that far we decided to add a fresh coat of paint and look to have a road-ready 914 in the spring of 2015.
Here is how the project went:
June 21: We acquired the Porsche and took the following photographs.
June 28: The dismantling process began. We pulled the engine and transaxle and removed all the engine tin and exhaust system.
Here is the 2.0 engine, transaxle, and exhaust as it appeared upon removal from the car. The only issue we observed was a massive use of silicone sealant on and around the pushrod tubes in an attempt to stop or slow down oil leaks. We next separated the engine, transaxle, and exhaust system, and removed all of the engine shrouding, placing the engine on an engine stand for complete disassembly.
In the weeks that followed our engine teardown revealed no major issues with this engine.
Cylinder heads appeared to have been recently rebuilt.
Pistons and liners also seemed to be rather new. In fact it appeared that the non-firing piston and cylinder had never been up to operating temperature.
September 12-13: We completed the tear down of our 2.0 Porsche 914 engine. Shown below are the engine case halves cleaned, detailed, and ready for reassembly. The crankshaft mic’ed out fine, and the bearings all looked good. This engine had almost no wear on the previous rebuild.
We also cleaned and polished all the other engine components prior to starting the rebuild.
We then ordered new pistons and liners, gasket set, intake and carb set, and sent the cylinder heads to our favorite machine shop to be checked for cracks and valve seating. The rebuild process began shortly thereafter.
