Restoring my first 914

[Nige]

Crazy, amazes me how things escalate over such minor things and small amounts of money. Positive result for you but the company involved shouldn't have let it gone this far.

[crisc204]

I've read you court experience but no the whole thread...
Sorry I'm not up on 914's but what's the difference between the 914 discs and the beetle discs? Diameter, thickness or mounting height?
(it couldn't poss be four stud vs five stud in this example)

If right at the start they had said "Look we're very sorry, there's been a cock up we cannot supply those at this price as the supplier has moved the cost considerably" and then refunded you in full...

would you have still insisted they supply the goods at a large % loss to them?

Or would you have allowed them to refund/collect and re-ordered (them or elsewhere)?

I'm interested as we're doing more and more online sales (and that's I reckon that's what I would have offered as a reasonable solution early on)

[Darren C]

Hi Cris,
To answer your questions..

I've read you court experience but no the whole thread...
Sorry I'm not up on 914's but what's the difference between the 914 discs and the beetle discs? Diameter, thickness or mounting height?
(it couldn't poss be four stud vs five stud in this example)
……
If you go to page 10 of this thread you will see the differences in the photos. The discs face is thicker, they have a deeper boss and the bearing offset is different.
Plus they came in a box with a BIG sticker on giving the Beetle part number which is completely different to the 914 part number.
……
If right at the start they had said "Look we're very sorry, there's been a cock up we cannot supply those at this price as the supplier has moved the cost considerably" and then refunded you in full...
…….
Of course. We all make mistakes, I would have gladly accepted a refund and gone to Roger Bray or Pelican etc if they had said straight out there was a problem. The issue that developed here was that I was lead on a merry dance with pages and pages of emails saying the discs would be with me next day, next week, oh problem with our courier, they’re here now I’ll send them out tomorrow, oh, ones turned up rusty so we’ll order another and send them out asap.(I had almost ¾” thick printed out email excuses that I sent to court as evidence)
This continued for several weeks so I just gave them the benefit of the doubt and held on two months until the Beetle discs arrived. Upon discovery I contacted them and was told we can send you the right discs in 3 days but you need to pay us another £140 each!
……..
would you have still insisted they supply the goods at a large % loss to them?

…….

Well after waiting 2 months and calling them weekly, exchanging emails every few days and being assured I’d have my discs on many occasions; I suppose it had got so far on that if they made a loss it wasn’t really my problem.
The court case I took was for Breach of Contract. Namely that I purchased and paid for (on the same day) a set of 914 brake discs at a price that they advertised. I received a written order acknowledgement for the purchase (invoice) which formed the “contract” between us.
I am sure that they originally intended to supply me the discs at that price, but for some unknown reasons had no stock and no supplier. (Incidentally Roger Bray had them in stock for £15 more each disc at the time that BS refused to honour the sale. I even sent them an email to say Roger bray had them and basically for £30 they could sort this out and get Roger Bray to send them directly to me. I even contacted Roger Bray and made this known that BS might be contacting them) This is when it all got out of hand and BS claimed ALL suppliers were lying that they had discs, There were so few 914 cars that even Zimmerman stopped making discs years ago and as there was no stock available anywhere they would not be willing to exchange the beetle discs and that I knew this and Kev and I had set them up to fail by me placing an order on their website for parts we knew were not available!
It became for me a matter of morals at this point and I wasn’t going to let them simply walk away. Trying to hide behind “Terms and Conditions” that do not comply with the Sales of Goods Act is a matter of morals not personalities.

I’ve just checked and the T & C are still the same on the website this evening..My responses are in brackets.

Terms & Conditions
By using the B.S on-line store p****e.co.uk you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions detailed below.
Order Acceptance
BS reserves the right to accept, refuse, or limit your order for any reason, (This is NOT legally binding under the Sale of Goods Act for a consumer sale. Once the sale has been made and acknowledged it forms the “contract”. “for any reason” is bollox, they are contractually obliged to complete the sale as defined in the contract. Obviously there are occasions where the contract can be broken, such as not paying the bill, but you cannot have “for any reason”) including, but not limited to, credit rating, the unavailability of a product ( They tried this clause saying 914 discs are completely obsolete so they could not complete the sale) or errors in the prices and product descriptions posted on this web site.
BS reserves the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders at their sole discretion. (Again this is complete bollox. They are bound by the sale of goods act as are all of us on British soil)
Prices
All prices are subject to alteration without prior notice and are subject to VAT. (Fine if you notify the buyer before acknowledgement/invoice of sale. You cannot say 12 weeks after you have taken the money and told the buyer numerous times the goods are on the way, to then ask for a further £140 in excess of the £62 sale price, this is basically holding the buyer to ransom and contradicts their claim the product was unavailable) Every effort is made to ensure that all product information is as accurate as possible; we cannot accept any claims arising from information on this site.(Again this is subjective as to whether it is a just T&C, for example if they list a part by part number & or picture, you order it and it’s not that part then they should be liable)

So Cris, to answer your last question…

Or would you have allowed them to refund/collect and re-ordered (them or elsewhere)?
…….
Yes, as I said earlier I told them Roger Bray had discs, I told them Mittelmotor had discs, and said they could maybe do a trade deal. I also cleaned and boxed up the beetle discs and asked them to arrange collection by APC who they used (as we use APC at work too and the vans come in regularly to us saving any special collection arrangements) The lady in BS office said yes, thought it was a good idea to get the Beetle discs returned but was over-ruled or something and they sat at my workplace for 6 months without collection, by which time BS were not interested in having them back. Indeed even in court they didn’t want them back, but I insisted in front of the judge as technically they weren’t my property.
……..


I'm interested as we're doing more and more online sales (and that's I reckon that's what I would have offered as a reasonable solution early on)

……

That would have been the right thing to do. My advice is also make your T&C reasonable, fair and comply with the law, the seller cannot be free of responsibility it has to be shared between both parties in the contract; otherwise you’ll come a cropper one day.

Good Luck

[crisc204]

I was baffled as to how it all got out of hand but now I get it. Not that me understanding makes for a jot of difference but it's pretty clear from the copy you were being reasonable
When faced with someone being IMHO unreasonable you held your corner and replied robustly
Can't fault anyone for that
my mind had boggled!

You know what I'm still baffled...but now it's only at the actions of the seller why not refund at the start and when returned just Bung them in eBay as shop soiled?

The initial spend would be covered and a pair of those discs wouldn't make a difference to the stock room...
And plenty of people still play with Vw beetles...

The other bit about £30 difference sorting it...it's not even £30 if you account for profit on the goods

I know as a seller sometimes you also have to be a bit hard faced as people do take the P...
some guys I know are employed at large car hifi shop, I've heard all sort s from them! About what customers have tried on...

but this is NOT one of those times as far as I can tell!

thanks for firing off the info and hope you get back to enjoying you 914 ASAP!

[Darren C]

No problem Cris, I’m glad you can see how ridiculous this whole thing became, believe you me, there was far more nonsense and accusations made than I’ve listed here.
I totally accept that there are two sides to every story, and you only have the benefit of mine.
The Court judgement however should convince you (having been in my favour) that I had the legal and moral ground in this instance.
Having them on the ropes as it were during the hearing, BS claimed that they had fulfilled the sale by supplying the VW Beetle discs!?
They tried to convince the judge that the Beetle discs in a box with a big sticker showing the VW part number in bold print (which is a proper VW number not some independent x-ref number, and not a 914 number) WAS the correct discs for a 914.
BS stated as part of their defence that they HAD supplied the right discs and that since my car was over 40 years old it was most probable that a previous owner had modified my car (as with most old Porsche cars they deal with) and the discs they supplied (which were correct for a 914) would not be the same as the discs I had on my "modified" car. This is why I had no claim against them!

The whole 17 months have been a complete nightmare. In simply trying to buy a set of parts for my car I have been bombarded with accusations, paranoid claims of setting them up, sent multiple letters by recorded delivery with proof, yet being told in court they never arrived, had to continually pay out for court fees, writ fees, bailiff fees and have 3 days off work to attend court hearings.
Was it all worth it?
I know most of you reading this wouldn’t have gone this far, but I felt well and truly shafted by BS, and if they operate like this when the simplest of things don’t go to plan, what on earth are they like when the sh*t really hits the fan or more money is at stake?
I simply couldn’t let them get away with it.
I doubt (having seen how they stand in a court of law and come out with nonsense. I really want to say something stronger here, but fear repercussions if I say what I truly mean) that they’ll ever change their ways or T & C.
My intent here as I said earlier is to make others aware of the un just “small print” and my experience with BS.


So moving on and enjoying the 914...I have brakes from Pelican, a full tank of gas and I'm wearing sunglasses

[Darren C]

Today was a very interesting and informative day.

Starting with setting up….



Once rigged, I spent a good few hours obtaining data to understand the dynamics of combustion in a 914.



Over the last year I’d read so much conflicting information on how to set up and jet Carbs on a 914, that my head was spinning. There are so many posts on the US sites that contain “advice” but very little hard data to be found to support it.
I made over a dozen runs on the Dyno with various jet combinations (some from posts that swear that they are the best jet combinations, other combinations from Empi, Weber and I even tried a Porsche 356 jet combination to see what results we saw)
The results were a real eye opener.

To begin I must stress that my car is a stock 2.0 litre with standard FI cam. The only modification is a pair of twin weber 40idf carburettors. The car has covered 119,000 miles from new and is apart from general servicing, all original. (42 years wear and tear included)
So having spent many hours swapping jets and driving around the block, plus tuning by ear, I had narrowed it down to a jet range where the car ran best. I was very keen to see exactly what was going on so the rolling road was the next step for hard data.

For the sake of clarity, the graph I’m showing here has 7 overlays from other jet set ups removed to show 3 clear main jet fitments. (runs 2, 5 & 11)



The brief was for jetting that gave best overall driveability (on road not track)

The stock 2.0L with stock FI cam on carbs, is happiest running a little on the rich side.
The ideal AFR is 14.7:1, but in reality a band around 13:1 is desireable. (The lower the number the richer the mixture)

Using a 125 main jet gives a reasonable AFR, but I reality makes for a poor driveability. This is most noticeable between idle and 2000 rpm manifested as a dead spot. A separate graph for torque (not posted here) shows a “slow off the blocks” torque curve for the 125 main jet on a stock FI cam. It also promotes lean popping.

Using a 140 mains cures the dead spot before 2000 rpm and the popping but wildly over fuels between 2000 & 3000 rpm. The drive ability flat spot moves up the rev range accordingly and the net effect is a loss of overall horsepower by 5BHP.

Changing to a 135 main pulls back the over fueling pretty much mid way between the 125 & 140 sizes. This makes for the best drivability for general road use.
This is where the engine seems to respond best. It gives an early rise in BHP in comparison to the other jet sizes; exceeding the others from 3700rpm, and offering more power between 1500 & 2000 rpm. Despite running slightly richer than the AFR benchmark, the 914 stock 2.0L runs best on carbs as I said earlier, just a little rich. It’s an economy trade off and power gain – versus - driveability when you swap out the FI for carbs.

The Air corrector size I found to work best was a size 200. The best venturi size was 28mm. If you wanted to prolong the BHP curve after 4700 rpm (track use) The 190 Air corrector slows the tail off in power nicely.
My 42 year old car in US spec I believe (unless Kev corrects me) in FI form achieved 91 HP at 4900 rpm when new.
Now 42 years, 119,000 miles and on Carbs later, I’ve got 95.3HP !
Not a bad result.
Hopefully this hard data will offer some clarity to the muddy waters of differing opinions that you’ll find on other sites.

[jackstowers]

You know you are risking a friendship mention Kev in a post about carbs!!
Interesting reading though, you mustve been there a while to re jet and run 11 times?
Mine still stumbles a bit at low revs but only had a couple of hours of carb experimenting. The best improvement at low revs was reducing the choke size. The peak power dropped from 115bhp to 112bhp which obviously you can't notice when driving. Mines a 1911cc with dellortos 40s choked down to 36 but must have had a cam change details of which I don't know. Compression is a bit low on all cylinders and I'd considered a top end refresh but am loath to mess with it while it's running well.

[Darren C]

Cheers David,

Yes, the car was on the Dyno half the day, and did cost me a good few hundred quid to get the all the data. But well worth it to see exactly what’s going on and also to share on here to help others.
The stumble is a combination of the distributor advance curve and the accelerator pump adjustment. With a lot of playing around and adjustments you can just about get rid of the stumble.
As a point of note the 914 carb stumble can be avoided by gentle or hard acceleration. It only seems to occur on medium acceleration.
Reducing the choke size increases the velocity through the carb, which can cause a “venturi”(suction) effect and draw and mix fuel and air better which is why your down size improved your stumble.

I also played around with spark plugs. Since the carb 914 runs best slightly rich, there’s more chance to foul the plugs. You're best using a “hotter” running plug and one with a longer insulator (hotter plugs burn off any soot deposits to self clean)
I tried initially an NGK type B5ES (the 5 is a hot run number) but they tended to foul and then you get popping & miss-fire.
I swapped them out for BP5ES (the P is for a longer insulator) this puts the electrode and therefore the spark a few mm further into the cylinder (perfectly safe) which means you get a cleaner all round detonation and the tip runs hotter so it’s less prone to foul.

We did a few runs with slightly adjusted timing just to see what happened. Especially as most US forums would have you set your timing on carbs slightly advanced at 34 BTDC instead of 27 degrees. As with the other advice on line I thought I’d check it out.
The result was that at 34 degrees you fall off the torque curve and actually lose horse power which effects the driveability. It raises the idle speed which can be adjusted out but then seems to bring back the stumble effect. All of this is obviously on the standard FI cam, so I cannot vouch for what happens on an aftermarket cam. What it did show however, is that if you have a stock FI cam the engine runs best at factory 27 Degrees BTDC timing on carbs.

[Bruce M]

You might want to consider BP6ET, next time.

[Darren C]

Thanks Bruce,
The 6 is a colder plug. I found with 140 jets that the 5 could only just clear itself and was prone to popping, on 135 jets its happy and cleans well. Going to a 6 might possibly have the same effect as the 5 on 140's.
I pulled the plugs yesterday after a long drive and the electrodes were clear and indicating a clean burn, even with a slight sooting around the plug thread top.
I wanted to try 130 jets, but as sods law dictates I had all sizes either side (which we tried but no 130's) so plan on ordering some tomorrow to get a complete insight into the fueling possibilities.

Regards
Darren

[Bruce M]

I get you. My hint was towards the "T" suffix, rather than the heat range. So maybe BP5ET in your case?

[Darren C]

Ah, penny drop Bruce.
I was thinking of trying a multi electrode, would be interesting to see if there was a comfortable difference. Mind you I'm a bit of a sucker for old fashion stuff and you cant play with easily or reset gaps on a multi electrode.
Then again they're relatively cheap, so quite disposable. I think I'll give them a try, just to see.

[914 KEV]

My 42 year old car in US spec I believe (unless Kev corrects me) in FI form achieved 91 HP at 4900 rpm when new.
Now 42 years, 119,000 miles and on Carbs later, I’ve got 95.3HP !
Not a bad result.

Darren the HP figure you quote for your US spec GA 2.0 engine: 91 HP @ 4900 rpm is the figure measured by the U.S. standard SAE
In Europe the HP figure is measured by DIN which is 95 HP @ 4900 rpm for a U.S. spec GA 2.0 engine.

The print out doesn’t state which standard the HP figure was measured in; depending which software is loaded in the Dyno Dynamics Dynamometer (SAE or DIN) your 914 will either be up by 4 HP or the same as the factory quoted FI figure.

[Darren C]

Thanks Kev,

I'll have to ask them which measure the machine is using (suspect its European) but either way I'm pleased with the result having bought the car blind from California and it not having run for 6 or 7 years

Today the 130 size jets arrived. Straight after work this evening I fitted them then set about terrorizing motorists on the A259 Bosham straight.

The results seem good. I cleaned up the tail pipe before I set off so I could check the colour after 4 runs. Again its ever-so slightly rich, but obviously leaner than the 135's. The good news is there is no noticeable loss of power only a debatable tiny rev band length increase in the known carb "flatspot", or that's what I have convinced myself there is. The acid test will be booking another dyno slot so watch this space as they say.
For now the driveability is about the same as the 135's but I should get 4% or so better MPG dropping a jet size and less prone to foul the plugs, which can only be a good thing.

[woody]

This morning before work I gave the Track rod ends a coat of clear lacquer over yesterdays paint.
During lunch I picked up the disc backing plates. Tonight is food shop night so after getting home later than normal and filing up the cupboards I went off to the shed.
As soon as stuff comes back from the powder coaters I tap out any threaded holes. With all the will in the world masking stuff up, the powder coat process is electrostatic so it creeps into the smallest gap.
Threads cleaned out and a little copper grease applied, they’re good to go for assembly over the weekend. Considering what the backing plates looked like beforehand(rusty dented and bent out of shape) they are flawless and BETTER than new now
The discs still haven’t turned up, so I may have to take the old ones off and back on yet again just to fit the backing plates.

Hi Darren
I still reading through your excellent post with great interest ..... As I am fairly local in your area ..... Who do you use for 'bead blasting / powder coating ? ..... Metal finishing ?


The track rod ends x-ref to Firstline part No FTR4252 £21 each