914/6 - Texas GT

[moggy]

Good news James!!

I've completed the electric conversion on your 914

[23e Heure]

Every time you pull my leg, another batch of penguins gets melted

[Mr Pharmacist]

Good news James!!

I've completed the electric conversion on your 914

[LMR]

Love the pile of parts picture. I am looking forward to progress updates.

[23e Heure]

3 out of 4 GT arches are on...

The old arches are neatly stacked on the floor, but they are just being saved for welding practice materials... there's no going back now for my car







At the next update we hope to see the prep for the front oil cooler install: the front slam panel getting cut and a louvred floor section welded into the 'frunk'.

[23e Heure]

Once the flares are fitted, the rocker covers need flared ends.

On most GTs the steel rocker covers get replaced with GRP items. Even with fettling, the fit on those is rarely optimal.

On my car we've decided to retain the original steel items, and fabricate flared ends - for a better fit, not to mention better longevity.

Work in progress. Test fit for correct end profile to meet the flare:



Under the arches will get stripped back and and stonechip applied later.
If you look closely you can make out some of the welded in GT chassis reinforcement panels, under the existing paint.

[23e Heure]

My car had already been converted to a 6, and lots of the "hard" stuff like orginal 6 oil tank etc fitted.

Two main approaches to mounting the 6 pot engine: bolt in mounts and weld in mounts.

My car came with a bolt in mount. A good one, but there's often the question to torsional strength with bolt in, especially once you fit a big/powerful engine like the 3.0 in mine.

So we are fitting a weld in mount instead. One of the most popular options with the US 914 crowd, the "maddogs mount".
Maddogs make a few trick parts for people building GTs and hot 914s, good people to work with: http://www.maddogsmotorsports.org/

Again, this area will all get cleaned up and painted later.
For now the hardest part is done - positioning the mount nicely, bearing in mind clearance required for the Webers, and getting the "big piece" of the mount welded to the firewall:

[gridgway]

It's looking great James!
Graham

[glovebox]

Excellent!!

[23e Heure]

More progress on the flared ends to the rocker covers today...

Before:



And after:



Still some more work to go, but we can already see the fit is going to be great:






Happy to see the guys are making use of all the reference materials I provided them with

[moggy]

I made a call on the rocker panels which I think you'd be in agreement with James. They were going to copy the black & white photos on the door to the letter, which included that horrible step you can see between the rocker panel and the bottom of the rear side panel. I thought it looked crap and not in keeping with the GT look so I told them to simply follow the contour of the GT wing arches but not add that step.

They certainly follow the arches better than any f/g rocker panels I've ever seen and 100 times better than the metal ones I've got with the flared ends.

On Monday your 914 is going to lose his hospital buddy as the green bug is leaving it's hospital bed next to yours and getting promoted upstairs to Richie for some paint On the plus side it's going to be replaced by a 911 so they can talk Porsche into the early hours together

[defianty]

Good call Moggy!

[23e Heure]

So we're almost done on getting the front trunk ready for the oil cooler install.

My car came with dealer installed air con, which meant there was a huge old skool condenser already sitting in place of the front trunk floor.



So first we whipped that out and made ready to weld in the louvered floor panel.

Air enters through the front slam panel, passes through the oil cooler, and exits through a louvered floor panel.
The oil cooler is mounted behind the slam panel with a shroud underneath it to help the air flow efficiently through the openings in the front slam panel and through the cooler.
Most GT builds use a GRP panel under the cooler. Although I had one ready to fit, when we looked at it we decided that for longevity steel would be better.
So the guys fabbed up a panel to fit.

Here's the frunk with the louvered floor installed and that panel ready to weld in:




And here with the oil cooler sat in position.
This is a cooler made by Setrab, for Patrick Motorsports. Not the cheapest option, but a damn nice one!:




Finally, all that fun stuff needs a shroud to protect it, as well as to help scoop and funnel the air through and out the louvered floor.
When the car goes for paint, the front trunk will get cleaned and painted light ivory, and the cooler shroud will get painted satin black:

[defianty]

Great thread for reference pics James, cheers they'll come in handy

Coming along nicely now

[23e Heure]

It had been almost all metalwork so far, and it's time we turned to the GRP panels.

We had researched long and hard about where to source the fibreglass parts. There are a number of known suppliers making GT items, both here and in Europe.

In the end we chose to go for parts sold by FSH, manufactured for them by a boatbuilder in North Germany. https://www.f-s-h.com/914-GT_1
They are not the cheapest option, but opinion seems to be that you get what you pay for: very good quality and one of the best in terms of fit.

So on the Monday before Christmas Stephen and I pooled our resources and drove 1000km in a day in Stephen's faithful Berlingo, to collect GT parts for both our projects.
(Oh and we collected some seats for my car too, more of which later.)

Starting at the front of the car, and finishing off the oil cooler install theme from previous posts...

On full on race GTs they cut out all of panel behind the opening in the GT bumper for air entry, forming a 'letterbox' hole in the front slam panel.
Originally I had intended to do that too, but when Moggy got out his calculator to calculate the air pressure physics of air in vs air out through the floor, we realised ideally we would want to remove a big section of the floor behind the cooler (and under the shroud),
I didn't want to do that: Open to the elements may be fine for a race/rally car, but I wanted to use a steel louvred floor panel to keep the elements at bay.
So we agreed to keep the front slam panel intact and just open up 5 of the round indentations/pressings in it: Sufficient airflow to keep the cooler efficient, and correct balance of airflow to stop the shroud popping off in the frunk .
Moreover, by keeping the slam panel intact, the front of the car will be just that bit stronger.

You can see these holes here.





In paint the front slam itself, and the bumper and valence, will be painted satin black. Then we'll fit a black metal mesh grill behind the bumper/valence opening, so you won't see those holes any more
Obviously at this point the bumper and valence are just taped in position for now, and fit will be very different once fettled and properly bolted to the car.

The lower valence neatly wraps around the lower corner of the each wing. The GT bumper itself is square at the corner and protrudes slightly over the valence.
This is correct: well done so far FSH