Great writing. Makes me want to revisit Hitchhikers Guide.
A few things to know before stealing my 914
261–270 of 428 posts
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#262In high school, my friends and I managed to resuscitate a 914 that had been stowed away in a garage for over a decade. We towed it to the top of a hill with a pickup truck and attempted a clutch start after we'd picked up some speed. None of us (especially me in the driver's seat) expected this to work, but amazingly it fired right up. One of my friends managed to jog alongside and jump into the car as I tried to kee…
My father had one of these just sort of gathering dust in the garage when I was growing up, utterly shocked when I turned 16 and he handed me the keys. I still like to casually drop "oh yeah, I used to have a Porsche back when I was 16." Although I must say it was in immeasurably better shape than this one :D I still dream of finding an old 914 and giving it an electric conversion… I'd have to do something about that…
Those that haven’t burned (fuel injected high pressure fuel lines degraded and cracked) have rusted out, just sits too low to ground and can’t be left that way.
Rebuilt one at 16 and took it to college!
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#263Well if he needs help with his 914 and can ship it to Europe, Von Schmidt have done a really nice job with this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzVr4cpNC58
www.schmidt-oss.com/von-schmidt-eng/
Even electric motor conversions in older cars are coming along as seen here https://youtu.be/qpcSF1kRcFY?t=55
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#264A friend of mine still has a Porsche 914, in a barn in Northern California. It hasn't moved in years. Her son, who was really into cars, once wanted to restore it. He's now an design engineer with Toyota and has more old vehicles than he needs, including a 1958 Ford Fairlane Skyliner with the roof that disassembles and stores itself in the trunk.
If someone really wants to buy the old Porsche, send me a message.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#265It always entertaining when Americans speaking about manual transmissions as something mysterious. It is not, feet on pedal, switch, feet from pedal. Europeans are surprised seeing you manipulating the wipers to control the transmission. I consider personally most automatic transmissions horrible. The gear is either to high to overtake or so low that the engine is running with too much RPM. The only exception is the…
> Europeans are surprised seeing you manipulating the wipers to control the transmission.
That is nothing new to a true European. Look up the Renault 4 shifter :-)
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#266These things are an absolute BLAST to drive but you also feel like you are literally driving a tin can - I do NOT want to think about what would happen if you got into an accident with a larger vehicle like an SUV
Met a guy that threw a V8 in one of these - must have been absolutely insane.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
how would anyone who's not driven vehicles that are decades beyond their design life know I think you just need to have driven a car from that era to understand this post and believe it -- the car doesn't neccessarily need to be that old. I had a '77 Civic in 1982 and it had many of these same "features" as his Porsche - any key (or screwdriver) could open the door or turn the ignition, it had a manual choke lever in…
No clutch interlock can be useful. Had a friend growing up who’s dad would use the starter and first gear to move his Datsun out of traffic when it stopped running.
He might have been the first to convert a Datsun to electric!
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
My father had one of these just sort of gathering dust in the garage when I was growing up, utterly shocked when I turned 16 and he handed me the keys. I still like to casually drop "oh yeah, I used to have a Porsche back when I was 16." Although I must say it was in immeasurably better shape than this one :D I still dream of finding an old 914 and giving it an electric conversion… I'd have to do something about that…
Hello to a fellow member of the "my first car was a Porsche" club. Mine was a $400 924 that broke at least once a week. Good times.
I had an early 944 - it basically had all of the negatives of the 924 and only a few positives :-D
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#269I used to bother with mechanical junk like this when I was younger. I bought 10 cars under $1000 and repaired everything from shattered valvetrain to clogged fuel filters. These days if I wanted to drive a junk car with a good brand I would LS swap it and call it a day. It's more important to treat cancer before it metastasizes unlike the hospice care this person is giving that car. It troubles me to see people suffe…
The LS swap is the equivalent of gutting a classic computer or piece of stereo equipment and jamming in a Raspberry Pi. Occasionally it's an improvement, sometimes the original parts were too far gone, but a lot of the time it's just lazy vandalism.
Didn't Tyler Hoover (on YouTube) put an LS motor in a Porsche 911? He got some hate for that.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#270When I was a kid, we had a succession of dubious used cars, at least two of which were Ladas. They were fine cars - spare parts were easy to get and you needed them often.
One time, someone broke into one of the Ladas. No problem for us, it was hard to start even with a key and the would-be auto thief apparently couldn’t get it going. Who needs an alarm?