Got my belt in today. It's a bit shorter than I need which stinks, however it doesn't matter anyway. The Kpower adjustable pulley I bought is useless for anything above a 6 rib belt. The space between the walls of the pulley are 2.6 or so mm too narrow. I've sent pics to Kpower so we will see what they have to say. Luckily this doesn't stop me from moving forward but does suck to have to deal with.
The alternator pulley for reference.
Timing chain installed last night. I started setting valve lash and realized I was screwing it up so I'll get back on that maybe this evening.
This morning I took a 2.5 hour drive for some bumper parts. The seller had a bundle that included another hood and trunk. I didn't think I could fit it all in the back of the Jettawagen but it all tucked in nicely.
All in all I got two front bumpers and one rear. A set of front and rear valences. Plus the previously mentioned hood and trunk.
These have the bumper guards but I'll remove them and figure out what to do with the holes.
Just got a response back from Kpower. Apparently this pulley they use on the NC Miata kit and since the alternator and power steering pulley are 6 rib that's what they run with it. I've done a little reading and it sounds like it shouldn't be an issue to run a 6 rib belt on a 7 rib pulley. It's something I think they should notate for universal applications but they aren't the best at describing stuff like this. Oh well, I'll order the new belt and move on with my life.
I also managed to piece together one front bumper from the two I picked up. The rear also looks to be better than what's bolted to the car. After poking around behind the current fiberglass front bumper I'm reminded why the parts car is here. I'll need to rob sheet metal off of it to get this all bolted together so the bumpers can go hide somewhere until I get this thing running and driving. No sense tearing it apart further just for cosmetics when I have other sheet metal work that will need done before hand.
So the other day I bought those Rial wheels. The day after that purchase a set of wheels were posted on 914 World that better fit the looks of what I was after. They were also less than half the price, so I decided to buy them as well. Now I need to sell the Rials and the American Racing wheels.
The new ones are similarly sized in width and offset perfect for the flared 914. 16x7 et20 and 16x8 et10. I believe they are Riken Mesh based off of my limited effort of research.
Here's a pic of them on the car the previous owner ran them on for track spares.
In reply to captainawesome :
how do i post here lookin for a cheap body and frame new era need nothing else got all the parts needed i seen on in hart mich hope he sees this add mich 49446
The valve lash has been set properly. Don't know where my head was at when I started the other day but it's done now.
Then I installed the timing cover, valve cover, intake, exhaust, and coolant neck. It's starting to look like an engine again. Next up is rear main seal and making room for the starter with the Boxster bellhousing. I know this thread has a million pics already of this engine but here's some more.
Last night I took the time to weigh the engine and transaxle while pulling it off the stand.
The K24 as seen above without oil is around 277.68 lbs.
The transaxle bone dry with the steel mounts is 104.91 lbs.
The flywheel, clutch, and adapter are a combined weight of 44.98 lbs minus some hardware so add another pound or two.
In total that puts the full engine/trans assembly in the 430 lb territory. Based on my reading that's almost an exact match to the stock 914 drivetrain in weight. That's of course not including the gallons of coolant this car will need but still. Pretty cool bit of information.
Now that's out of the way I replaced the rear main seal. The old one didn't look to be in great shape. Glad I went ahead and splurged the $4 for the seal.
I then spent some time notching the trans for starter clearance. I think this kit was intended to use a k20 starter which has a smaller nose cone. I don't want to spend money on a different starter so I clearanced the adapter and nose cone of the starter.
I kinda wrestled them all together without bolts and I think it's all fitting nicely? I need to raise the engine just a little on the dolly to get everything to line up better and I didn't want to rush slapping everything together. So maybe this evening I can get them married.
Lookin great!
You can never post to many pictures.
Last night I finally got to marry the engine to transaxle. I left the flywheel stuff out of the mix as it's not needed for the mockup and saves me some weight chucking everything around. The hardware and instructions of what went where didn't quite make sense. All of the allen heads for adapter were too short. Pretty sure they should have had a pocketed hole for them but I think these were for a v2 or v3 if I were to guess?
After getting everything together I hated the fitment and look of the hardware they sent. I have a ton of bolts in the m12x1.25 size that I swapped out all of those but still need to get a few of the m10x1.5 with a narrower and flanged head. I have no clue why they didn't use a 1.25 pitch for these but I'm stuck with 1.5 regardless. I have a TON of bolts that would be perfect in 1.25. Oh well. The money spent on the hardware I won't be using stings a little but honestly keeping them OEM fitment puts my mind at ease. Enough yapping about bolts.
Let's stare at it.
Pretty happy with the fitment of the starter. I really didn't want this to look butchered.
After tinkering with the hardware for a while it was time to see if the flywheel cover will fit. For whatever reason I didn't take this part when picking up the engine so I ordered the cheapest one I could find on ebay in hopes it would fit. This bracket not only covers the flywheel but shares some load of the lower trans bolts to the block. Fun fact, Honda calls the item an engine stiffener. Initially when I set it against the adapter I thought I had just wasted my money because it didn't look like it would all fit together. However, last night it slid in place perfectly as the adapter also has two m10x1.5 threaded holes for this to bolt up. My k swapped FRS never had this part bolted on, so it can obviously be ran without. I wonder however if this could possibly dampen vibes by closing up the bellhousing circle and being less of a hinge? The k20a2 aluminum oil pan has this "stiffener" built into it and I'm pretty sure there is some variety of this on all of the K series engines.
Anyway here's a couple crappy pics of it bolted on. Isn't that just neato. Look at it.
I kinda want to dull or have sort of satin finish on the adapter. It looks too shiny. Probably won't do anything about that though.
What a sight to behold! I could stare at that all day.
In reply to maschinenbau :
Agreed! It was hard to want to go to work this morning when I could be trying to squeeze this in the engine bay to start working on mounts.
Saturday I didn't feel like doing much most of the day. In the evening I got motivated enough to clean up my mess built up over the week and that got me pumped to start of Sunday right.
Originally I wanted to get the car off the cribbing blocks for an engine bay power wash but first that meant getting all of the cables, wiring, etc. out of the way. What a pain that was. A new wiring harness for the chassis will be built based on what I have here. It's not great and sounds like another fun project to tackle from the ground up.
Anyway the battery box was staring at me. It was sorta hanging on but really needed to go. So I spent an hour or so carefully cutting and sanding it into oblivion. I didn't want any excuse to open up the hell hole since the metal there is still in one piece. I was a bit paranoid I'd still have to go down that rabbit hole, but so far it's all solid enough to ignore.
And here it is now all nice and bare.
Before taking the car off of the cribbing blocks I wanted to see how I'm going to roll the engine/trans under the car. I'm a few inches shy of clearing, but jacking the rear corner gave me just enough space to roll in.
Peekaboo.
That got me super motivated to just get it under and start placing it where it belongs. Screw the powerwashing.
It took a few minutes of figuring out but I managed to get the engine/trans on the ATV jack. I bought this when I first started the project used for $100 which was a pretty good price.
It sorta works in combo with my trans jack to get into place.
I spent quite a bit of time getting the axle flanges level, crank line centered with the chassis, oil pan high enough, engine level fore and aft, etc. just figuring out where this thing needs to live. Luckily I have quite a few pics from our very own Lof8 to go by for reference. It appears his is a bit higher up front which is probably to run the engine bar mount below the oil pan. I kinda like it being a hair lower for rear trunk lid clearance so I may make the bar go around the front of the pan or figure something out to make that work. The trans mount may be built off of the 4 bolt holes shown in the last pic along with two others on the driver side. These are much closer to the 914 mounts and wouldn't require too much fab to connect the dots. If I used the Boxster mount holes it causes clearance issues with shifter cables and just seems like more work. Totally doable and may still ending up going that route but I think I'll try the path of least resistance first.
Lots left to do but I feel like I'm making good progress if I can stay focused on one task at a time. If I can get this all bolted into the car how I want it before the new year I'll be ecstatic.
Lookin awesome! The 914-6s used a very different engine mount design than the 4 cylinders. They have a real beefy steel bracket welded on the firewall. The guy who put an f20c in his 914 used this style mount. I'll try to dig up a pic. I happen to have one of these 914-6 mounts laying in my garage if you decide to go that route.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
I think you're talking about Tixoc Loza's car when he had the 5 speed Boxster setup before going transverse. He's the guy I bought the flywheel stuff from. He had an f20c intake on it.
I think I can make a mount bar similar to yours but with a bend that goes around in front of the oil pan instead of below it. That should make the pan almost or right at flush with the bar gaining me a little space up top. I'm hoping to tinker a bit tomorrow afternoon to try and see if it will work.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Interesting. I'll keep that in mind as I plan this out.
I got another early day out of work so I spent my time in the garage. Way back when I first bought the car I noticed a bracket/bar that looked like it was a bolt in 914-6 mount, and turns out that's exactly what it is. I figured it would be a great start for my mount so the plan was to cut the bracket off to use the bar.
It looks like someone had already tried to cut the welds on it but failed to go deep enough in the right spots. Luckily there's only a couple deeper cuts that would need welded back up if I use the whole bar. Speaking of which, I wanted to wrestle this in place to see how bad clearance is up top if I tried to keep it above the bar.
It's tight. Like touching the trunk lid tight. That's with a 1/4" spacer but still. Too high.
In the meantime I figured I would do my best to measure the heck out of everything to try and plan out what I want to do to get things lower. I marked centerline of the crank up with the center of the bar.
To cut the bar in the middle and go around the pan seems too far of a stretch. Other than bending up a 1.5" round tube that fits the shape I want it's probably a no go. I don't have a bender and my neighbor that does, only has a 1" die.
Still thinking a flat plate off the back for the trans mount to a bar connecting the mounts.
More of the space I'm working with before lowering the engine a bit.
So on to the brainstorming. I think I've got a plan to make this all work. I will notch the bar where the oil pan would sit a 1/2" of the 1 1/2" bar. Only where the pan will collide, the rest of the bar stays the same size. Then I can sister some 1" tubing on one or both sides of the bar spanning at least a few inches past the notch to gain the strength back. The notch cut out will be plated as well. Then I will plate the bottom where the tubes overlap at the notch. This is probably overkill but also I can't think of a reason this wouldn't work. So that gets me a 1/2" lower but if I use only a 1/8" shim to gap the pan we are at 5/8". If I want to lower the engine a smidge more, I have some spacers that will get me another 1/8" to put between the engine mount and bar bolts giving me 3/4" of an inch drop.
Hope all of that makes sense. I'll definitely gusset, plate, whatever the heck out of it to make sure it's strong. I stuck a scrap piece of 1" tubing to kinda show what I'm thinking.
Here you can see the sins of the previous guy trying to cut the bracket off. Luckily it's just steel and I'll glue some metal back in place there before plating it on the bottom.
Here you can kinda see the drop I'll get with the notch.
So my only question is should I put 1" tubing on both sides or is that overkill? To me it seems like one side should be plenty and I'm not a fan of making it a huge bulky piece if I can avoid it. Or is it possible to wrap the whole notch with angle iron on both sides instead of the tubing?
And then I see something prebent at almost the right length that may be worth the money to do what I originally thought would work? It's slightly larger tubing but my eye to eye for the current bar is 41 3/4". It's probably just enough space to cope and weld to the bung. I don't know if I really need enough clearance to bother but something I'm pondering.
I decided to just start chopping up the bar I have. On the way home I picked up a stick of 1 1/2" angle iron for reinforcement.
Planned cutting.
A little choppy choppy.
A 3 foot chunk of angle cut to match and tacked in place.
Still need to plate the inside but let's see if it fits and actually gives me the space I need.
We are in great shape! Room everywhere I need it now without adding an 1/8 at the bar spacing and still using a 1/4" spacer between the oil pan for planned gap.
It was a good time to call it a night. I don't have material to fill in the notch I cut out and I probably will plate the backside of the bar as well. Also I need some plate to make engine brackets, hoping my father in law has some when we visit tomorrow for turkey day. If not I'll chase some down Friday.
That should work!
I took an unintended short break from the 914.
A cheap $60 Diamondback Overdrive Expert MTB popped up on MarketFace so I spent a few days going over it. The non drive side crank was loose which wallered out the taper rendering them useless. The bottom bracket was crunchy, but luckily I had one in my stash along with a better saddle. I live in the "MTB capitol of the world" so there are often good deals on parts. An almost brand new 10 speed Deore groupset was $60 and a new FSA crankset with a barely used narrowide chainring for $20 got me all good to go. Just waiting on the chain to arrive and then it can sit until I decide to sell it. I rarely ride anything my Haanjo Metro can't handle with a rigid fork but it was a nice distraction.
With all of that out of the way it was time to dive back into things. I fashioned up a bracket linking 3 bolts to the driver side of the block. I originally bought some 1.5" .120 wall round tubing for the arms but it felt like the square tubing was a better fit. I bought some steel spacers for the rear trans mount still waiting for me to fab, and happened to have a couple extras. It just so happens that one of these cut in half puts me square with the third hole and means I have less notches in the bracket itself. After what felt like hours cutting, trimming, and fitting I finally had something ready to tack in place. You can kinda see the spacers with the first two bolts visible.
I had to tilt the driver side up a bit to get the axle flanges closer to level. The Kennedy adapter must have been set for a small degree or two of lean. Luckily no fitment issues that I can see by the hood or firewall. It's a bit close on the passenger side firewall by the top of the valvecover but I don't think it's ever going to touch.
Now it's all tacked together. You can also see the water neck is now pointing downward. I found a guy that makes an adapter using the stock thermostat. It reclocks the neck but also ensures the thermostat functions just like OEM. I was hoping the direction would land exactly where the hose will end up without splicing but now that it's in place I'm not so sure. Either way this angle is still easier to work with and I feel is one less place for an air pocket to form.
And from above. I may add some gusseting to share the load with the other bolts more but that can be added later.
I also manged to cut up a template for the passenger side. In fact I cut and drilled the bracket but failed to get a pic. So pretend the lowcarb CAD template is steel. I'm hoping to have some time this evening to get the passenger side mostly finished up. Motivation is pretty high right now, gotta take advantage.
The intake area is going to require some trimming. I bought a cheap 2.75" 135 degree silicone elbow and trimmed one end down just short enough to fit the throttle body. I don't know how much I'll need to trim but it does get things pointed the direction I want and doesn't appear to be restrictive.
Looks like you're making great progress! Excited to see this thing run!
Great work. Nice progress!
In reply to golfduke :
Once these mounts are done I should be able to fashion up a quick connection to make it run. That should be a nice motivator for sure.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Thanks! I've got a ways to go but getting it all bolted in place should be a big milestone event.
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