Learning about Porsche 914s

I've been looking at dual carburetor kits. For $500 to $600 ish I can get a 'cheap' Chinesium 40 or 44 carb kit like this:

or I can spend $800 - $1,000 for a Weber kit ...that will probably be a knock-off made in the same factory. Will I hate it if I buy the cheaper type kit? After sorting through my existing single carbs that have sat for 30+ years, I don't think I want an old used one that needs a rebuild.

There is nothing left of the original FI on any of my cars, so going back to that is not a good option.

I'd think you could do a Megasquirt setup for less than any of those if you really tried.  Any reason to not do that?

Also, if you've got a spare targa top, I'd like to see what I could do about getting it from you for a christmas present for Dad.

I didn't know they made Chinese Weber knock offs. I would imagine somebody in the VW world would be playing with these.

In reply to Snowdoggie :

I have a chinese weber on my vw rail, it's functional mostly

Mr_Asa said:

I'd think you could do a Megasquirt setup for less than any of those if you really tried.  Any reason to not do that?

Also, if you've got a spare targa top, I'd like to see what I could do about getting it from you for a christmas present for Dad.

I think that adding MS would be affordable if I had some of the fuel injection stuff (injectors, fuel rail, throttle body, ...), but all of that is gone. After I get a car sorted out and on the road for a while I do want to do that.

I have an extra top, but it is not in great shape. I'll have a few days off later this week and get a good look at it. It will probably be cheap, except for the shipping cost, but may not be in 'Christmas present' condition.

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Snowdoggie :

I have a chinese weber on my vw rail, it's functional mostly

I just found a good thread on TheSamba. I've never really browsed TheSamba before, but the guy I bought my rebuilt engine from recommended it.

"WEBER IDF" on Amazon for $99.99?

China-Webers need to be cleaned and thoroughly checked, but can be functional mostly. I think I'm going to do these: Ebay-Chinesium-40 IDFs

My moms last VW had some Chinese 40 IDFs. The linkage didn't work, but a little creativity got the job done. They always seemed to work ok. 

AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:

Mr_Asa said:

I'd think you could do a Megasquirt setup for less than any of those if you really tried.  Any reason to not do that?

Also, if you've got a spare targa top, I'd like to see what I could do about getting it from you for a christmas present for Dad.

I think that adding MS would be affordable if I had some of the fuel injection stuff (injectors, fuel rail, throttle body, ...), but all of that is gone. After I get a car sorted out and on the road for a while I do want to do that.

I have an extra top, but it is not in great shape. I'll have a few days off later this week and get a good look at it. It will probably be cheap, except for the shipping cost, but may not be in 'Christmas present' condition.

Part of it is I'm trying to get Dad reinvested in working on his car.  He works more on things he doesn't love but needs to do than things he actually loves.  A little ratty might actually work

I used the CB linkage, that seemed to be a good set-up.

   To help with carb set-up and tuning, a air / fuel ratio gauge is very handy.

The twin webers will be much better than the original fuel injection, newer injection might be easier to tune than carbs but I would prefer the carb set-up.

I have a title for the black '73. I paid a title service to get an Oklahoma 'Court Order' title. It seemed expensive when I received a simple document signed by a judge authorizing me to attain a title, but there may have been a lot of background work that went into it. It took just over a week and I have a clean and clear Oklahoma 'Classic' title now. I want to eventually do a full restoration on the car still, but for now I just plan to make it safe and solid, then put a few miles on it.

It will be getting the 1.8L rebuilt engine and the dual carbs. I received the carbs a week or so ago and they look great. After inspecting them, I put them back in the box, where they will stay until I have the engine in the car.

Today I brought it to my local glass shop to have a windshield installed. The old windshield was badly cracked and held in with poorly done silicone caulk. While it's out they are going to wire brush and prime a few minor spots of surface rust around the frame. It didn't have any edge trim for the glass, so I pulled it off of the yellow parts car. They found out that there were supposed to be some plastic clips to hold it in place. The car is going to stay at the shop a few days now while they wait for new clips to come in. I'm glad it's getting done right.

In reply to AAZCD (Forum Supporter) :

got 3 months to wait for delivery?

In reply to RossD :

Yep, "Spain Weber Carburetor" direct from China. I've had some bad experiences with Alibaba and will not shop there. Even the eBay made in China stuff I buy, I make sure that it is USA stock and a reputable seller.

Bumping this old thread up.  What happened with these cars?

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

Both yellow cars had a lot more frame rust than I wanted to deal with. I sold the Joplin car for what I had paid after I got the engine running. Kept the new parts and decals that came with it. The other yellow one is in the back yard with a deteriorating cover on it. Keeping it around in case I want to use any body parts when I get to work on the black one. It's totally stripped out with all the parts boxed up in my garage.

The black one is covered and parked in the driveway, sealed up enough that it won't be in any worse shape when I get back to it. At the time that I stopped working on it, I had realized that the tins from the 1.7L engines didn't look like they'd fit right on the rebuilt engine I bought. I'm planning to get to work on it this summer and on the road in 2024.  Not buying any more Boxsters until that car is on the road!

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

Cool!  I'm glad they're not all gone.  I'm dipping my toes into 914 stuff and this thread was right up my alley once I found it in a google search.  Looking forward to future updates