Chevy V8 Inside: 1970 Porsche 914 V8

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If you’ve never driven a Porsche 914, you owe it to yourself to find one and give it a spin. They are furiously agile cars and you feel connected to the road in a “my butt is only 4 inches above this roaring pavement” at 60 mph like nothing you can find in the showrooms today. The only downside is that they are pretty lackluster in acceleration with the stock flat-4…but you can find them with a Chevy V8 shoved where it shouldn’t be. Find this 1970 Porsche 914 with V8 offered for $10,000 in Fremont, CA via craigslist.

From the seller:

1970 porsche 914 v 8
cylinders: 8 cylinders
fuel: gas
paint color: red
size: compact
title status: salvage
transmission: manual
914 with a 420 hp blue printed 350 Chevy small block V8 built by Felix Pabros complete with all paperwork from the build and with original dyno testing results. I bought the car from the guy who bought it from Felix and who had the transaxle rebuilt before selling it to me. Unfortunately, I never got around to driving or doing anything additional to the car I literally put only about 2 miles on the car since buying it. First gear has been locked out, so it’s essentially now a 4-speed making the gears very long. The motor sounds like a beast and has more power than the stock transaxle could handle. So, unless you do a transaxle upgrade, you must baby it off the line so as not to break it. If you do that, it should last a good while. And if you can upgrade the transaxle to handle the HP and torque, even better. The front floor pan under the hood has been cut-out for air-flow reasons to accommodate the added radiator. You’ll also need a replacement seat cushion. The previous owner put in a racing drivers seat which didn’t fit me well and so I basically cut it out. If you’re tall like me, you’re better off putting the stock seat back in which lets your knees fall more to the sides. I’ve had 914’s before and never had comfort issues with the original seating. The carb doesn’t have a choke on it, so the engine must be warmed up before it will idle. You can always put one on so that you can run it cold, but according to what I read in the paperwork, it’s advised that this engine should NOT be run cold or above a specific RPM until fully warmed-up. I really don’t know as much about engines as the original builder and previous owner of the car, but all the paperwork is here, which you’re free to review beforehand.

Also, it has a salvage title. I believe the previous owner had said it was intentionally done to get around some red tape or something. I really don’t recall but I don’t see any damage anywhere which would warrant the title, so it must have been done for a reason. We’d have to get a hold of the previous owner for the specific reason. Whatever the reason, the sound of the engine alone resolved any issue I had with it, which from looking at the paperwork receipts, hand written build/spec notes, and communications with vendors, seems to have been built with genuine personal care and was part of the reason I bought the car. Losing the engine will hurt me more than losing the whole car. But as with most old car projects like this, there’s little things here and there that still need to get done….gauges…hood latch cable…etc. But the hard part is finished, and anyone who knows about these conversions they will cost at least $20K if doing from scratch.

  • Edelbrock manifold
  • Edelbrock Performer aluminum heads
  • Edelbrock Performer RPM Hydrolic cam 1500-6500 RPM
  • competition headers
  • Ross forged aluminum pistons
  • Brand new tires
  • 911 front brakes
  • Edelbrock Performer Series 600 CFM carb
  • Borla mufflers
  • Corvette radiator unit under the hood
  • Kevlar clutch disc an other misc brackets and bolt-on parts needed for the engine install were bought from Renegade Hybrids.

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