project914

I have my car completely dismantled except the passenger side door. I wanted to check body flex with this much stuff removed. The front of the car is on jack stands, I close the door and walk through the drivers side, then I stand on the inner rocker at the rear of the door, if I bounce up and down, I can see the door glass move a little, is this acceptable? The rockers look good from the top and bottom. Is some flex okay or do I have to strengthen this area. I'm new to 914's. <img src="graemlins/drink.gif" border="0" alt="[cherrsagai]" />

DERSIX

Flex is inherent in the 914 because it is basically a convertible. If the car is street car it sounds fine. If you plan to track the car you will need to eliminate the body flex by using a Barclay Brace ( inner rocker )or a roll cage with the suspension points tied in. If you are going to do it, you might as well do it right while the car is apart.
Great track cars but you need to strengthen the bodies...speaking from experience I have cracked everything there is to crack in a 914.
Pete

SS 6

DerSix, what is a Barclay Brace? Is this something commercially available or is it a fab-yerself kind of thing?

Cupcar

I had a 914/6 I exensively stiffened and it transformed the handling. As you have discovered there are stiffness problems with convertibles, after all what is really connecting the front and rear wheels is what you see with the doors open ie only the floor of the car. Coupes are much stiffer because they turn the structure into an egg like configuration that is much stiffer. The factory welded an "X" structure under the top connecting the corners of the rollbar and windshield frame on some of their 914/6 GT racing cars, you have to be a short driver though to clear it. The factory used to have a stiffening kit available and this consisted of plates that were overwelded along the chassis side from the jack point all the way up and over the arch almost back to rear bumper. Similar kits use to be available from Automotion. There is an article in "UP Fixin der Porsche" some years ago where a guy took a 914 into a lab and did a stress analysis. The car was quite flexible but became very stiff if a tube was welded front to rear conecting the shock towers with a truss then welded down from the tube to the center of the door sill. Obviously this was a racing car, but I did the same thing but with a removable segment that allowed the driver wo get in easily for road use. Another area I had problems was around the rear suspension inner mounting point flesing under load. This had to be reiforced as well, people have problems with this area on the battery side particularly so check yours. If battery acid has leaked onto it there can be problems. Anyway, my $.02, the truss transforms the car on the track, particularly with racing tires. BTW the rear trailing arms crack down the seam sometimes and there a plates sold to overweld this area.

JPIII

You can do something like this