Burn Your Rulebook: Meet The Half11 – Speedhunters
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Given our track record, it’s probably a little hard to believe that Keiron and I don’t intentionally seek out projects that provoke knee-jerk reactions. However, I promise you there is no ‘trigger’ pay packet bonus here at Speedhunters. If there was, both of our projects would probably be further along.
While I’m being honest, as much I’m becoming accustom to expecting the unexpected with Keiron’s photoshoots, his curve balls seem to be getting wilder with each pitch. Seeing an eyeless Porsche staring back at me from within this photoset, ‘Here we go again…’ was about all I could say before getting down to business.
Considering the photos breaking up these paragraphs, I’ll grant you skepticism regarding our unintentional, yet continuous sparking of powder kegs. Kyle’s Mustang, Live To Offend’s E30 and Mike’s K-powered Ferrari – these are all builds that have veered from paths previously considered acceptable.
The appropriately-named ‘Half11′ is no less of a departure from roads well-travelled. A Porsche 911 carved up more than a festive Turkey might seem like sacrilege for social media’s sake, but this car is actually a homage to motorsport of the 1960s and ’70s – an era its designers view as one of the most romantic.
To better explain how and why this car is a homage rather than a desecration, I first need to better introduce the parties involved.
Oil-Filled Pens
Oil Stain Lab is the creative umbrella under which twin brothers Iliya and Nikita Bridan operate. The Ukrainian-born, Canadian-raised and Italian-educated siblings have found home in California. Neither brother grew up with a wrench in their hand, a point worth noting before proceeding with this article. The Half11 project is as much a design experiment as it is a real-world vehicle.
“We (mostly) drew cars and dinosaurs as kids… it’s much easier to design cars as profession than it is dinosaurs,” Nikita explained, before quickly adding “unless you work for a film studio”.
After formal education, both Iliya and Nikita went through several rounds of on-the-job training. Individually, they have built names for themselves by being incredibly methodical with their design approach. Typically working for companies with at least a tangential connection to cars, they are as capable designing quarter panels as they are advertising panels.
In a designer’s 9-5 (rarely does such a thing exist) they are challenged to deliver clients’ needs, even when those needs are radically unclear.
Client work has made Iliya and Nikita’s skin incredibly thick when it comes to criticism. So, comparatively any negative feedback the Half11 has received online has simply been regarded as par for the course.
Both are thankful that their day jobs keep them very busy. The fruits of their labor have also allowed them the resources necessary to play with cars in their limited ‘down’ time.
That time between client emails and personal commitments is where Oil Stain Lab was born. It has always existed to be an escape, and as a result there’s never been a reason to compromise or play things safe.
Therefore, a 911 with an F1 car shoved up its rear end seems like a perfectly reasonable idea.
Crass aside, before we get to the nuts and bolts, I feel it worthwhile to mention again that this is a fun project for the Bridan brothers.
Their tongue and cheek approach to the build as a whole is evident via the IKEA-themed ad above. Could you imagine an IKEA-produced car? Hopefully they’d add a bit more length to those damn Allen wrenches.
Oil Stain Lab has extended their imagination to a robust ‘alternate history’ of the Half11’s conception too.
“The ‘alternate history’ images have actually upset people the most,” Nikita explained. Simply put, some self-proclaimed Porsche ‘experts’ have become wildly upset to learn this car never raced historically, nor was it ever experimented with in secret, despite images that suggest it may have.
I have not waded through all the comments on Oil Stain Lab’s social media accounts, but one can only imagine the confusion among Porsche enthusiasts when they realize they’ve been subject to a deep fake. It’s one of the more clever ways I’ve seen a company build project buzz in some time.
For the Bridans, rooting their project in the aesthetic of the 1960s and 1970s has really helped ground it. “Racing in the ’60s and ’70s was the peak era for many enthusiasts,” said Nikita as he described his passion for motorsport designs of that time period.
As someone that’s never been much more than a casual motorsports fan, I must agree with Nikita’s assessment. That era is particularly enticing simply because it’s so stripped down. The raw pursuit of speed and comparatively rudimentary understanding of vehicle design and aerodynamics led to some of the most creative and celebrated vehicles in motorsport history. Adding to that, these cars were piloted by true gladiators with unique personalities.
From a purely fandom perspective, it then makes perfect sense that a model of a Tyrrell P34 wheel sits in the studio.
It also makes sense that a six-wheeled version of the Half11 also exists within Oil Stain Lab’s alternate timeline.
That’s Cool, But Is The Half11?
The Half11 is the progression of what the Bridans call a small collection of hot-rodded 911s. Having done your typical purist – and a few non-purist – modifications, they wanted to make a drastic departure from ‘standard Porsche’.
A car that simply looked different wouldn’t be enough, however. It had to be uniquely engineered as well.
Naturally, the project was approached in a way that mirrored Iliya and Nikita’s professional endeavors. With design language rapidly developing thanks to their alternate history, sketches hit the table at a fever pace. During this process, the brothers occupied both ends of the boardroom table, as the clients and also as the agency.
When I asked if the pair learned to fabricate as part of the Half11 process, Nikita explained that despite having an extensive interest in automobiles, their hands-on experience started rather late. “I didn’t learn to drive stick until 25, and hadn’t done an oil change until about then either. So no, we didn’t do the heavy fabrication.”
Joe Scarbo from Scarbo Performance took the brothers’ original drawings and turned them into functional designs using SolidWorks software. From there, Joe got to work creating the chassis in DOM tubing and the suspension components in heat-treated 4130 chromoly.
Joe is one of a handful of wonderfully talented people that have been roped into this car’s construction. During the design process, he ensured the chassis would work as people would both expect and demand it to. In particular, keeping the car to the overall height the design called for has proven quite the challenge. As a point of reference, the dash has been lowered roughly 2.25-inches from where it originally sat in the 911.
The goal all said and done, is a vehicle that is about the height of a Ford GT40. In person, the Half11 has a huge presence, despite actually being rather small.
Driveline angles become problematic the more you squish a car and Joe spent considerable time in this area making it all work.
A lot of care went into reworking and redeveloping ideas without changing the overall aesthetic. Today, the engine sits as low as it physically can while retaining drivability.
On the topic of engines, yes, that is indeed a Chevrolet JMS Racing LS-based V8 mated to a GT2 996 gearbox. Is a pushrod V8 the most creative power plant? Perhaps not, but with so many irons on the fire, shoehorning in a German-built V8 or a turbo air-cooled motor is something that can come later.
The de-stroked V8, complete with ITBs and a wild exhaust, should still sound pretty exotic from deep within the back of this car.
‘Inspired By’
Joining Joe in the hands-on department is metal fabricator Jake Krotje. Jake, or ‘The Flying Dutchman’ as he’s often known, is the metal madman that constructed the ‘911’ out of aluminum. This project did start with a VIN-equipped chassis (this will aid in street registration later), but very little of that core remains today.
Similar to Singer creations and builds of similar nature, this Half11 can be viewed as a re-imagination.
It’s a small wrinkle the brothers have to consider when marketing the project, as they do plan on producing them as a boutique vehicle. With a company motto that reads ‘We Live For Creating Dreams’ it only makes sense they start with their own.
But, let’s not put carts before horses here – there is still a huge amount of work to be done before the Half11 is ready to be manufactured beyond this prototype.
Much of what you see in the various renders has become reality using modern production methods. The very intricate exhaust for example has been printed with Inconel powder – cutting-edge tech for a vehicle with its roots in the past.
Since these photos, the Half11 was taken to Riley Stair, another individual whose name is closely associated with a number of outlandish builds. Riley handled the final wiring and plumbing of the car.
What’s Next?
At this point, the natural question would be what’s next for the project? This is where things get interesting. The car pictured will always belong to the Bridan brothers. It’s a test mule, so it will continue to exist in somewhat of a fluid state.
Will the production cars, if produced, have the same dampers, wheels and hand-cut slicks? Maybe, maybe not.
The same question can be asked of the engine. Switching to a more exotic powerplant – which is something many have called for – would suit the wild nature of the design, but would also require reworking the back half of the chassis.
At that point, if things are to be extended, then perhaps the wheel diameter would need to be upsized to handle the new elongated footprint. This plays with the visuals of the final result, so it’s currently low on the list of items to be addressed.
The future is uncertain for most things, and most definitely the Half11.
By the time you read this, the car will have completed its very first track day at Buttonwillow Raceway Park. Provided all went well and the Half11 doesn’t come back down to the studs, we hope to catch up with it again in the future for an in-depth feature.
Until then, enjoy the madness in the gallery below and follow the build on Oil Stain Lab’s Instagram.
Global Time Attack in the streets of Long Beach. To properly convey the experience of being trackside as some of my friends were competing, I need to back up for a minute.
Let’s go with football. It’s always more fun watching a game when your home team is playing. In fact, if they aren’t the ones playing, I generally have little interest in watching the game. Not a very profound statement, is it?
Unless you’re a student of a particular sport, have a fantasy roster with players from a wide range of teams, or you simply really, really love it, you probably aren’t watching every single game. The casual fan just doesn’t have the time or energy to take in all that information. But load that same casual fan up with a few beers with friends at their home stadium — or even on their living room couch — and you’re likely to see some real passion emerge when the game is on the line.
People who don’t even care for the sport will still go out to a bar for a couple games out of the season and lose their mind in the crowd a few friends and dozens of strangers. As humans, we have a lot of allegiances that don’t totally make sense. We’ll defy logic to argue that a certain call went our way, whether the evidence is in our favor or not. We’re human, and we like other humans. We like our city best, or our state. We want to be part of a tribe and we want our tribe to win.
To me, just seeing time attack in the Long Beach was a win-win situation, regardless of the actual results. I’ve followed a number of the cars and drivers over the years, and know a few of the competitors personally. And there they were, racing back to back with IMSA and IndyCar on closed public roads in my home state.
As awesome as the feeling was for me and others in my position attending the race, you can imagine along with me that it was exponentially more so for the drivers themselves.
My friend Amir of RS Future had a rough weekend race-wise, but he was still so enthusiastic about the experience afterwards. “It has been a dream to race there. I’ve attended the GP as a spectator for over a decade, so to be able to compete alongside IMSA and Indy was surreal.”
“Driving in an Acura at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach was also a cool experience. I’m a huge fan of the brand, so that definitely added to some of the magic.” Amir goes on, “Not to mention, it was wild doing a track walk with some of the greatest drivers in the country.”
Ravi Dolwani of CSF Radiators had a similar sentiment: “My dad went to Long Beach State — he always used to tell me stories of watching the races from his friend’s apartments overlooking the track. It sounded so cool.”
Ravi started going to the races here himself around a decade ago, watching Pirelli World Challenge and Formula Drift tear up the streets of Long Beach.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize how it must have felt for Ravi, Amir, and the rest of the teams who actually got to go out on such an iconic track themselves after watching along for so many years. Even shooting at the Long Beach Grand Prix was a special experience for me; something I would have thought was completely out of reach seven years ago when I picked up a camera for the first time.
The same is surely true of these teams and drivers when it came to dreaming of racing in Long Beach, and yet, there they were.
The Field
What I love most about time attack is its accessibility. I’ve been shooting for a newer track day organizer in California called Corsa Club, and they’re in works to introduce a time attack-style session to their events around the state, wherein built Miatas with good drivers have their chance to harass Corvettes and their owners. Anyone can get a taste of this motorsport.
Incidentally, speaking of Corvettes, it was Feras Qartoumy in the Qar Optics Z06 who took the top spot at Global Time Attack in Long Beach with a 1.19.571. For some perspective, that’s about half a second quicker than the fastest lap in the GTD class during the IMSA race, which was set by a Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
I certainly haven’t been the sport’s biggest fan or supporter, but as a more casual fan I’ve always enjoyed the format of time attack competition. More than that, I like the competitors and their cars. There’s a relatively low barrier to entry, as every entry is production-based and the rulebook isn’t super restrictive. Since you can go absolutely wild with aero and horsepower there’s a huge variety of interesting and unique solutions that emerge across the field.
As I was rounding the circuit, I loved seeing the fans interact with the cars on the Global Time Attack roster from the other side of the fence. A dad hoisted his kid up to get a better look at Will Drees’s Honda Prelude as it ripped by. “That was your mom’s first car,” he shouted to his incredulous child.
All of the cars are cool in their own right, and none of them are insanely out of reach as a starting point, either. They’re all interesting to me and each one would deserve its own feature here. The same is not really true of IMSA or IndyCar, where the technology becomes not only monotonous but increasingly incremental and secretive. In the Global Time Attack paddock, everything was on display and entirely accessible to fans.
Speaking of displays, CSF Race had a proper setup at the event, where I noticed their nitrous-ready B58 manifold sitting on the table. Of course, that wasn’t the only interesting thing sitting around…
It was my first time up close with the CSF Evo for a few years, so I wanted to take in every last detail while it was apart in the paddock. I hadn’t seen it since it was rebuilt from essentially a show car into a half-mile car, after which it was eventually converted into time attack spec. A fire ensued in their first outing a couple years back, but Ravi and the CSF team didn’t give up. Now, they’re racing in the streets of Long Beach with Randy Pobst behind the wheel.
Ravi shares he was “really nervous because, even after changing our power steering setup to a complete EPAS system, we were — and still are — having issues which we’re trying to sort out. It worked pretty well during our two test days before the Grand Prix and it just decided to die when we went out for the first practice session on Friday. With no power steering and no run-off area — just walls — I was really nervous about a potential crash. But Randy is such a professional, and did his best to drive through it.”
Ravi told me that even though the results were expected with the steering issues they suffered, it was ultimately disappointing. Regardless, he expressed that overall the experience was a very special one that not many get to experience, and he hopes to come back next season with the car fully sorted.
In The Moment
Racing always brings surprises, and the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
The taste of surprise and disappoint were not unique to the CSF Race crew over the Grand Prix weekend.
As I mentioned, my friend Amir and his K24-swapped NSX didn’t have the smoothest of outings in Long Beach. His connecting rod also had an outing, you could say, although usually you want those to stay within the confines of your engine block. Being local, Amir and the RS Future team did their best to see if they could complete work in the shop overnight on a spare engine, but no dice.
They brought the car back to display in the paddock, where I asked Amir about the experience overall. “Being my first street circuit, I was a little nervous, but quickly forgot about the walls and really enjoyed the layout. I wouldn’t say I was surprised but the surface was really bumpy in some areas [and] changes in the surface over the course were an interesting challenge. However, we setup our KW Competitions to be pretty compliant, and they did great on the difficult surface.”
Amir continued, “It was an unfortunate result, but our team has done a great job of turning every failure into a victory one way or another. We’ve learned from what happened and made changes to our program to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Hopefully we get a chance to go back for a shot at redemption.”
It also wasn’t a total loss for the RS Future team anyway, with eight out of the 20 competing cars running Amir’s RS Future aero over the weekend. Offering track support, full builds, aero packages, and more, you can find his shop in Southern California.
The Street Class victory ended up going to another friend of mine, Jackie Ding in his GR Supra. I’ve seen Jackie and this car come a long way, and he always seems hungry for more.
Steven Chan piloted his GT-R to first place in the Limited Class and, as I mentioned above, Feras Qartoumy’s Corvette was fastest overall in Unlimited.
This fourth story wraps up my coverage from Long Beach, but leaves me wanting more. More street circuits, more racing in California, and more time attack. Here’s to hoping that in one year from now I’m sitting on the curb on Shoreline Drive as my friends zip by in cars they built themselves, only for hundreds of millions of dollars to follow them shortly thereafter in the form of open-wheel racers.
Behind The Wheel Of Pete Stout’s Porsche 914 – Speedhunters
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Making Memories
It’s been over a year now since I was sitting in the driver seat of Pete Stout’s 1973 Porsche 914, and yet the rumble of the 2.2-liter flat-six positioned directly behind me feels as effervescent in my mind today as it did in the moment.
“You can go faster,” Pete excitedly urged me with a sly grin as I felt my way through the corners on a winding mountain pass some 20-odd miles north of San Francisco, California. The crisp forest air lightly battered my hair as on and on I went, relishing the marvelous sensation of the 914’s center of gravity, which felt as though it was riding along in the right-rear pocket of my pants.
As I opened the throttle, allowing the maximum volume of air to pass through the velocity stacks and on into the flat-six, Pete turned his face upward through the open targa top to the tips of the redwoods and closed his eyes in reverie. “That’s the sound of Le Mans, 1970,” he shouts to the heavens from the passenger seat.
The sun had already descended beneath the horizon by the time we made our way back to Pete’s garage to store the car, and a certain sentimental memory was triggered. I was four or five, bouncing around on the rear bench seat of my uncle’s 1966 Mustang. The carbureted V8 shook the entire car, there was an aura of spent fuel in the dark air, and I remember the feeling of the textured vinyl covering the unsupportive and decades-old seats. If memory serves, my uncle had an aftermarket sound system in the car, but the soundtrack of the engine through a hot exhaust was all that we required on that particular evening. As these things go, I ended up buying a first-generation Mustang myself years later. It was my first project car and ultimately a life-changing experience.
Though Pete’s 914 – which has been in his family since the 1980s and in the Bay Area for even longer – left the factory in a much more refined state than a first-generation Mustang. With both the small tweaks Pete has made and the swapped flat-six gargling all that fuel and air, the closest thing I could place it to was a muscle car. In fact, it sort of is one. It just happens to be a 914 and thus is also capable of going ’round a corner in a manner very much unlike a muscle car.
It was a driving experience like no other, and one in particular that I’ll never forget. Pete’s 914 just so happened to be the first Porsche I had driven, and what a foray into the marque it was. I spent weeks afterward scouring the internet for 914s, and from time to time I still spend a moment to take a fleeting look. There was a dark green one I almost pulled the trigger on, and in retrospect I regret not doing so, as it seems the popularity and cost of the 914 is going the way of the 911: Up.
High School
Everything about this particular Porsche, though, is either unique to or innately special to Pete. And yet, curiously, Pete never wanted this 914. At least when he was 15 he sure didn’t, but that’s when he started working on and – soon after – driving it.
If you want some insight on Pete’s background, you might want to take a pit stop here, where I took a deep dive with Pete into his role as editor of 000 Magazine. There, as I’ll reiterate here, I explained that Pete really wanted the family’s diesel A1 VW Rabbit at the time, as he had dreams of modifying it.
Not to mention, in the early 1990s the 914 was “deeply unstylish,” and Pete went on to explain that this one wasn’t in good shape, either. One of the doors had been kicked in when it was vandalized in Southern California while off to college with his older brother. A taillight was also broken, the paint was oxidized, and the clutch needed to be replaced.
But still, Pete ended up with what his father called a “dishonest Volkswagen” – finished in Bahia Red over black with narrow 15-inch Pedrini alloys – and was awarded ‘Hooptiest Car’ in his senior year of high school.
More important than all of this, Pete’s 914 was powered by a questionable flat-four of unknown displacement (probably 1,911cc) paired with a 5-speed manual transmission, which Porsche updated for the 1973 models with an improved side-shift mechanism. Going a bit deeper, Pete explains that the car bears serial number #193, making it one of the so-called ‘first 1,000′ 1973 914s – and had the vinyl A-pillars associated with those cars.
“About the only 1973 equipment I found on the car was the transmission and the front bumper guards. This car had 1972 doors with no crash beams, 1972 door windows, a 1972 top, rain tray, headlight switch…” Pete continues, “This is indicative of why ‘correct’ is a moving target, and not just with Porsche. Manufacturers use up what they have when possible.”
The car was Pete’s daily driver to El Cerrito High in the East Bay, positioned just north of Berkeley and Oakland. Being in high school, this meant that the car could only be improved using a high school budget, but Pete didn’t let this stop him.
While initially cool to the 914, he soon discovered what any car represents to a high-schooler: freedom. He went to work on making it his right away, and the obvious first job was lowering the car and ditching the skinny tires. Pete says, “Jim Breazeale at European Auto Salvage Yard [EASY] proved an invaluable help here on said high school budget. Many hours were spent scouring his warehouse for better parts than those on the car.”
The car remained a daily driver for the next few years, which meant projects had to be done quickly – the 914 served as transportation not only to El Cerrito High, but jobs at Toys R Us and, later, Costco. In fact, Pete shared with a chuckle that he once went on a date in San Francisco with five-lug wheels on one side and four-lug wheels on the other; “she didn’t even notice!”
For college abuse, Pete purchased a K-platform Plymouth Reliant for the princely sum of one whole dollar, which made the 914 a second car – sort of. The truth was, he couldn’t afford to drive the 914 in college, but the Plymouth would eventually teach him what anyone who has purchased a daily driver to supplement their project car knows: Just having something else to get to work makes all the difference.
After college, the 914 remained a fun car for five years or so, but it resumed daily-driver duties for about a year after Pete married his wife Rebekah, who ended up in Pete’s first new car, a 2003 WRX.
Today, Rebekah handles important duties at 000: they call her ‘The Money’. Besides that brief period, the 914 has since been a pampered second-stringer. Thus, around 2008, Pete began what he thought would be a quick repaint, which ended up triggering a chain reaction that might feel familiar.
He says the “new paint made the trim look bad, new trim made the Fuchs look tired, refinished Fuchs made the calipers look bad, a brake rebuild and upgrade prompted a complete suspension rebuild.” And finally, this tight new suspension setup caused Pete to cast a second look toward the mid-mounted engine in his quest for a better driving experience on California’s splendid back roads. Particularly after Rebekah remarked that it still sounded like a tractor.
Six Swap
Even before Pete went on this quest for more power, the 914 1.7-liter was a formidable foe. He thinks back to a night just over two decades ago, when 000 co-founder Alex Palevsky and a mutual friend of theirs came over from San Francisco for a tour of the East Bay’s best driving roads high over UC Berkeley. The roster included an E36 M3 and a 993 Turbo; then “glassy-eyed stuff,” Pete says of the latter’s 400-odd horsepower. He parked his 914 at the base of the mountain, “because it was a tractor,” ready to hitch a ride in one of his friends’ modern sports cars.
To Pete’s surprise they resisted: ‘No no, we want to follow you.’ And what an educational night it became.
All three were fair drivers, with many fast-paced miles under their belts but still in their early 20s. Although Pete had the advantage of knowing these particular roads, he was very (very, very) down on horsepower. A three-to-one advantage went to the E36, and a five-to-one advantage to the 993. And yet the lightweight mid-engined platform served to shock them all as it managed to keep pace all night. Each driver rotated, and each member of the trio came away with an appreciation for how much speed you could carry in the 914, and how much confidence the chassis inspired. A ‘70s car with 80 horsepower had no business being this fast.
Fast-forward to around a decade ago, when a new character enters our story: John Holleran. Pete had met John while digging around in the EASY lot during his high school years, and John, a student at Pinole Valley High School at the time, performed a six-swap on his own 914 after the hot-rodded four he had gave up the ghost. This made a big impression on young Pete back then, and therefore John was the one Pete called before signing the paperwork to have his own engine replaced with a built-up Type IV. “Am I crazy to spend five figures on a Volkswagen engine?” Pete asked. John ended up putting in a good word about the builder Pete was going with, so all seemed well.
Then, a call back the following day threw the best of monkey wrenches in Pete’s well-laid plan. John’s friendly voice on the other end of a second-gen iPhone said, “Have you called the guy yet? Because I have a bunch of parts I’ve been saving for a conversion that isn’t going to happen, and I hate eBay and I hate Craigslist…”
Pete would need to supply a set of carburetors, an air box, engine mounts, engine tins, a tachometer, an exhaust, and a number of other parts, but John had most of the big pieces. Namely, an unstressed engine case that was pulled from a stock 911T, a nice set of used Mahle pistons and cylinders he’d been holding onto, a new old stock oil tank, and more.
John ended up building and installing the 2.2-liter flat-six that’s in the car today, which he worked on during weekends and nights when time was available. Pete helped as he could, and wishes he could have been more involved. “It was really neat to be doing this with someone your age, who you’ve known since high school, and who came up in the same school district you did,” Pete says. “We were acquaintances then; we are friends now.”
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The six made good use of the Mahle pistons and cylinders; the compression ratio was bumped up, work was performed on the cylinder heads, and Solex camshafts were utilized. Exhaust headers mean the air-cooled car has no heater in the cabin -something Pete hopes to get around to – but the sound out the Dansk sport muffler seems a nice trade if you ask me.
Further aiding in this fantastic sound is a set of Weber triple-throat carburetors from the classified ads on Pelican Parts. Hidden under the air cleaner you’ll find a crank-fire ignition system with a mix of older Electromotive components and newer bits from Clewett Engineering. It was all made to fit using a Rich Johnson 914-6 engine tin and mount set, and power is transferred to the rear wheels through a lightweight flywheel and a rebuilt 5-speed dogleg 901 manual transmission. How much power, you might ask?
With the factory air box removed for tuning, the six produced 169.9whp at RPM Engineering in Santa Rosa, or more than double what the old 1.7-liter could do at the crank. Pete, who was hoping for 160-170hp at the crank, as much as a stock 2.2-liter 911E might make, was thrilled, though he says the engine lost 20hp with the air box back in place and only gained 12 of it back when the air filter was removed. The air box (seen above cast aside in the grass to expose those glorious carburetors) has since been updated with a GT3 Cup-style intake, but Pete isn’t sure what the final horsepower number is and doesn’t seem all that concerned: “It’s driveable, with great midrange torque for such a small engine – and that’s a lot more important than peak power numbers.”
The added power came at the cost of around 100-120 extra pounds compared to the Type IV, which Pete was initially leery about; “I liked the philosophical aspect of the lighter engine,” he says. However, in driving the car, you can tell that all of that weight is added exactly where you want it.
Bits & Pieces
Weighing an estimated 2,150lbs, the car feels amazingly balanced as you feather the throttle around a corner. It feels good on hard braking and wide open on a straight, too, but the most amazing sensation in this car is hitting an apex at speed. You can imagine that this is made even better by the fantastic sound that follows as the Webers go to work, and every moment of the driving experience is special.
This is thanks to a few major things that Pete has done over the years, paired with hundreds of finite adjustments. Take Pete’s lug nuts for an example of the latter, which are factory aluminum pieces from a 911 that were re-anodized in gray after their tops were cut off and the resulting edges chamfered.
The five-lug suspension is a mix of early 911 and 914-6 gear, which Pete found in the Richmond Classified Flea Market in 1992, and drove out to Modesto to get. This setup was accompanied by Bilstein HDs when I drove it, but Pete says he’s going to switch back to Koni Specials (AKA reds). Apparently they feel even better, so I might need to go for another drive to make sure Pete isn’t making things up.
Five-lug ‘Deep Six’ Fuchs were poached from EASY, also during high school, and have since been refinished by Harvey Weidman to resemble the unfinished look seen on some of Porsche’s customer race cars in the late ‘60s. The 15×6-inch wheels wear 185/60R15 Avon CR6ZZ rubber, popular among vintage racers and incredibly confidence-inspiring during spirited backroad driving.
Braking is provided by a set of period Brembo aluminum front calipers paired with ventilated early-911 rotors and stock aluminum hubs. These calipers were polished before being clear-anodized and rebuilt by Eric Shea at PMB Performance, while the stock ATE rear set were cadmium-plated in silver.
The Aura
This incremental approach was applied to the exterior as well, which while appearing stock at quick glance sports 30-odd modifications. The most obvious are the earlier and more attractive guard-less bumpers, Hella H4 headlights with black surrounds, Euro taillights and turn signal lenses, and the lack of US-market side markers.
The antenna has been removed along with the Porsche lettering on the engine grille, while a Euro ‘914 VW Porsche’ badge has been added at the rear. A fiberglass rear valance serves to save weight and delete the stock single-exit exhaust. There’s an LE-style front air dam, and a couple dozen other little items that make this car Pete’s.
Pete shared that back in the ‘90s when the car became his, he wanted to find a 916 body kit. “Everyone was trying to make their 914 look unlike a 914,” he explains, further expanding that he’s thankful now that he couldn’t afford to do that at the time. Instead, Pete “caught a vision” of the car mostly stock, low, and with the right wheel/tire setup. I’d say this has been executed to a T, and then some.
Touching on that unique 914 style, Pete is glad that the car is finally valued for what it is: “Super spare, super simple; alternative thinking and design – things that I’ve come to realize were in line with the mid-century movement.”
Mildly side-tracked but curiously on-topic, Pete continued by talking Eichler houses: “A new design movement might be popular early on – or not – but it often fades, especially [when] groundbreaking… If, after 20 or 30 years of deep undesirability it comes back, it’s often here to stay.” In a nutshell, this describes the cycle of the 914, and Eichlers, perfectly.
“A lot of mid-century houses, including the one we moved into a few years ago, were built to bring good design to the masses,” says Pete. “The same is true of the 914, and it was very advanced for its day… in a lot of ways. What’s funny is that something that wasn’t particularly special, or at least wasn’t considered as such back then can change over time – or at least the way we approach it can change. This car wasn’t a special model, and doesn’t have a special VIN. And yet it keeps reminding me that you don’t need that to have a lot of fun out on the road. If anything, it reminds me that stuff can actually get in the way of having a lot of fun out on the road.”
Inside the cabin there are many details that remain from Pete’s high school days. For example, he admits that he’d prefer clean door panels, which he cut for speakers, but also says “the parts that were there back then” are becoming more important to him over time.
There are little scratches on some of the trim, scratches likely made by Pete, a friend of Pete’s, or maybe even his older brother who used the car before him. Each of these imperfections contains a story, and while the car might be improved by erasing them, you’d actually lose something in the process. Through and through this is Pete’s car, and like everything else he’s updated the interior where he sees fit rather than as an exercise of perfectionism.
The dashboard was replaced with a nicer used one, and EASY came through once again with a used carpet set. Seats from GTS Classics feature heating elements (but have since been replaced with period Scheel seats), an early Prototipo-style steering wheel has been installed, and the center console has been removed altogether. Pete says the Weltmeister short-shift kit was “purchased used from EASY in high school and installed in a Costco parking lot on my lunch break. Still there, still works. A lot of people give the 901 a hard time, but this one shifted beautifully once I’d gone through it – and it got better when Holleran was finished with the conversion. It’s no GT4 shifter, but I’ve never missed a shift, never had an issue with it.”
Revelations
It’s a focused build that has been honed over the decades, and it feels that way behind the wheel. Asking Pete about the purpose behind the project as a whole, he replies, “While the car has been on track, has been autocrossed, and has been rallied, the purpose of the rebuild was none of the above; it’s just meant to be something fun to drive on the backroads of California.”
And what a fantastic job Pete has done in that regard. The chassis inspires such profound confidence and allows you to push it so much closer to the limit than possible in other cars.
Since driving Pete’s 914, I took out a pair of vintage 911s for some contrast. They were both incredibly compelling cars in their own right, but they were more of a battle to wrangle around. The feedback was fantastic, and I felt very close to the road in both. Naturally, the unsettling feeling of the rear engine would dissipate over time, but – like the trio of young drivers experienced in their M3, Turbo, and this very car two decades ago – the 914 was a revelation. If I had to pick between a period 911 and a 914 on experience alone, it’d have to be the latter. The 914 just does precisely what you want, exactly when you want it. Right away it felt like an old shoe in the best of ways.
For additional contrast, the same can nearly be said of Pete’s 991.2 after driving it, but not quite. It’s all relative, and in newer 911 you do feel like you’re part of the car, at least compared to, say, an F82 M4. But in the 991, especially when driving it immediately after the 914, there was just a disappointing lack of feedback. The car felt strangely heavy despite being plenty powerful, the steering was oddly light, and the ceramic-composite brakes served to chuck us all toward the windshield due to my unrefined right foot. Sure, the 991 stops on a dime, it’s crisp, and it’s even fairly practical. But naturally, in modernizing the 911, its rawness has been lost.
Yes, the drive in the 991 was great, but the sensations were not entirely memorable. On the other hand, I won’t soon forget the sensation of feeling out the heavy brake pedal, the weighty steering, bumpy ride, and magical center of gravity in Pete’s 914. Looking over the silver-dot VDO gauges as I ate up the miles, high on the sound of that sensational six. It doesn’t get better.
Speaking of gauges, Pete had no use for a certain VDO clock that I noticed sitting on his workbench during a separate visit. He saw me coveting it in his garage and, presumably on a whim, said I could have it. I refused; he insisted. As did my better half. As Sara and I took the clock from his hands there was something fleeting that danced behind Pete’s smile. I was taking a piece of the story with me, a clock gifted to Pete out of a mentor’s garage years ago. “Some gifts are meant to stay in motion – just don’t let it change what you write.”
That VDO clock now resides on my desk, adapted to run off AC power, ticking away as I work each day, tracking me through the hours. And oft-times when I glance at it, I’ll consequently find myself briefly lost in thought. When will Porsche build a proper toy from the ground up again? Will any car in the future be able to strike me in the same way that Pete’s 914 did? Will I have the pleasure of finding myself behind the wheel again? Will I get my own? Only time will tell.
“Been thinking about your story, and if there’s one thing I’d love to convey to your readers – especially younger ones – it’s that you don’t need a car that’s ‘special’ or ‘cool’ or ‘valuable’ in the eyes of others or ‘the market.’ It’s about how far a sports car – any sports car – can take you if you’re willing to persevere. My 914 was a $3,000 used car 30-40 years ago, and the butt of plenty of jokes. Today its obvious parallel is a decent early Boxster for $5,000-$8,000. The liability with the 914 was structural rust, and still is, where it’s mechanical with a 986.
But look where that $3,000 used car eventually took a punk kid, 30 years later. Where might an old 986 take someone?
— Pete Stout
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