Seeing as this is my first post it won't make any sense to most people reading it, as I plan to add background later. The basic shakedown is I sold my eminently practical RSX-S for a 914-4 which is slowly being turned into my version of a supercar. The current state is kinda depressing, I have no e-brake, a 90hp engine, and a car that leaks more air than those jeeps you see driving around with no doors.
My drive was fairly uneventful for the better part of the trip up, right up to where I got off the freeway. At the first stoplight it becomes quite clear to me that my clutch was partially engaged even with the pedal touching the floor. It also became clear to the person behind me, who helped greatly by providing horn noise for me to listen to. In order to get going I had to turn off the engine and start it up in gear.
So now I'm moving again, but I can't stop without turning the engine off. This leaves me driving along a rural road in Salinas praying I find a place to pull over before the next red light or stop sign. Serendipitously a block before the light I found a driveway to pull into. From this point all I had to do was tighten a nut on my transmission with my face 2" away from a 400 degree exhaust pipe. Simple. Then I went and bought a lock nut from the closest hardware store.
Like I said, the trip up was uneventful, the trip down had a little more action.
Right off the bat I'm getting oil light on up to right around 2,500 RPM. This tells me that either my oil pump is about to crap out -or- the pressure sender is flaking out. I decide to err on the side of caution and pull over, call my friend with a garage full of these things and get his opinion. He says the first thing to check is the sender unit. apparently the person who had the engine before me decided to be cute and put a weird aftermarket one on; he probably thought it went well with the completely unnecessary oil cooler.
At this point I realize that I don't have A) light and B) a tool to reach in and unscrew the current sender and put in my new one. It occurs to me that if I manage to remove the current sender unit and fail to install the new one I've just guaranteed oil pressure issues; in the form of oil squirting out of the engine. I start the engine again and the light isn't on at 1,200 RPM. Now I'm thoroughly confused.
I'm not home free yet, though. Right after I get onto the freeway I realize that my roof latches have undone themselves. This realization was forced on me by the top lifting a few inches into the air off of where it should be seated. Now, I really don't wanna buy another top or deal with the person who runs over it suing me after they crash. I manage to drive the car with one hand and latch the top back down with the other (and a fair amount of swerving.) This is a good solution so long as I stay above 60 and keep that lift on there. Of course this turns out to be impossible since Captain Slow is in front of me, and I decide to pull over before I lose my top.
The "permanent" solution came in the form of a Summit Racing catalog. It added the necessary distance in order to keep the latches from popping off every five minutes. Unfortunately it also made the driver slightly colder, by increasing mandatory interior airflow.
This concludes the interesting portion of the drive. The main benefit of the 914 is that when I pull over to the side of the road, I know that I'm probably going to be able to fix the problem myself. Summit will be getting a thank you note for their catalogue and I'm buying the replacement targa seal tomorrow, so the problems of this journey shall not be repeated.
