Porsche 914 & 914/6 Horsepower & Torque
It Doesn't Take Much
Porsche 914 vehicles stand only four feet (1.25 meters) tall
and weigh under 2200 pounds (1000 kg). Subsequently, it was
not necessary to equip Porsche 914 models with overly powerful
engines to achieve a satisfactory level of performance. This
enabled the manufacturers to produce a car that is both fun to
drive and economical in the four-cylinder Porsche 914 as well
as the more powerful six-cylinder version, the Porsche 914/6.
Seven Years, Seven U.S. Production Engines
Unfortunately, a pricing dispute with chassis manufacturer
Karmann caused the cost of the 914/6 to climb near that of the
911 model, resulting in poor sales and the termination of
production after the 1972 model year. VW-Porsche realized that
a market remained for a 914 with more power than was provided
by the original 1.7 liter air-cooled Type 4 engine, so a 2.0L
engine option was introduced in 1973. Such marketing
decisions, changing emissions standards and geographical
standards variation (e.g. California) resulted in Porsche
914 cars being delivered to the United States with seven
different engines over the seven year production run.
How They Compare
The diagram accessed via the (rather large) thumbnail above
is a composite of the horsepower and torque curves for the
various U.S. specification Porsche 914 six and four-cylinder
engines (1973 California specification 1.7 liter "EB"
engine specification curves not included... sorry). This
comparison provides a (somewhat busy) visual of the effects of
various engine differences. In addition to displacement,
aspects such as the domed pistons and higher compression of
the 1.7 "W" or "EA" code engines and the heightened emission
control on the 1.8 liter "EC" and 2.0L "GC" engines played a
large role in the engine performance characteristics.
Horsepower and torque information and graphs for the
individual U.S. specification engines is available via the
buttons in the left panel.
Resources & Methodology
All information contained in the HP & Torque pages is based on data provided in original Porsche 914 and Porsche 914/6 factory Owners Manuals, Service Manuals and "Porsche 914 Technical Data" sheets. The graphs have been standardized through aspect ratio adjustment, metric to English conversion (where necessary), standard calculation conversion to SAE Net (where necessary), and, in the case of the "GA" engine charts, scale adjustment (to correct a factory drafting error). Obviously, consistency is necessary for proper comparison.