[theunchosen]

STM(I like abbreviations),

I have thought about going with a v-twin(small displacement) moto engine, but I wasn't able to find one for the same price as I was able to get a full 2 liter 4A-GE silvertop with complete drive train. A survey of ebay and several engine shops that I work with said about 800 bucks for the engine. Then to harvest the neccessary components to get at least 2wd I'd have to drop another couple of hundred bucks, plus I still would be without the drivetrain(joints, bearings, diffs etc).

If I could find a complete drive for less than a grand for one I probably would have considered it.

That said, I found an engine that pulls reliable FE in a vehicle nearly 2kips more with more frontal area and a comparable Cd. Just with the 2,000lb weight reduction I ought to be able to hammer 50+ mpg from the corrolla engine and light chassis.

I enjoy pushing the envelope in all directions as far as possible, for that reason I stopped hunting anything less than 1 liter engines and moved on to full-blown engines with lots of aftermarket parts(rods, pistons, cranks, flywheels, clutches, etc). The second purpose of this vehicle is going to be quickness and cornering. Cornering has no bearing on engine(other than extra momenta), but the 250cc engine won't have enough block to survive heavy boost.

I'm aiming for 60+ mpg and 30mpg with the blower running hard. By hard I mean running 0-60 in 2.7-9 and 0-100 in 5.0-5.4.

The second stage after I reach those two objectives in once vehicle without modifying it between runs, I'm going to look at wiring in lean burn override so I can leave the blower on full tilt and just vary the resistance and achieve really high AFRs. I'll have to carry an onboard to monitor engine temps and control H2O injectors to keep temps under the fatigue limit. With that mod in place I think I ought to be able to beat out a stock old Insight and maybe one thats driven conservatively. Also it will run the water injectors outside of lean mode to keep the cylinders cooled because the iron block is going to have trouble with heat.

I'll be reworking the exhaust into straight pipes exiting directly out of the block out the rear of the chassis in a 4-1 system and I'll be mounting cooling fins on the block and trans themselves to supplement the oil coolers and coolant. All the secondary pumps(second radiator and oil coolers) will be on a switch and shut off during the winter(not that I am considering driving it in the blasting cold(current design has no wind-screen just a half canopy)).

I think I'm going to pass on the ceramics on the MKI. . .the MKII will probably see those as upgrades as well as anything else I find along the way. . .maybe an NSX aluminum block ^_^.

The objective of the project is to beat a prius in FE and to beat it in a race to 100(the prius only has to get to 60).

Oh, I obviously will be rebuilding the transmission that the silvertop comes with. I really have no need for either of the first two gears. So its going to be a shuffling down with 3rd as first and so on and then custom gears for 4rth and 5th.

I'm lining up a 6 speed for the MK II, but it will require extensive fab to mate to just about anything. I would just stick with a 5-speed and put 4rth as 1st but then the off the line speed would really be low and it would eat the clutch pretty badly. 3rd will supply way more torque than is needed to move a 1100-1300 lb object very quickly(stock the silvertop does 120-127 ft-lbs year depending, and supercharged I'm planning on getting alot more than that.)