mid-engine sunfire?
 

I have been thinking about my sunfire project while I do all sorts of other projects. How do you folks think a mid/rear-engine setup would turn out?

I'm still going with the 3800 and 4t60E. Go ahead and brainstorm. Throw down some ideas and beat them to death. I want to see how this could turn out. It would give the engine more room. The car would be cooler in the summer time because the heat maker would be behind you. It would be easier to steer, but how light would the front end be? Will a front hub fit on the rear?

Jump in guys, lets have fun with this.

I can't really see the benefits of moving the engine to the rear for fuel economy reasons. Any potential benefits are not going to be worth the fabrication, time, and money invested in such a project.

The benefits of RWD and MR configurations is in handling, specifically weight transfer and center of gravity. Traction is also improved in some cases (Porsche rear engine).

I think Corv8s are the schnizz... this could be sorta like that. But mainly as a toy. The layout pretty much destroys a lot of the utility and comfort of a vehicle.

do you need seating for 4 people?

might be cheaper just to pick up a fiero and do the swap to it.

either way it'll be a 2 seater.

Would get without the rear seat, but at least there would have 2 trunks :D

Anyway, eventually transfering the engine to the rear wouldn't be the worst thing ever, altough it would still be quite an odd project. And if you did a power-steering delete, the weight transfered from the nose to the rear would reduce the effort required to steer.

The easiest way to do this is to buy another Sunfire, so you can pull all the hardware out of the front of that car (including the mounting points for the engine, transmission and suspension) and transplant it into the rear... include the full front suspension and brakes. The transmission will be the tricky part. Lots of welding.

Leave the battery and as many ancilliaries as you can up front, to balance the car out a bit. You'll need a fuel cell, too.

After that, your biggest problem will likely be tuning the suspension so it doesn't understeer like a pig when you enter a turn or hit the brakes (a brake bias controller would be nice). You'll need to install an aftermarket suspension or stiffen up the rear end a bit to balance the car out.

A more interesting proposition is a twin-engine set-up, which is twice as impractical, but twice as crazy.

There it is, the answer you are looking for Fiero.

Or a sandrail which needs an engine. Do your own aero-body over it.

I'm just playing with the idea right now. I want to throw ideas around and see what we come up with.

I am going to measure a few things just to satisfy my curiosity.:D I was planning on putting air springs in the rear anyway, so maybe that would work if everything measures out ok. My truck has almost NO body roll with air springs. I can take a corner at 60 and the truck will skid before it leans. Of course the air springs in the truck are independent so the air cannot transfer between sides.

"The mid-engine layout is typically chosen for its relatively favorable weight distribution. The heaviest component is nearer to the center of the vehicle, reducing the vehicle's moment of inertia and making it easier and faster to turn the vehicle to a new direction. Also the engine weight is more evenly carried by all the wheels with this layout. As a result, vehicle stability, traction, and ride quality are naturally improved when turning, braking, and accelerating.
Mounting the engine in the middle instead of the front of the vehicle puts more weight over the rear tires so they have more traction and provide more assistance to the front tires in braking the vehicle, with less chance of rear wheel lockup and less chance of a skid or spin out. If the mid-engine vehicle is also rear-drive (as almost all of them are) the added weight on the rear tires can also improve acceleration on slippery surfaces, providing much of the benefit of all wheel drive without the added weight and expense of all wheel drive components. The mid-engine layout makes ABS brakes and traction control systems work better, by providing them more traction to control. The mid-engine layout may make a vehicle safer, since an accident can occur if a vehicle cannot stay in its own lane around a curve or is unable to stop quickly enough. Mid-engine design is also a way to provide additional empty crush space in the front of the automobile between the bumper and the windshield, which can then be used in a frontal collision to absorb more of the impact force to minimize penetration into the passenger compartment of the vehicle.
In most automobiles, and in sports cars especially, ideal car handling requires balanced traction between the front and rear wheels when cornering in order to maximize the possible speed around curves without sliding out. This balance is harder to achieve when the heavy weight of the engine is located far to the front or far to the rear of the vehicle. Some automobile designs strive to balance the fore and aft weight distribution by other means such as putting the engine in the front and the transmission and battery in the rear of the vehicle. Some of the same benefits are gained, but at the cost of greater moment of inertia compared to the mid-engine layout, making it harder and less responsive to turn the vehicle to a new direction.
Another benefit comes when the heavy mass of the engine is located close to the back of the seats. It makes it easier for the suspension to absorb the force of bumps so the riders feel a smoother ride. But in sports cars the engine position is once again utilized to increase performance and the potentially smoother ride is usually more than offset by stiffer shock absorbers.
This layout also allows the transmission and motor to be directly bolted to each other—with independent suspension on the driven wheels this removes the need for the chassis to transfer engine torque reaction."

Why do things have to fit so good? The engine only needs 36" of room sideways and 28" front to back. It would sit directly under the rear window, which slopes down smoothly and would give a very good view of the engine.:D The rear struts could be moved to the rear of the trailing arms and would likely have close to the right rate at that point, if I chose not to use air springs.

The front end would house the battery and fuel tank, possibly the radiator, but I don't know if I want to run plumbing that far. It would be easier to use ducts to cool the radiator at the rear. That would allow me to use the bigger olds radiator.:thumbup: It will be manual steering either way, so the weight shift would be a plus. I will be using the steering from the olds because it has a better ratio.

I could weld the cradle from the olds directly to the bottom of the sunfire with the mid engine idea. That would save me some fab time on the mounting. The engine would stick past the current back seat by about 8 inches. I have been thinking about moving the rear wheels back to make up for it.:rolleyes:

I don't mind the fabrication. I have been doing that for a long time. I can't get this idea out of my head. I have been googling all day and have used up a good portion of my day doing research. It looks easier as I find more info.:rolleyes:

I hate to lose the back seat, but if I could move the rear axle back 8-10 inches, that would let me keep it.

Don't let this thread die in vain. If you have anything to say, say it. Good or bad....