Your ideal powertrain swap?

[freebeard]

Have you ever been to Bonneville Salt Flats?

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by cosmick

I readily admit that 500 rwhp is more than enough for a 3500 pound car on public roads, but it does NOT matter how many mpg it does if it isn't fun to drive. Anyone who thinks 200 is enough has never driven 500.

I plan to get my car below 2100lbs (easily doable without removing anything from the interior), so by your standards 300whp should be more than enough. In the future I may throw a Honda K20 into an MR2, adding 50lbs of weight but it'll put down 230whp with some mods.

That's approximately the same power to weight ratio as a C6 Corvette. I personally cannot imagine such a car being too slow for the street. Sure I might get used to the power and consider it "not that fast", but it would probably be plenty for the track and enough to get in trouble quickly on the street.

That's why I say a 1.6L engine with only a little boost is enough. As a plus it'll get 40+mpg, which is nice when your fuel tank only holds 12 gallons or so.

[UltArc]

Originally Posted by cosmick

...
I readily admit that 500 rwhp is more than enough for a 3500 pound car on public roads, but it does NOT matter how many mpg it does if it isn't fun to drive. Anyone who thinks 200 is enough has never driven 500.

I think 55 HP is enough for my Insight. . . and my daily has 278 at the rear wheels. Not crazy or impressive, but pushing it in turns and having fun can't use more than 150 HP on the streets. Last I was driving my Insights, I wasn't 100% ringing them and I was having a blast. For staying within legal limits and safe, in a standard, I don't need more than 200 HP in a 3,700 pound car. The only reason I want the DB9 is because V12.

Because V12.

[19bonestock88]

Originally Posted by cosmick

The boost pressure has little to do with lag. Being a 1.6L you want all the boost pressure the engine can hold. Choose accordingly. GM's 2.0L Ecotec can be built to 1200 horsepower.

The LSJ can be built to ridiculous power levels, even in 2.0 liter form... A ZZP built girdled 2.1 liter short block(88mm bore, 86mm stroke) could easily handle quad digit power, but good luck finding a transaxle to hold up...My stock block LSJ was running nearly 18 psi, and was really fun... When swapping an Ecotec in, you definitely wanna go turbo... I love my roots blower(ported Eaton M62 gen 5), but it makes boost by RPM... At 4000 RPM, I only had 12-13psi, but with a good turbo I would have already spooled full boost...

I would love to have a nice bolt on LSJ in the rear of a Metro... Cover it all up with a fake cargo cover and the only indication that the car wasn't capable of over 50mpg would be when the engine fired, and they heard an open downpipe, dumped right behind the bumper cover...

[McDesign]

Stroked Caddy 8.1 liter into my Kelmark. Underway now.

[ALS]

Me I would love to stuff a third Gen Prius drive train in a Saab Sonett III.
1900 pounds with out the traction battery. The other option would be a VW TDi 2.0 liter.

[Fingie]

A Rotary engine into a AMC pacer (it was designed for one, after all)

13B swapping a saab 96

Swapping the VAZ 1,6 16V engine into my War wagon.

the newer VVTI 3S-GTE into my 1991 JDM All-trac

AND

If we can get localized cold fusion working in vehicles, i'd equip a bus with a fusion drivetrain and recoach it in the style of the GM's Futuroliner :3

[Ecky]

After some thought, I'd probably put a Bolt motor + battery in my Insight. 60kWh battery should be good for at least 300 miles, and the motor is rated for 200HP / 266ft-lbs of torque. In the 3600lb Bolt, this is good for 0-60 in 7 seconds. The Insight would be closer to 2500lbs with battery, motor and electronics, and have probably half the CdA.

A gasoline car may go 0-60 in 7 seconds at redline in low gear, but an electric has this same power on tap all the time, so it's far more "available". Having had the chance to drive a few EVs, it feels like you're always driving around in 1st gear.

Economy and performance together.

[19bonestock88]

I'd love a peripheral port 13B in a Suzuki Cappuccino... I imagine going from the iron block 660cc triple to the all aluminum rotary would shave some of its already nimble 750kg weight, and the engine would rev well into five digits, and make 400hp(normally aspirated)...

OR

Find a late forties Chevy and stuff a D-MAX/Alison trans in... Find the tallest rear end ratio/axle that'll take quad digit torque, and make an Eco-sleeper... 30-35mpg when cruising around, and a hopped up diesel when you floor the go pedal...

[EcoReality]

Veggie Van Gogh isn't going to win any MPG contests.



But I wanted to get it down as much as I could!

These step vans came with a GM 450 HD V8 gasoline engine. Frito-Lay burned them up at around 100,000 miles, and since the body and running gear was still good, they sent them off to Cummins for re-powering with a 4-cylinder in-line diesel (4BT).

This left several power-train issues. First, they were optimized for sprints in traffic between grocery store deliveries, and I wanted to optimize it for long-distance highway travel. So I put the tallest gears in the rear-end I could get; I think it's a .410.

Cummins left the original Muncie 4-speed tranny in, which was barely useful. Winding out 1st until the 4BT governed at about 2100 RPM put the 4BT out of its power band at about 1400 RPM after shifting to 2nd. This often resulted in forced down-shifting, to the annoyance of drivers behind in traffic. Other gears had similar nasty gaps.

So I found a Ranger "gear splitter" 2-speed that sits in front of the Muncie, and lets me split each gear (including reverse!) as needed.



I had to shorten the driveshaft by 7" and make some changes to the rear motor mount, and fab a new tranny cover, which gave me the opportunity to add a mount for a second seat, and some hatches to access my vegetable oil filter and the fuel economy gauge senders.







Now, I can split gears and more-or-less flow with traffic, while in 4-2, the 4BT is turning at its peak fuel economy (1800 RPM) at 63 MPH.

Wind load is now the biggest fuel economy factor, and I can do 17 MPG at 65 MPH between tanks, if the wind is right...

I know this is a far cry from those who are getting triple-digits of fuel economy, but you can't carry 10,000 pounds and sleep in yours, can you?

If this is of interest, let me know, and I'll post more, including details of the vegetable oil fuel system and instrumentation.