How about a what engine thread

How much space do you have?

How about something weird like the W8 from the Passat?

If the chassis is narrow and low enough, how about a Subaru engine?

I've long wanted to go a Locost style car with a Subaru engine hanging its valve covers out either side like a BMW motorcycle.

The "visually stunning" part would be, imagine if the valve covers and heads and case and everything were POLISHED.  Yeah, you'd have about 500 hours in turning as-cast aluminum with all sorts of knobs and craters into polished aluminum, but it'd look incredible.

Ditch the intake manifold setup for a pair of Weber IDA throttle bodies, the center-center of the intake ports on an EJ engine is almost the same.  Chromed 2-1 headers down each side of the car.

Quad 4 a la Offenhauser?

I kind of hate the engines, but that is a sexy beast above.

Pattyo said:

In reply to chandler :

Put it in your new Rabbit!

It came with an H motor and 5spd, the H 1.7 allegedly is a forged internals engine that VW "built for" Chrysler but they denied because every block had H (horizon) and they thought it was inferior so vw put them in trucks instead. Whether all that is  true or not I don't know but that's the story and they are definitely great strong engines when pumped up.

Oh for berkeleys sake 

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) said:

Quad 4 

Quad 4 was my first thought. I love me some quad 4, but what you really need is an evinrude 2 stroke V8

You said it's going to be Beetle based?

I've seen a Locost with a Type 1 engine mounted in the front. Can't find the photo currently. That would be a fun and unique tak on a beetle.

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

Oh for berkeleys sake 

It's all fun and games,,when playing with other people's money and time

drock25too said:

To me nothing looks as good as a Buick Nailhead with finned aluminum valve covers. Dual quad or with a StarWars air cleaner.

Came here to say this.  All of this. Nailhead 425.  Get a later one to open up your transmission choices.  Early ones used a proprietary bellhousing pattern and just shy of 5.4 million torque converter bolts

Flatheads are overdone and they look great, but you'll pay a lot more.  Not a good bling-for-buck choice.

Caddy 500 would scratch some heads.

I think one of the best LOOKING engines ever was the Viper V10, but again, not a budget choice.

How about a Buick V8? (post-nailhead)  455s command pretty big money, but they did a whole line of V8s ranging from 215 to 430 inches that many people don't want because they're holding out for the 455.

This sounds expensive in my head, but here goes; the Datsun with triple SU's.  Velocity stacks would be cool but I'd want decent filters as well and not sure how that would be set up.  Maybe small cone filters instead.  And I'm seeing that there's been some coil on plug conversions of the Datsun inline-six which look a lot cleaner than having the distributor on one side and wires running over the valve cover.  If done well this should be a nice performance improvement as well over using a distributor. 

Getting the manifold and throttle linkages together to make this happen is probably as costly as anything else.  I don't know what rebuildable SU's go for or what to source them from.  Maybe there's some inline-six Jag sedan somewhere just waiting to be a donor.

Frenchy, I would never look at dealerships for a parts car. I looked at CL, offerup, FB marketplace.  This morning i expanded my search to the max. distance and still came up empty handed for any v12s with carbs- not to mention manual trans.

It did lead me to an estate sale that seems to have a lot of engines in bare chassis though so i might go check that out.

I love the look of the nailhead and I'll have to keep my eyes open for them. Maybe when things settle down and swap meets start up again I'll be able to talk tp the old timers and see what they have stashed away.

I think the beauty of the corvair engine comes from taking simplicity - no radiator or hoses and you could do a wild grill. I would want to de-tin it and try to expose as much of the cooling fins as possible.  Probably have to throw the fan underneath so she wouldn't get too hot idleing.

I seem to remember someone running a Corvair engine on alcohol that ran cool enough to remove the shrouds. Maybe use the "radiator" space for a cooling fan that is directed to the top of the motor with some creative minor shrouding.

In reply to aircooled :

What about a windshield washer nozzle redirected to provide a spray when the bastard starts to get hot?

Odd-fire Buick V6?

I recall seeing one for the first time- a definite "Whoa, wait- what is that!" moment for me.  But I'm a weirdo that likes weird stuff.

Another vote for Nailhead.  Avoid the 425.  They're $.  A 322, 364, 401 shouldn't be too bad on the checkbook though if you can find one.

edit: hadnt considered the walking encyclopedia's input (Curtis).  So scratch what I said.  :-)

A 401 CJ said:

 

edit: hadnt considered the walking encyclopedia's input (Curtis).  So scratch what I said.  :-)

You are very flattering, but SO wrong.  I'm currently sitting, not walking. :)

Speaking of oddball engines... how about one of the IH V8s or 4s?  Totally off the wall but parts are still available.  They did a 304, a 345, and a 392 that were basically a doubled Vee version of their 152 and 196 inline 4s... which were basically a tractor engine without the load governor.  Talk about reliable.  The bellhousing pattern was unique, but they used a variety of manual transmissions and borrowed  304s and 727s from Mopar for automatics.  Left alone, they aren't very pretty engines, but given their simplicity a simple rattle can of paint will do wonders

AMC did some really boring but reliable and simple engines

How about a 1UZ-FE?  If you stripped all that junk off of it and fabbed up an ITB intake, that thing would look sexy as heck.

There's a unique front end package for you!

Ford Y-block?

Too basic? How about a straight-eight? Buick, Pontiac, PACKARD??????

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

3D Magic Mike on Instagram is using (I think) a 1UZ like you're describing.  It does look sweet as hell.

In reply to Pattyo :

Jag v12 in Dallas engine for under 1k. I usually see cheaper in Texas, though. 

I'd be tempted to put a twin charged type 1 with full cooling tins. T25 blowing into one of those baby Mercedes blowers. I wouldn't push the boost too far but it would look wild. 
take one of these:

and add one of these little blowers in the works:

Do it for me, since I'd never have the guts to do it on my own. 

Since it's a Beetle, I vote go with the Corvair engine to keep the air cooled flat motor theme, and find either a reverse rotation cam or a reverse rotation differential.

V12s are great for visual impact too - in addition to the Jag V12s, don't overlook BMW V12s. We just had a thread where somebody was running one on a multi-carb intake with a pair of 6 cylinder HEI distributors...

Hudson straight 6?

buzzboy said:

There's a unique front end package for you!

Wow.  Very interesting.... A rear mounted transaxle, likely using some form of Torque Tube.  Impressive work.

I really like this straight 6.  Either NA or with turbo up to around 750 bhp.

http://www.speedhunters.com/2015/01/turbo-bricking-it-riding-in-a-740hp-volvo/