Moving FWD drivetrain to pasenger seat area? Looking for Gotchas.

So, woke up with an empty beer fridge and the sketch of a plan to put a 2005 Honda civic engine into the rear seat area of a 1950 Morris Minor.  As one does...

There has been some actual measuring gone on and the extra wide body rear fender thing is acceptable. What I am looking for for is any realities that I might not be seeing ahead of time. This will be a street driven car. It has to be civilized.

Emergency brakes are a technical risk at this point. Locking hydraulic might work.

Shift cables are going to have to loop around to work  that is a big one for me as I have no experience with Morse cables in a car.

Rear steer: both the elimination/locking of the steering and the effects of the Honda's suspension as it moves are technical risk at this point.

Realities of having a cooling system that needs looooooonnnggg rad hoses. Will the pump care?

Going to need to upgrade the Morris front brakes or downgrade the Honda brakes.

I want to say that the battery and fuel tank and spare up front will balance weight, but will it? Fuel load is a variable condition and I don't think variable under steer is a good handling  trait.

I know some of you have done this kind of project and would welcome both advice and feedback on what the results were like?

Pete

While I can't help you I can give some inspiration on how you may or may not want to do this and the end result. It's sketchy and it has been on its roof lol.

Smart Car with a Turbo K-Swap 

These are oppinions and guesses....

With the steering rack gone, Fab a couple of rods with heim joints the same length as the inner and outer tie rods combined. Try to mount the inner at the same location the rack was and the geometry should be the same. Dial in your final toe and job done. You could add a bump steer kit to really make it perfect.

Stock water pump should be fine. The Fiero used the same water pump as the front engine cars with the same engine. Even the V8 conversations use stock V8 pumps.

In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :

That sounds like a sound idea for getting rid of the rack.

NOHOME said:

In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :

That sounds like a sound idea for getting rid of the rack.

That's essentially what Bertone did on the Fiat X-1/9, moved the Fiat 128 drivetrain to the rear, modified the transaxle case to have the shift rod exit the front, locked the rear steering by running tie-rods to the inboard pickups for the rear control arms.  No other major changes to the drivetrain was needed, just some longer coolant pipes and extra air bleed ports.

Other manufacturers have done similar, even Mini did something similar when they made a dual-engined Cooper, Pontiac and Toyota as well.

Stefan (Forum Supporter) said:

NOHOME said:

In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :

That sounds like a sound idea for getting rid of the rack.

That's essentially what Bertone did on the Fiat X-1/9, moved the Fiat 128 drivetrain to the rear, modified the transaxle case to have the shift rod exit the front, locked the rear steering by running tie-rods to the inboard pickups for the rear control arms.  No other major changes to the drivetrain was needed, just some longer coolant pipes and extra air bleed ports.

Other manufacturers have done similar, even Mini did something similar when they made a dual-engined Cooper, Pontiac and Toyota as well.

That's the same recipe people have used for the MR2, the Fiero, the X1/9, etc...

The only real issues that people seem to have is with the shift linkage which can get complicated and with the parking brakes. Note that if this is to be a street car, hydraulic locking brakes are not legal in many places. You often need a second separate system to be legal.

I would seriously consider dumping the Morris front suspension and replacing it with something more modern and closer to the width of the Honda rear. Say, for example, components that could be shared with the front of the Molvo.

For the shift cables, can you use some sort of bellcrank setup to reverse the direction to make it work right again?

For the parking brake, maybe find a caliper from a car that has the parking brake integrated into a disc brake, like a Miata or a lot of other Japanese cars.

I see I have found my cousin

Are you married to a manual transmission? Car and Driver used automatic transmissions in the twin engine CRX. Running cables for the auto trans may be simpler than transmitting the manual shifting motions.

Re: handbrake

Certain Hondas (Mk8 Civic Si for sure) used rear calipers with a cable mechanism for the parking brake. These could likely be adapted for use in your Minor idea.

Wilwood sells mechanical brake calipers that have a lever linkage hanging out the side to actuate the caliper. 

https://www.wilwood.com/Calipers/CaliperProd?itemno=120-12070

There are probably other options but this came up in quick searching.

A front suspension swap to something else sounds good.  Of course it isn't me doing the work...