What are your most questionable swap ideas?

maschinenbau said:

I've put a VQ in an old rusty Datsun, a 2JZ in an old rusty Ford Model A, and a Camry V6 in the back of an old rusty Lotus.

I think we need a "least questionable swap thread" to steer my life away from chaos. 

The most questionable swap I have ever done was an F-body LS1 engine in an F body that originally had an LT1.

You'd think it'd be simple, but noooooo...  GM changed a lot of things electronically year to year, with the 1997 to 1998 timeframe right in the middle of that, and a lot of the LS1 specific items were NLA from GM, and hard to find used.

It would have been far, far cheaper to push the LT1 car into a ditch and walk away from it, maybe pay a fine, and buy the nicest LS1 F-body one could find.  "But Pete, an LT1 car has value."

Exactly.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

I'm a huge fan of Mad Max and "story" cars, and once I seriously thought of what a REAL wasteland vehicle would need to look like instead of some awesome boosted hellbeast. So I thought a real wasteland car would be one using an air-cooled Diesel like a Deutz pumper engine, one of the inline 6s, in a survival car equipped with it's own water collection and power generation. I thought it would also use an auto with some kind of gear splitter for seriously high miles.

Other ideas-

1. An Inline 8 roadster of some form, likely using the Buick Fireball I8 from the 50s roadmasters, the only ones built with overhead valves and not flatheads.

2. A muscle car with a detroit diesel, especially if it's the i3 or i4 detroits; a diesel with pistons the size of soup cans. Redline at 3500! 120 horsepower, 400+ lb/ft of torque! I saw a video of an i3 Detroit 2-stroke in a 70s barracuda once, it was great.

 

The Buick straight 8's were all OHV  from 1932 to 1952 came in 5 different sizes.  The Roadmaster series had the. Big 320 cu inch and was about 9 inches longer than the smaller ones.

  There was one with an even longer stroke and big bore  345 inches 5 inch stroke  3.4 bore. 188 hp. 

I have a useless smart fortwo that I'd like to put the drivetrain into a fiat 850 or Bianchina Trasformabile. DeDion rear is wide however, so of course box flares.

Not a full engine swap, but I have heard of putting a 421 head on a Tempest 194 four cylinder.  

"It was still slow, but now it needed premium gas to do it."

A zetec with a VW Type 1 transaxle into a Renault R8. And swap from the 3 lug wheels and unobtainium brakes to Miats NA frint spindles and VW A1 front spindles and axles shafts attached to the rear.

Also the Ford GAA in an Excursion idea is the beast! And here I was thinking of a lowly 7.3 Godzilla in en excursion... Weak.

I owned a Saab Sonnet for a while, and always thought it needed a Mazda 12A or 13B.  It needs an engine that revs to the moon.

That's my Father in Law's VW beside my Saab.  

Since the Godzilla is physically smaller than a 460 or Mod motor - it makes sense to insert it into just about anywhere either of those two engines came from. 

Someone did this in lemons, but as of 5-10 years ago I think it would be brilliant:  Saturn LL0 in a Porsche 914

Ever since we grenaded the engine in our lemons E28, I've wanted to put a GM 4200 inline 6 in it. It's still a straight six, seems a natural replacement. 

BMW M50 i6 engine in an NA Miata... Someone out there's done it. 

The Ford 3.7L 305Hp Mustang + 6 SPD Manual in a Merkur XR4Ti

We should do this same question for body swap victims......

Peanu_Keeyes said:

BMW M50 i6 engine in an NA Miata... Someone out there's done it. 

///iata
I dreamed of this while looking at my E36 and my Miata shell

Volvo 1.9l into a 240.

Just as much work as a 5 cylinder (involves finding a 960 oil pan, a band saw, and a TIGsmith, just for starters) but without the 5 cylinder howl payoff, just a smaller four that makes less power than the 2.3 you took out.

A few that have been floating around in my head for the last couple years.

VW W8 in the bed of a minitruck, Roadkill Mazdarati style.  Mainly for the noises and because obscure engines are interesting.

B235R Saab engine in a older 900 but get rid of the transaxle and make it RWD.

98-03 Grand Prix Coupe, convert to rwd, add 8.50 cage and turbo LS.

You know those Impalas that look like R34 GT-Rs if you squint and look quickly?

Remove the Chevy badges and install Nissan badges.  And the all wheel drive 3.6l V6 drivetrain from one of GM's SUVs.  (Traverse?)  All the better if you can find the room to bung turbos on it, too.

I mean, the front bits from an all wheel drive Aztek/similar would probably bolt in and let you keep the 3800, but the 3.6 is a better engine and it comes attached to better transmissions.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

MyMiatas said:

this with this added?

How do the track widths compare?  The Miata is a lot wider than most older roadsters, so you may need some huge fender flares :)

 

 

I broke out the tape measure. It is about 6 inches wider than the Datsun. Three inches a side may look a little odd.

RacetruckRon said:

98-03 Grand Prix Coupe, convert to rwd, add 8.50 cage and turbo LS.

Welcome to 2003/4 in my head. Except I would have used a Monte Carlo SS like my ex wife had at the time. I'd put in the sfi chassis and largely built to NHRA Super Stock GT class. Mild minitub to fit, at the largest, a 315/60 dr on a 14" rim.

It's still a possibility if and when I build that chassis jig.....

Suggested by another GRMer after I linked a super low mileage 2006 Maserati Quattoporte will the DuoSelect automated manual gearbox - LS swapped Quattoporte! Seriously, the QP weighs 4200 pounds and gets 11 mpg city, the Ferrari engine is not a good match for it and they eat clutches every 20k or so miles. They are beautiful and very luxurious, but cheap because the powertrain absolutely kill them. The LS should fit where the F136 went, maybe the 6L80 in place of the Graziano box? Get a junkyard brake pedal and shifter from an automatic trans QP, mounts, wiring, bam! It would be amazing.

Since I've been having lots of fun with 1st gen NSX's in the virtual world of Gran Turismo 4 lately, it struck me they could do with a little more modern power-plant.  One that would make the NSX purists rage.

No, not an LS, but the LGX 3.6 V6.  A nice jump in HP and torque, but still keep the high reving V6 goodness.

I really want to do a Datsun S30 chassis with a Maserati F136 or the Ghilbi turbo V6 with a manual. I know that there is a 350z drift car with the F136 but I want to do the earlier car.

Back in the day, we saw more than a few 5.0-powered RX-7s.

So, hear me out: rotary Mustang. 

At one time I wanted to build a gasser style car powered by two Honda 4cyls sitting side by side converted to rwd. One of my 2.0L Honda customers recently cranked out 2000hp on a hub dyno, two of those in a gasser might be overkill :)

Grant

Seeing a few non running YJ's on my bike ride today

Road Race Rangler:

Jeep YJ Body and Frame
C-channel drop and split monoleaf rear
RX8 IFS
4.0L with 2wd AX15

weedburner said:

At one time I wanted to build a gasser style car powered by two Honda 4cyls sitting side by side converted to rwd. One of my 2.0L Honda customers recently cranked out 2000hp on a hub dyno, two of those in a gasser might be overkill :)

Grant

 

As a kid, I built a model of a hot rod featuring side-by-side V8s. I like this take on that theme. 

In reply to MyMiatas :

All things can be fixed with box flares. 

___

I find myself seriously considering the construction of a 'Hakotora' - Which is a Nissan Pickup (620 or 720) with a front end conversions from a Skyline GT-R. They look awesome overall. But I am not a Nissan guy, like at all, so I wouldn't want Nissan power under the hood. So, it's got to be something else. Practically, a Honda K or J would make sense. But I'm thinking some kind of small straight six - since Hakosukas are I6 powered. 

So...Daewoo XK6?