Who doesn’t enjoy a good engine swap? Yes, putting an LS7 into anything and everything is a cliché, but I still dig those builds. But what I like even more are weirdo swaps, such as, I dunno, putting a helicopter engine into a Porsche 928.
That’s the sort of swap I would never think of, but I’m glad someone did (and you can click that link to learn all about it). My engine-swap ideas tend to be more practical than the usual “but something bigger/more powerful in there.” For example, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to build up a Cobra replica with a turbo four in place of the expected 351 or 427 Ford V8. I imagine the driving experience would be plenty exciting but much less sphincter-clenching compared to having instant tire-spinning power. (And yes, this is more a “choosing an engine” situation than it is a “swap,” but you get it).
Regular readers already know weird swaps are very much our jam at The Autopian:
There are links in that caption so you can check out those stories, which may inspire your answer to today’s ask. Without concern for feasibility or cost or practicality, what engines would you like to see transplanted into which cars?
Top graphic images: eBay seller; iOS
Who doesn’t enjoy a good engine swap?
I saw the headline and concluded that I want to see precisely zero engine swaps. So… I guess the answer to this rhetorical question is me?
I’m not someone who is overly obsessive about originality, but I prefer vehicles that are at least sorta stock. I’m always a bit disappointed when I see a cool classic vehicle and find out it has the powertrain from something modern. I totally understand why people do it (reliability, more power, just for fun, etc.), but I don’t like it.
One of my biggest disappointments at a car show was seeing a bitchin’ first-generation VW hippie van someone drove 1,000+ miles to the show and found out it had the powertrain of a late-model VW Jetta. It was very hard to feign a lack of disappointment and revulsion as the owner proudly bragged about the work he put in to doing the swap. He admittedly did a great job and made the van an objectively better transportation appliance, but I couldn’t help but think about the part of the vehicle’s soul that died during that transplant procedure.
I don’t mean to be contrarian (who am I kidding? I love being contrarian), but I generally see engine swaps as a desecration rather than something to celebrate.
If someone is going to make me pick an engine swap to see, though, I wouldn’t mind a classic Rolls or Bentley with a 7.3 powerstroke and straight pipes. Ideally, it would be heavily modified to roal coal.
Would some of the VW micro bus’s soul remain if the engine swap was a Subaru EJ22 or EJ25?
Nope. At minimum, the vehicle needs to have the block of an engine type originally available during that vehicle’s production run to avoid soul damage.
So engine swaps are okay, as long as you limit it to swapping powertrains available at some point during that vehicle’s production (i.e. if a certain generation of vehicle was built from 71 to 77 but a certain engine was only available in the 75 to 77 model years, it does no soul damage to swap an engine from 77 into the 71 no matter how different the engine is).
Also, any part of the engine that isn’t the block can be heavily modified with no danger of de-souling a vehicle.
I’ve seen a BW Bus with an air cooled flat six out of a 911 installed. Would that be close enough for you?
Probably not? I’m not aware of any air cooled six cylinder busses, so I don’t see a situation where a 911 engine would have the same block as an engine that was available from the factory in an air cooled bus.
Just being a Porsche engine isn’t close enough.
Porsche built a water cooled one. https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWheels/comments/yrjgax/the_vw_t3_b32_is_one_of_the_rarest_porsches_ever/
Let me consider that…
The B32 is clearly a third-generation VW van, but it is called a Porsche, titled as a Porsche, and (apparently) has a VIN consistent with it being a Porsche. This vehicle is probably akin to a RUF or an original Tesla roadster. RUFs are based on Porsches and the Roadster is a Lotus with a different powertrain, but everyone agrees a RUF is something other than a Porsche and the Tesla Roadster is something other than a Lotus.
The precedent set by RUF and Tesla seems to apply here – the B32 is not a VW. Unfortunately, as much as I want to rule in favor of the Porsche V6 due to the B32, I can’t allow it.
(Incidentally, I really want a Porsche B32)
I’ll buy the reasoning I guess. I want one too!
The explanation I heard was they built some as tech chase vehicles for the Autobahn, and people with VW connections wanted one.
They made a list and cranked out a number of these.
However you define it, they are a production VW Porsche model.
Tuner shops and individuals have been making copies ever since.
There was a production VW van built with a 911 turbo and suspension.
The original Van was so slow, if the soul was damaged, it would still take a century to die.
How about a built, turbocharged, all billet two-point-many liter type 4 engine that features few, if any, actual parts from VW, but is the same design as the 2nd gen bus? Can you justify that?
As long as the block is interchangeable with one used in a factory engine, it counts.
As a former owner of a 1977 Type 2 Westfalia camper van with a bog-standard air-cooled 1600cc (emphasis on the “big”), I cannot even fathom why anyone who has ever driven one would oppose literally any engine replacement that gave it literally any more power. And I could not care less which country or which manufacturer it comes from, either.
It’s about the principal.
The Type 2 was underpowered as designed. I agree an engine swap can make it objectively better, but it ceases to be the vehicle it originally was.
Which is why people have been swapping Porsche engines into them pretty much the entire time, with my 100% blessing.
I’ll go with any car where you could attach a Briggs twin to each wheel. Then you can brag about having a V8, mathematically speaking. Each engine would have its own pull start and throttle control that the driver would have to operate for steering.
Take an old coach bus and install a Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major in the back. That’s a 4 row radial engine with 28 cylinders. The noise would be glorious and devastating all at once.
LIke this canam prototype with a 2 cylinder at each corner
A Kawasaki H2 750cc triple 2 stroke in an early Miata.
Sounds wild. and on/off switch of a motor. Well done!
Back in the 80’s my buddy had one and it was probably the scariest motorcycle I have ever ridden.
The 500 version was my first, I was the last male of my family to have it. I am alive because I could not get it to run right.
Funny
Funny and true. thanks!
Is that the one Hunter Thompson called dangerous?
Maybe swap a Model 3 battery pack and power train into a 1950 Jaguar Mark V. I doubt anyone’s ever made this conversion before, but I’ll bet the result would be super fast.
Tesla motors and part of the battery pack have made their way into some Porsche 914s as can be seen at the site 914electric.com. Not a plug, but I did meet the guy who wrote the book, so to speak, and the red 914 featured on the site is an absolute gem.
A Merlin in a Triumph Spitfire.
I figure that making it fit is all in a day’s work.
Or swap in a Merlin (the Packard V-1650-7 variant because ‘merica) in a late model Mustang Shelby 500.
Amazingly, a V8 will fit in a Spitfire, and in a Lotus 7 for the same reasons.
I’ve always wanted to get two old 1990’s Chevy Silverado 3500 Duallys, both with the 7.something Big Block (around 230 hp, if I recall), and for just one of them, put in a new turbo-4 that makes the same HP. But leave the transmission the same (for science!) (maybe a different rear axle gear ratio to handle the different rpm’s that they make their power).
Then compare them and see which one does better–acceleration, towing, heat management, fuel economy, etc.
It, for me, would give me a much better appreciation for the differences in an engine besides overall power rating.
For science!
So I’m boring as hell and want to electric swap everything, but one of my secret crushes is putting the 7.3 IDI or Powerstroke into an old American land yacht. I suspect the pre-downsizing era Lincoln Towncar with the 460 will be a near drop-in.
It’s not a very out of this world or surprising swap, but one I could potentially execute…
A project I once considered taking on was I figured out that a 1940ish Lincoln has the exact same wheelbase as an F150 raptor. I didn’t have the space mainly, nor the motivation to do interior work to start on this project, but I always wondered how it would turn out.
Fun fact: the 460 was the only big-cube American V8 to debut in a passenger car and later be offered in trucks, rather than the other way around, or being introduced in both at once. It started off as a Lincoln motor before it ended up in Ford F-Series trucks and E-Series vans. I sure loved the one in my 1992 E350 Club Wagon XLT, that’s for sure.
Did you enjoy the 0.5 MPG too
(the vantruck was a 460 4bbl then FITech toilet bowl injection and i’m not sure i ever saw more than like 10 mpg out of it, ever)
Empty, with only passengers and luggage, I could easily get 14 or 15 mpg. Hooked to our camper trailer? 8mpg. Towing our trailer uphill? 8mpg. Coasting downhill? 8mpg. Flat land? 8mpg.
An S2000 with a flat six would be my wish.
Fiero with a rotary engine. Preferably a 3 rotor with the intake right next to the driver’s ear.
I wouldn’t mind a modern BMW straight six to replace my much loved 2.5L straight six in my TR6, as long as it had a great exhaust note.
Former TR6 owner here, and I completely approve of this move.
VW bug into a CJ-2!!!!
What air cooled motorcycle motor would work in a cj-2? just curious.
Not exactly an engine swap, but I’d love to see DT’s old leaf powered by about 100 Milwaukee M18 batteries. I think that’ll end up with roughly the same capacity and also cost roughly the same as an OEM battery as long as you wait for the sales HD does about 3 times a year.
You should go with Ridgid batteries instead, and abuse their lifetime warranty! (Still the reason that comes closest to making me regret buying Milwaukee over them)
Any generation RX7 rotary into a CRX. I would call it, the CRX7! It would need to be a RWD conversion obviously.
I think a CRZ would be even better. Turning one of the most fuel efficient cars ever made into the exact opposite, but a hell of a lot more fun.
I’m not generally a Harley guy, but I’d like to build an old-school chopper and throw a Rotax 990 out of a 2nd gen Aprilia Tuono / RSV in there just to annoy people.
I really want a Moto Guzzi 1400 in the back of some tiny rear-engined car, like a Fiat 850, BMW 700 or Renault Dauphine.
There is a factory conversion kit to install the twincam engine in the 850.
That’s gotta be a little monster, the 850 makes the 124 look humongous. Though I particularly want the V-twin sound of the Guzzi in this case, maybe it’d be more worthwhile to swap into a 500 or 600.
I’m not huge on the narrow-angle American V-twins, but the 90-degree ones sound really lovely.
The Moto would be nice!
Ive always wanted to do swaps that would generate the most outrage from a some fanbase or another. Like swapping some kind of Mustang V6 into a VQ powered G37/370z or swapping some kind of built Honda motor into an e36 M3.
I see the E36 – “Fast and Furious XII, Bamberg Drift”
I’ve always wanted the 1GZ-FE in an 80 series. a GZJ80. so smooth, so much torque, so perfectly “of its time”. It would have been the G65 before there was one.
Oh, so many, where to start…
All approved.
Especially 7. Because fuck Porsche’s purists and their monocles.
They are almost as bad as Ferrari stans.
A Triumph Rocket III in a Crosley Hot Shot.
I like cars to be as they were designed.
As designed?
Or as manufactured?
Steam-powered Tesla. Model H2O.
Would not happen but a Goldwing flat 6 in a SAAB Sonnet.
Actually Goldwing flat 6 in lots of old cars.
I think I saw one in a VW bug on youtube?
I’ve seen a Bug and an Imp with the Goldwing’s mill. I’d love to see it under the flat floor of a Type 3, bet it’d fit nicely in there.
I’d want the foot shifter, handlebars, throttle and left hand clutch transplanted as well, but otherwise hell yes to this. And yes this would be an MC Escher build.
There was a VW Beetle with a Goldwing engine for sale on C&B a little while ago. Unfortunately, the engine didn’t fit.
I’m trying to think of good swap options for my Geo Tracker.
An old 1.0 3-cylinder Honda Insight hybrid swap? 80 system hp would equal the 8V Trackers, so it should be driveable, but with hybrid fuel economy? Still manual, of course.
Or a K-swap would probably be the ideal performance upgrade
Yamaha V-max swap?
Being essentially the same engine with different valve timing, I’d love to see a Toyota 1NZ-FXE in a first-gen Scion xB. It’d probably take a bit of clever packaging to fit the battery in somewhere but I think the drivetrain package is approximately the same size. I just really like the idea of an xB, with its Tardis-like interior space and already decent fuel economy, bolstered by the even better economy of the Prius family. Imagine what a delivery vehicle that would make. Imagine, even more, a plug-in model.
I’d like to turbo the hot buttered bejesus out of a hotrodded Briggs and Stratton 35-hp “Big Block” 1-liter V-twin and bolt that into…well, damn near everything. “Robot Cantina” on YouTube got a Honda Insight up to 50mph with a 212cc Predator engine, I’d like to try repowering damn near everything with aircooled hardware and see how it does.
ND MX-5 with the 3.3 litre straight six petrol from a CX-60.
No extra HP, but I’d like to see any Miata with the 1.8L V6 from the MX-3. Just cuz.
Six > Four