I seem to recall about a year ago there was a thread about a clio 1.2 with an audi tt 1.8 turbo transplanted into it... I've recently been thinking that a similar project might be interesting, as opposed to building e.g. a locost etc.

Regardless of what base car I chose, I'd like to strip it out fully, seam weld it etc and change the engine in it to something more potent. The car itself should look as much as a "normal" day to day run about, with as little as possible giving the game away. I don't want to get a car that has a powerful engine already, as that sort of defeats the purpose of the project

What kind of base cars would be suitable for a "mad" conversion like this? The base car has to be cheap as chips, as I don't want to spend huge amounts of money on the project, so I'll probably end up buying something with light collision damage from a car auction.

So far I'm thinking of cars like fiesta's, KA's, starlet etc, or maybe (being Swedish) I should go for an old Volvo Amazon or a 240 (huge engine bay suitable for a small block). I don't want to go for a 205, as everyone seem to have one of them.

The original idea was to have a volvo amazon and drop a volvo 2.3 litre in it and then turbo charge it, but it's a bit unoriginal.

Any comments that help me crystalize the thoughts are very welcome

 

A Volvo 240 with a big engine in is bound to be fun because, like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody will expect it

 

Nice Volvo 440/460 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...!Volvo_440.jpg

With a nice Volvo T5 engine, you could just 'RICA' it and have 300hp, or you could swap the turbo and have 340hp.

That would be amusing

 

240 or 440 is starting to look more and more attractive Leaning towards the 240 for practical purposes (e.g. it's got rear wheel drive already, so easier to convert)

Are the land rover v8's any good? There's a bunch of them on ebay for about 300 quid etc, but are they complete poo from a tuning point of view?

 

If you go the 240 route there's a few options. You could go the turbo'd 2.3 route (and they are very tuneabe) or if you Google around, there's plenty of kits aound to drop in Chevy V8's. Same also applies to the 740/760/960 range.

Or, there's always the option of a 340 with the 1.7 engine which can be turbo'd by swapping bits out of the fwd 440 Turbo/480 Turbo as the block is essentially the same.

 

While I think about it, another of my favourite engine conversions is Fiat Twin Cam into Morris Minor. Even a 1.6 is capable of propelling a Moggie to 60 in less than 7 seconds. Imagine a 2.0 with a 16 valve head in a Traveller with only the wide steel wheels to give the game away

 

Old 3 series plus 735 engine ?

Fiat 126 plus Hayabusa engine, in fact any small light car plus a bike engine, theres a bike engined Smart car out there, plus a Bond Bug 3 wheeler.

Capri + Cosworth YB (ditto Granada, Cortina etc)

Surprised there isn't more use of the Volvo T5 unit, tough and tunable, would imagine its possible to convert it to RWD installation, plus its cheap, you can get a running 850 T5 for a grand. Its is a bit too wide for transverseinstallation in smaller cars, might be possible but would be tight.

Fiat Tipo (if you can find one) with 20 valve turbo (think its been done as the Coupe is Tipo based) or the 16 valve Integrale/16 valve Coupe turbo.

Rover 200 + Tomcat T series turbo, well trodden route, leave it standard looking

 

Are Land Rover v8s any good

Put any (or all) of the following into Google:

TVR Griffith 500

JE Developments

Rover V8 Tuning

 

there use to be a guy round my way with a twin r1 engined 3 wheeler with nos which was supposed to be stupidly quick, obviously mr vosa/police man, one of the engines wasnt running on the road.

how about a 106/saxo with a cosworth engine in? think it might have been redline mag whos done it before? or a redtop mini?

 

easiest by far is a vauxhall with calibra turbo lump in I believe, I'm half way through building my mk1 astra with calibra turbo and 6 speed, will be silly lightweight and 300+bhp and mk1's handle