3.8l clio

[luke.B]

Have been looking into an engine change if i cant sell my car, and have been offered a chevy 3.8 liter v8! all installed with new box for around £2500, firstly what do you guys think and anyone have any experiance with insuring a car witha non standerd engine? the v8 is pushing around 350 bhp!!! this is not a joke am quite serious as the £2500 includes a new uprated gear box and all work to fit it?



Any comments welcome



Luke

 

[James20VT]

my dads SC-430 is a 4.3l V8 and pushes 300bhp and thats scary....

put ya foot down and u are g00000nnneeeee

GET IT!!!

 

[Roamer]

The one question is, how big is the crowbar youre gonna use to get that powerplant in there? its gotta be fairly huge, I mean, with the 2l 172 engine you cant do much in that engine bay....

 

[James20VT]

with that sort of toruqe/engine.. itd be rear wheel drive no?

 

[luke.B]

Its the small block chevy so the engine is actually smaller than the 172... less plastic more important bits! not saying its easy but they have given me the quote so if I go for it its there problem!



Luke

 

[luke.B]

dunno yet have considered a change but ill see if it works with the fronts first.

 

[Tom]

its not transverse?

it wnt wrk

 

[BenR]

itll have to be RWD.......and youll need alot more than 2500 quid!

i would put that aside for chassis mods alone!

 

[luke.B]

look i admit that I dont know alot about the enginnering, but the people offering this to me have been doing this sort of thing for about 20 years and they say that apart from uprateing the brakes it wont need any chassis work because the wheel base is short? really not trying to contradict what you have said because as i mentioned i really have no idea about this sort of stuff.



But I am asking why you say that? by the list of cars you must know your stuff do you have any experiance in engine transplants?



Luke

 

[BenR]

i dont have experince in transplants as i only tune the engine that comes in teh car.

But with the V8 idea...amn, alot of fabrication is gonna be needed.

Firstly, there is teh actual fittnig, a V8 is very wide and im not sure it will fit in teh bay witha ll teh anciliaries in place. You may have to relocate the brake mater cylinder and you will need to redesign the cooling system and have a new larger rad put in. It may require teh bulkhead cutting back, and teh bonnet might foul against teh V8 plenham chamber and injection/carbs. You might need ot cut the inner wings and fabricae new ones, weld them in, tehn sort out a place to fit the shocks if the banks are to wide and hit tehs trut tops.

Then you will need to sort out teh subframe and engine mounts, then you need to build a transmission tunnel for teh HUGE gearbox, tehn fabricare a new ral axle to incorporate teh drive shafts/diff/half shafts. The mount rear turrets as you cant use torsion beams anymore. Need new rear hubs to fir teh drive shafts into.

New braking system for teh plus 200kg your gonna add.

fuel tank needs to be moved, new exhaust system, then you have to get it safety checked .......teh list goes on and on.

By all means, if they can do it for that price, jump on them!

but get tehm to give yuo a detailed plan and talk about everything.....make sure they are not skipping corners, thre is a hell of a lot of work to be done....and include stripping teh car down to teh shell.

 

[JamesG]

do it!!!

 

[luke.B]

Thanks for the advice, will speak to them in more detail on friday, the reason it is so cheep is that I know the guy who owns the garage/bodyshop and he is doing it for me at cost, will show him this post to see what he says about the conversion. you got to admit it does sound fun though!

Any more advice from anyone?

 

[BenR]

indeed....it sounds MENTAL! as will the car.

what box you gonna use?

it is gonna be RWD right?

I dont know of any FWD V8, unless your using a mid engined gearbox, but i dont know of any either.

 

[cyue005]

i reckon if u knock the firewall down u might be able to fit one of those Volkswagen W8 engines in there... they are seriously small for a V8 but thats just by eyes so i m not so sure the Clio bay does look extremely small

 

[lofty]

i think this is totally pie in the sky, but if someone with the skills is prepared to do it then excellent, but i cant help but feel you would be far better using a smaller turbo charged 4 pot, pinto cosworth or mitsi for e.g, there is an austin healey in CCC with a de-stroked chevy 4 pot and a skyline GTs turbo! fun but not my cup of tea, I cant coment on the size of the small block, but a V8 like a boxer 4 is very wide due to the cylinder layout, maybe a BMW straight 6 would be "easier" would still need all the floor coming up to make room for the transmission to get to the rear unless you could route it where the exhaust currently runs and do something else with the exhaust, but then all the rear suspension would need to go to make way for a diff and independant rear susp., they do this sort of thing to MK1 fiesta for rallying, but feck knows how, where the captin when you need him!!

if you get it dont then fair play to you!

 

[luke.B]

Do agree the transplant is a little pie in the sky, but more because of the insurance than anything else, As i said in the previous post the guys offering this have been shoe horning chevy engines into small cars for quite some time and they looked at my car and reconed it was possable? will be talking to them on friday to get more details. personally i dont think the turbo option is the way forward as most the people who have gone this way seem to have lots of probs... also i am not really a speed freek, the only reason I would do this is to do something completly different, if it doesnt work out then I will probably just do a williams engine to make transporting my ICE a little less slow. Apparently the rear suspension only has to be changed if I have to go for rear wheel drive so we will have to wait and see on that one.



any way keep the suggestions coming , and where is Nick Read thought he might try and convince me to put nitros on it once it was in!!!



Cheers

Luke

 

[MarkLD]

Anything is possible with abit of work (and money) I am currently fitting a Vauxhall XE 2.0lt 16v (on throttle Bodies) to my standard length mini. Engine conversions are quite common in minis , people have used Vauxhall, Honda vtec, Suzuki, Clio Williams, Rover V8,Fiat twin cam, etc....

Go for it, if it doesnt work out then you still have a good motor you can sell.

If your interested, my site is http://www.vx200mini.150m.comwww.vx200mini.150m.com

The V8 mini site is http://www.v8mini.co.ukwww.v8mini.co.uk

Also loads of links at http://www.16vmini.co.ukwww.16vmini.co.uk

Good luck with the project



Mark

 

[SteveJJH]

You will definately need rear wheel drive if youre planning on getting round any corners. Big engine with loads of torque and loads of wieght, front engine and front wheel drive will give you a hideous understeer problem. Try throwing a hammer in the air and see which end hits the ground first. At least with rear wheel drive the drive train will add some wieght to the rear and you can transfer more wieght to the driven wheels using the throttle.

I do like the idea of a big engine though, if you do a search for a thread i started a while back (i think it was called 2.6l clio) you might find some more info.