What is the strangest engine swap you've seen?
- Thread starter Kennedy01
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Cadillac Northstar engine in a Pontiac Fiero, LS1 in a Mazda RX7, or the B16 VTEC in a vintage Mini Cooper.
BOP 455's & Cadillac 472/500 swaps were pretty common in the late 80's early 90's in Chevy/GMC trucks because let's face it.....Small Block & Big Block Chevies suck(sucked) far as durability if worked hard. The late 60's-early 70's BOP-C engines were just built better!
Strangest for me was swapping a Series II 3800/T5 out of a F-body into a Triumph TR-7, While carbureted Buick 3.8L swaps are fairly common....This is the only Series II swapped I've ever seen, The throttle body wouldn't clear the hood & it ended up right at the core support make fitting an air filter impossible. So I fabricated a 90° extension out of exhaust tubing that the PCV fresh air intake pipe. Also had to fab a bracket & idler to delete the A/C compressor & Power steering pump, Custom motor mount brackets & trans crossmember as the F-body T5 is canted.
It was one fun well handling car with a near perfect power to weight ratio. I would say it was overall better than the LS1 swapped Datsun 240Z I had at the time.....Of coarse the Datsun was faster but Triumph felt more balanced.
1.9 vw tdi in Suzuki Samurai
The GM 3.8 is rwd in Holdens, so a 3.8 conversion is done on almost anything. Not so common is this, a J1 Bedford with a Holden 3.6 drivetrain. It has been very well done, but has been sitting outside our shop for sale for the last couple of months. I got it up and running last year, and did the brakes and springs, but has been sitting and now running on 5...probably a stuck/clipped valve.
While on Bedfords, here is another Kiwi transplant, a Detroit into a K Model. Sorry they are trucks, but smaller than what you call a pickup.
And a common classic ....the 90s Jetta with the Porsche engine swap.
Apparently this company still exists. JTR ( Jags that run ) has been helping people put V-8’s the all sorts of cars. My favorite is a Chevy V-8 in a Z car.
Www.jagsthatrun.com
Www.jagsthatrun.com
The challenge with Fieros, though, is coming up with something no one has seen before. Northstars, Chevy small blocks, LT1, LS1, 3800SC, GM Ecotec, 4.3 diesel, VW VR6, Mitsubishi, Chrysler V6, all-electric swap, etc, etc.... All these and more I've forgotten have all been done many times.
Putting a Mopar engine in a GM doesn’t seem to rile anyone up that much. Now when someone puts a GM engine in a Mopar, all hell breaks loose! THAT’S BLASPHEMY! (I happen to agree with that, but I’m biased.)
This is taking a step into "reality" entertainment, but I used to get a kick out of Roadkill when it was free on Youtube. Along with the Hemi '55 gasser above, they swapped a 455 Olds boat engine into the back of a Mazda pickup--the Mazdarati.
I swapped a Pontiac 400 into a Nova by necessity. I wrecked the Pontiac and got the Nova shell cheap. That wasn't too much of a stretch since Pontiacs were installed in that chassis, but the only actual Ventura part was a fan shroud. (It did have a Mopar 8 3/4 rear, again because that was easiest to scrounge parts for.) But like you said of Mopars, putting a SBC into a Pontiac would have seemed wrong.
I raced a guy who pulled the OHC 6 from a first-gen Firebird and replaced it with a 350 Chevy.
Don't have the pics unfortunately, but saw on a different forum, a very talented fabricator who put a Cummins C series (8.3 liter) six cylinder diesel into a late 80's F350 single rear wheel. He had to box the entire frame of the truck, fabricated the engine mounting after reinforcing the frame in the front, and used a Spicer 7 speed transmission with a divorce mounted Spicer transfer case. The Cummins engine was "tuned" to make considerably more hp/torque than a stock C series would ever produce. He had to really feather the throttle when driving that beast as the rear tires would easily break traction. He went by the screen name of "C series man". No idea what ever became of that truck.
Back in the '60's
327 Chevy in the back seat of a Corvair.
Big Buick V8 engine in a Henry J,the motor was so big that the distributor sat between the front seat and the passenger seat,it was fast and loud.
327 Chevy in the back seat of a Corvair.
Big Buick V8 engine in a Henry J,the motor was so big that the distributor sat between the front seat and the passenger seat,it was fast and loud.
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I've seen a couple of 65-69 corvairs on YouTube that the entire driveline out of a 455 olds toronado shoved under the back end. No room for an air cleaner but it was a running and driving car.
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