What is the strangest engine swap you've seen?

[mitch1]

I had one of those 65 corvairs with the toronado drivetrain, spooky.
the most odd one for me was my friends dad, a 62 fairlane with a 58 pontiac drivetrain. And he is a ford fanatic

 

[10WSmuckers]

Someone put a Toyota 1UZ in a stripped down Nissan D21 truck at a car show I went to and that thing could move.

 

[10WSmuckers]

1993 Buick Roadmaster with a FWD 4.3 Diesel engine and manual transaxle

I'm genuinely curious to see how this would look. Sounds like a massive downgrade though.

 

[Rmay635703]

I'm genuinely curious to see how this would look. Sounds like a massive downgrade though.

No photos and tight against the firewall, (look at a 4.3 olds diesel fwd Cadillac for an OEM example)
good thing no spark plugs but I would hate to replace an injector
guy ran it probably 4 years and claimed 40mpg+ but got tired of it, lost track of it 10 years ago, accelerated like a freight train but was a steady highway runner.

And it’s not the only 350-> olds diesel swap I’m aware of, one of the other forums I belonged to had swapped olds diesels into both 1993 Suburbans (RWD & stick) and 6.2 1994 Roadmaster RWD and stick.

All were 30-40mpg affairs made in the run up to the expensive fuel circa 2008.

I myself during last fuel crisis thought (daydreamed) of converting my 5 speed RWD Diesel suburban to FWD stick, to make a poor man’s hybrid, lol.

 

[RedSpider]

Back in the late 80's my friend bought a '72 Firebird with a blown engine. His brother, decent mechanic but a bit of a nut, dropped a Ford 250 straight six in it and paired it up to a two speed Power glide with two unmuffled straight pipes out the back. Poor thing was an absolute dog and sounded a bit strange but it got great gas mileage. We drove that thing all over the place.

 

[PandaBear]

Subaru Kei car engine into a Ford Taurus jelly bean + CVT transmission
Geo Metro 3 cyl engine into another Ford Taurus with a manual transmission

Education funding and your tax dollar at work.

 

[Bjornviken]

Smart car with Suzuki Hayabusa engine

 

[Number_35]

I believe that it has been done plenty of times, but I saw a Mercury Bobcat with a 302 in it. I couldn’t get past it being a Mercury Bobcat and it wasn’t very nice looking, but it was interesting. I also remember a Chevy Luv with a 350 in it cruising up and down the street in Clarksville, AR. on Friday and Saturday nights. This was from my days as a teenager when cruising was still a thing. The Chevy Luv looked good and had nice white paint with blue stripes. I’m sure there are plenty of details that I can’t recall, but I remember thinking how great that little truck looked.

We used to refer to the Mustang II as the "Pintostang", and the Mustang II was available with 4-, 6-, and -8 cylinder engines (if I recall correctly), so although a 302 in a Pinto/Bobcat sounds weird, it was probably a reasonably straightforward swap.

 

[javacontour]

Let's try to keep this limited to automotive engines and automobiles. Also, I'd rather exclude the LS/Vortec engine because they get put in anything and everything.

Probably the strangest one I've seen was a Cadillac 500 cu in V8 swapped into a 1987 Dodge D150 pickup. This was about ten years ago and the truck belonged to one of my customers at the time.

And I was going to mention the 420cc Harbor Freight engine Robot Cantina is playing with in a Honda Insight

 

[zzyzzx]

V8 Chevettes have always fascinated me. Not that I would ever want one.

Chevy Chevette with a 1,500 HP BBC V8

Small cars and big motors always make for an interesting and fun combination. Don Foess brought his very powerful 1985 Chevrolet Chevette to Drag Week. The Chevette is powered by a 555 ci big-block Chevy V8 with twin Borg...

chromjuwelen.com

 

[97prizm]

Guy on YouTube put a gas engine in a Tesla

Yeah and now Elon musk and Tesla hate the guy.

 

[Rmay635703]

Yeah and now Elon musk and Tesla hate the guy.

Reduced repair cost

 

[RooflessVW]

Yeah and now Elon musk and Tesla hate the guy.

Sounds like a win IMO

 

[DriveHard]

There is a guy in our local SCCA club that has a Ford Coyote swapped into an older M3.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

5.0 Mustang engines into BMW E30 chassis.

There are a few more



@DriveHard car becomes nose-heavy and is hard to "hook" on really any tire with all the power and forward weight distribution, am I right? I think someone also shoehorned a BMW V12 into it. Sometimes people put BMW V8s ?

*Side note.. you said EXCLUDE LS swaps but.. man, they just make cars with problem engines.. better.

 

[Cujet]

Let's try to keep this limited to automotive engines and automobiles

My very favorite was a modified Mercury 250HP V6 two stroke fitted into a Porsche 914. Although I never drove it, I heard that thing was an absolute beast. Interestingly, the engine looked tiny in the engine bay.

 

[Skippy722]

This was an interesting one in my opinion.

 

[OVERKILL]

 

[ChrisMU]

My uncle had a Fiero and swapped the iron duke for a Cadillac 4.5 V8. This was the early 2000s, so Northstars were expensive and not fully sorted out while the later 4.5/4.9 were plentiful and most of the bugs had been worked out.

 

[ls1mike]

One of my favorites is a Detroit V series diesel in a Square body Chevy. I love how they sound and they fit pretty well.
4-71, 6-71, 8V-71. I have seen one of each.