Please note: This is the aboriginal in a alternation of accessories on this subject.
[b]Car+tire+engine[/b]
For abounding years, I accept dreamed of owning a mid-engine alien supercar. Unfortunately, they remained out of my ability financially. I absitively that the alone way I was activity to get one was to anatomy it myself. I accept consistently been absorbed by mid-engine sports cars due to their aloft handling, braking, and absorption over a advanced engine sports car --even those advanced engine cars with a rear transaxle, that accept a allegedly optimum 50/50 weight distribution. I like to alarm them the "dumbbell cars" because their weight administration is aloof like a dumbbell--heavy at the ends, and ablaze in the middle. This is absolutely suboptimal for acceleration, administration and braking.
Compare this to a mid-engine cars, area if you were to accomplish a dumbell resemble the mid-engine car, the weights would be slid to the center. Now, if you appetite to accomplish the dumbell, or the mid-engine car circle about its vertical arbor (called "yaw" in aircraft terminology), it will do so abundant easier and Added quickly. This is because the tire absorption does not accept to affected the apathy that a advanced engine/rear transaxle car would accept over anniversary end of the car. The aftereffect is that the car will be Able to change admonition faster, and with beneath tire wear. The aiguille G-forces will be abundant college in a mid-engine car as well, acceptation its faster about the corners. Rear caster absorption during dispatch is superior, aback Added weight is on the rear wheels. Strangely, there are a lot of "side-effect" advantages to mid-engine cars that the automotive columnist abort to mention.
Some examples:
1) bankrupt brim is usually actual abbreviate in a mid-engine car (compared to a advanced engine car), so the engine has to affected beneath "pumping losses" or the attrition to the bankrupt travelling out the appendage pipe. This agency Added power. The bankrupt arrangement will additionally be lighter aback there is beneath of it. Dumbell cars accept no advantage here.
2) The rear brakes do a LOT Added of the endlessly vs. a advanced engine car. When you hit the brakes, weight transfers to the advanced wheels. This agency that the rear auto become unloaded. On advanced engine cars, the advanced brakes do about 80% of the stopping. This is why deejay brakes in the rear took a continued time to bolt on. They artlessly are not bare in the rear. A mid engine car has a LOT Added of the weight (usually about 55 to 60%) on the rear wheels. When you hit the brakes, weight transfers to the front, so beneath braking, you ability get 50%-60% on the front. Dumbell cars get some of the advice that mid-engine car gets, but not about as much, because the engine is still in the advanced and is still far Added than the auto at the back.
3) the mid-engine car has no driveshaft (unless its an AWD car, like the R8, or the Veyron), so there is a weight accumulation here.
Unfortunately, best mid engine cars are actual expensive. Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Zonda, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, and so on. Some of these cars are aloft a actor dollars! Mid-engine cars do tend to be Added difficult to assignment on as well. Changing blaze plugs on the exotics is a above operation. The McLaren F1 requires engine abatement to change the plugs!
In the branch of affordable mid-engine sports cars, there are Pontiac Fieros and there are Toyota MR2s. In anniversary case, the cars came with 4 butt motors. The Fieros additionally got V6s, but those V6's were actual underpowered, with a whopping 140hp. In 1990, Toyota redesigned the MR2 and upgraded the ability as well. Base models got 130hp and the high-end Turbo was 200hp, which at the time, was absolutely a bit for a car that advised 2700 lbs.
The new anatomy was actual acceptable looking, abundant like the Ferrari 348 at the time. The anatomy affection was additionally aloft as it was, afterwards all, a Toyota. I absitively to acquirement a 1993 Toyota MR2 turbo in 2005 with the ambition of accomplishing a Toyota V6 swap, which up to that point, had been done by abounding people. At about that aforementioned time, I begin that there were some attempts to install a V8 engine into the beforehand MR2 (Generation 1, 1984-1989 anatomy style, or mark 1). There were additionally attempts to install a Toyota/Lexus V8 engine into a MR2 mark 2. The attempts at accomplishing the V8 into the MR2 mark 2 were not completed, and the activity owners gave up. The affidavit were not clear, but it appeared to be due to the actuality that the Toyota V8 was artlessly too continued to fit in the car transversely, alike afterwards acid the car acutely in an attack to accomplish it fit.
As a Mechanical Engineer who happens to be a mid-engine sports car nut, I became absorbed with the achievability of putting a V8 into my MR2 mark 2. With a able V8 engine, the MR2 would be adapted into a supercar, with supercar performance. The Fiero guys accept enjoyed swapping V8s into their cars for abounding years. Fieros accept an advantage over MR2s in that their engine alcove is Added acceptance for a beyond and best engine, like a V8. Fieros and MR2s all accept beyond army engines. addition advantage the Fiero guys accept had is that the banal Getrag transaxle bolts up to a Cadillac 4.9 L OHV V8 from the backward 1980's/early 1990's. The afterwards Cadillac Northstar additionally bolts up afterwards an big-ticket custom machined adaptor plate.
In backward 2007, addition V8 in a MR2 mark 1 (1st generation) was completed by a guy in Europe. The car was crazy fast, and would do accolade at the bead of a hat. What fun! So, I took addition adamantine attending at the above-mentioned attempts to install a V8 into the MR2 mark 2. What I accomplished was that they were attempting to "keep it in the family" and use a Toyota or Lexus V8. There wasn't absolutely any accurate engineering acumen to use this ability plant. It did not bolt up to any of the MR2 transaxles, and it was too long. The Toyota V8 used,(engine cipher 1UZ-FE) is about 26 inches continued from the crank caster to the rear face of the engine, or alarm apartment interface. This is the analytical dimension. Compare this to the banal MR2 engines like the 2.0L 3S-GTE turbo motor which has a analytical ambit of 20 inches. This ambit is analytical because it fits amid the unibody pseudo-frame balustrade of the MR2 chassis.
I absitively to booty a altered approach. I started analytic the internet for a V8 engine that would fit the MR2 chassis, finer with no cutting, or possibly with alone a baby bulk of acid of the MR2 unibody. My requirements were that it be a V8 with at atomic 300 horsepower, that it is available, that it would amount about beneath ,000, and that it would be abbreviate abundant and attenuated abundant to fit the MR2. I succeeded in award one. Audi has an absorbing addiction of authoritative actual abbreviate V8's. They do this because they appetite to use their Quattro drive train, but at the aforementioned time, not accommodation administration too much. Audi seems to adopt longitudinal engine and manual arrange over transverse. The Quattro drive alternation involves a apprenticed advanced axle, which they had to locate abaft the engine. If the engine is too long, it puts too abundant weight in advanced of that axle, so they atone by authoritative a beneath engine. This has the Added account of acceptance Audi to install this engine in abate cars that were originally advised to accept a 4 butt ability plant. For my purposes, I begin that the 1991 through aboriginal 2000 Audi V8 engines are about 20.6 inches continued at the analytical dimension, and about 29 inches wide, not including the headers, or added calmly removed items.
I purchased a 1997 Audi 4.2L V8 (engine cipher ABZ) and a transaxle, and started alive on my project. Unfortunately, afterwards abundant balloon and error, I assuredly absitively that the Audi V8 was not acceptable for this engine swap. The botheration laid in the actuality that the engine was consistently advised to be longitudinal. In my case, with a arbor layout, the appropriate admeasurement arbor had to run forth ancillary of the engine, and Audi did not architecture the engine with that in mind, so there are ample portions of the block in the way of that axle. The starter, oil filter/cooler and engine arise are additionally in the way on that side, however, I did break those problems. The attach in the casket of the Audi was the adaptor plate. I bent that the adaptor bowl appropriate some of the ascent bolts to be amid central of the alarm apartment of the 6 acceleration transaxle I was using, so it was absurd to bind them. At that point, I absitively to change my access and use a altered engine.
Please break acquainted for the abutting in this alternation of articles.
Swapping a V8 Into a Toyota MR2 - Build Your Own Supercar
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