Motor swap: easiest/hardest

Trackmouse wrote: I'm picturing the ass end of that car would be longer than the front, which is already about equal on both ends stock!

Oh, V10 went in the FRONT of the Ghia.

One of the hardest: Rolls-Royce Meteor 27L V12 into Rover SD1

All of Wreck Racing's engine swaps were pretty hard, but it was totally our fault. And I loved every bit of it.

• 1UZ V8 into a Miata required tons of firewall trimming, ghetto header fab, general shoehorning that made the engine bay look like E36 M3.

• 2JZ into MG Midget wasn't difficult once the firewall and everything forward was cut out, but EVERYTHING had to be fabbed after that. Also, 2JZ --> TH350 --> 10" driveshaft --> Ford 8.8 just complicated things even more.

• Suburu flat-6 into a Honda Insight (aluminum unibody). So glad I graduated before that got out of control

I've only done one engine swap, replacing the 350 in my '72 Chevy truck with an LS. Made it a bit more complicated than needed by trying to make sure I had enough room to use the factory A/C compressor in the future, then never hooked that up.

I would say that replacing the b18 in my old integra with a b20 was about as simple as it gets.

Is the guy that put a Northstar V8 in a first gen MR2 still on the board?

G_Body_Man wrote: Easiest? How about a 305 SBC to a 350 SBC?

Takes about 5 mintues to change out the badges. Simplest swap ever.

Furious_E wrote:

Grtechguy wrote: I swapped a 1200cc suzuki engine into a 600cc chassis, everything bolted up the same except the speedo.

Bandit? If so, that is probably information I would have been better off not knowing...

Yep. the 1200 is the same in all directions except cylinder jug is 3/4-1" taller. Easy way to get 50% more power. My donor came with a stage 3 jet kit and nice exhaust.

maschinenbau wrote: - Suburu flat-6 into a Honda Insight (aluminum unibody). So glad I graduated before that got out of control

I'm not sure that counts as a swap, so much as a complete reengineering of that end of the car. So in a sense it was easier than a swap should be? There was nothing in the way that we had to work around/relocate, because there was nothing there to begin with.

Easiest is replacing stock motor with another stock motor I pulled myself from a running but totaled vehicle.

I have done two cross-platform swaps with used motors, and neither was easy. It took time, about twice as much as I expected, and about half again as much money.

Maybe something like one of the Vorshlag LX swap deals would be easy-ish, but unless you start with a crate motor, you face all the stuff one encounters with getting a junkyard motor back in the spin.

Even for a swap that doesn't involve engine bay re-sizing, there's a ton of fiddly crud to get worked out. Motor mounts are an obvious issue, and then both times I wound up installing the motor a few times until I had the right height urethane mounting units to get the vertical positioning of the whole mess under the hood and above the subframe.

And oh by the way, is there even an oil pan that will fit in there or do I need to cut into one and re-weld on my own? Will there be a pickup that fits that re-welded pan? And is the whole get-up good enough to keep the motor from oil starving in long sweepers or at the end of the brake zone on the straights?

I once spent all my available hobby time for about six weeks getting together a well-designed hydraulic clutch conversion for a Ford T-5 and fabbing it up.

Where do I get a drive shaft the right length, and how do I get it to connect to a different differential than the stock one? Do I need conversion U-joints for the transmission side? How much tunnel smashing do I need to make clearance? How do I adjust the height and angle of the transmission so I get a safe and sound driveshaft angle to the diff?

Do I need to move the ABS pump? That's four or five brake line extensions and two more lines back and forth to the MC. That's 14 different hydraulic fluid connections to get made, all leak-free, and a ton of wiring extensions for the pump servo.

Is there an oil cooler or transmission cooler? Have to find a way to get that mounted and do the associated plumbing.

Might need to move the battery too, fabbing up a new platform to mount it on, or even worse get it all the way back to the trunk, running new 2 gauge wire from back to front.

Exhaust is always custom, at least to the back of the engine bay. What header is going to squeeze in there? Putting a V8 in a chassis designed for an in-line motor? More stuff to fiddle out. Is the repositioned exhaust going to bake the starter or something else? Heat shielding to figure out.

Any of this stuff interfering with the location of the oil filter? Last time I got lucky and all I needed was a 90-degree adapter and a short filter.

Usually need to re-do the front clip with a new radiator, since swaps always mean bigger motors that need more BTU dissipation. Then I might have hose routing differences to work out. Also, where to put the puke can. And what to use for a puke can. And what fan will fit. And wiring in a thermostat, relay, and breaker.

Do I want heat? Does the heater control valve still fit like stock? Last time I thought it wouldn't, and I had four coolant lines to route around without making an opportunity for engine-melting leaks.

The power steering pump for the recipient car needs to get mounted into the belt routing for the swapped-in motor, and BOY can this be a pain, because it's gotta be rock solid and tightly aligned in all 3 directions simultaneously or the belt throws at high RPM. And it probably means new hydraulic lines need to be custom-ordered.

Does the fuel pump run enough pressure and volume for the new motor? First time the answer was no and I had to fab up a whole high pressure fuel system, with return. Second time, I had to figure out how to get a new pump into the existing round-trip plumbing because I needed more LPH, but the existing system was an in-tank pump, so I couldn't just swap in a new one. Even if I don't have pumping problems, the new fuel rail needs to get connected to the old plumbing. And it's never the same diameter, sometimes not even in the same imperial/metric ballpark, and I can't just hope the hose clamps hold to take up the slack.

Wiring? It's not just the electrical connections, it's the routing, and the extending and shortening too. Last one I did, I needed to add breakers and relays as well. Gauges too. Tach signal off the chassis comes from the now-removed ECU, and comes off the distributor hardware for the new motor, in a different wave form at a different frequency? No speedo output from the new transmission because the donor car takes it off the diff? Where do I stuff the new ECU anyway?

Air intake and filter? Throttle cable or a whole electronic pedal and stepper motor setup?

Don't get me wrong. IT'S THE BEST HOBBY EVER!

Sometimes the devil is in the details....

4AC for 4AG... required not just the engine... but the fuel tank, the fuel lines, the clutch hydraulics, and engine wiring....

oldeskewltoy wrote: Sometimes the devil is in the details.... 4AC for 4AG... required not just the engine... but the fuel tank, the fuel lines, the clutch hydraulics, and engine wiring....

That one got me a few years ago... always do more research!

The simplest engine swap I have ever done was the GX160 powered 1927 Model-T truck.

Photobucket is off the rails again, See link for moar pics.

Mazda B6 to BP is fantastically easy. If doing it on a BG chassis car with a complete donor, you'll spend more time swapping over the rear subframe, master cylinder and brake lines if doing the rear disc conversion as well.

EvanR wrote: I once swapped a SBC into a C10 that came with a 250 I-6. I can't imagine there are many swaps easier than that.

Done that a few times. A nice easy one with no fab and plenty of room.

What doesn't just move over can be found in the gym parts catalog.

The tougher part of those was going from the 3 speed on the column to the 4 spd with granny gear.

That requires cutting the floor out where the 4 spd trans cover bolted in, but otherwise was a simple bolt up that required one adapter U-joint.

I'm in the process of finding out about 2zz turbo into zzw30 mr2. I'll keep you posted.

Easiest is the one I dream up.

Hardest is the one I actually try and do.

Miata 1.6-1.8 is about as easy as I can think of. It all bolts together with the right combination of parts, and flyin Miata's swap kit

Doesn't matter what swap you pick, the minute you tell anyone about it -- especially people who have never swapped a motor or driven a single GM product -- they will say "why didn't you do the LS?"

I've gotten that with my V8 Firefly. Would have been nice to do an LS, but that wasn't what fell into my lap for cheap. Engine swap costs have a way of snowballing.