The oddest car body, engine combination you've ever done,seen,been in?

There was a 1965 Mustang Coupe running around the Downriver area mounted on a truck 4 wheel drive frame with sheet metal pop riveted to cover the gapes in the front rollpan, door sills and the rear rollpan. It was white with red, blue and green ribbons painted from the front to the back.
When I was working at Detroit Dragway in the 1990's there was a black guy that had a 350 cu.in. chevy with a 350 trans mounted in the front of an early 1960's VW Bug. He did a good job on it. He drove it sitting in the backseat. It would turn 12.00's all day, but it was faster. He did not have a rollbar in it, so I told him if he went faster then the 12.00's, he would have to put a rollbar in it.
George

 

As a teen working in my uncle's garage (aka gasket scraper), I rode to the dragstrip in the bed of my oldest cousin's 51 Ford pickup powered with a 301 Red Ram Hemi under the hood.....towing a trailered 50's Crosley Wagon D/Altered racer powered by a 354 blown Hemi.

Thier family cars:

56 Mercury with a 318/Torqueflite Auto.
57 Chevy BelAir convertible with a 392 Hemi/3 speed stick.

The 'normal' one of my bunch of cousins had a 55 Ford 2 door sedan with 1,000,000+ salesman miles on the clock.

 

1953 Pontiac ambulance with a motorhome conversion and powered by a Ford 289 c6 auto.

 

A buddy had a 440-powered '73 Dodge Colt coupe that was flat-out crazy to ride in! Street-legal, too...barely!

Another guy I knew had a 460-powered '75 Ford Pinto that should have never seen the light of day. His first time with it out on the country road in front of his house, he lit the tires and the throttle stuck, sending him into a rural bridge abutment at about 80 mph. The car exploded and he was killed.

 

How about a fuel injected 32 Marmon V-16 engine in a 34 Ford roadster..

 

How about a nice 1940 buick coupe with a ford 300 inch inline 6!

 

Minivan with Turbine helicopter engine... Runs 7.90's @96+ in 1/8th

http://s3.gadgetreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/_jet_turbine_van_1.jpg

Honda CRX w/nasty Big Block chevy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuTnUTqDP1w

 

A guy in my racing club has built a Honda CRX with a blown 455 Olds/transaxle in the back. Get this- the stock 4 cyl in the front also still works. He's from out on Long Island, NY. Sorry no pics.

 

i saw an ad on E-pay for a 68 vette with a flat head in it. it was hooked and running!

 

427 BBC in a corvair.Actually a shortened 67 Chevelle frame with a Corvair body with 2" holes in the trunk(front) for the radiator. Really light and fast.

 

I once looked at buying a 1939 Champion ( grayhound bus ) with a straight 8 Packard motor. Built a teardrop instead.

 

Had a cutlass with an AMC 360 in it pretty stupid but it was all I had, and I drove it daily in high school.

 

One of my friends in high school built a Chevy Luv with an Olds Toronado 455 and transaxle mounted in the bed.

I helped a friend put a Buick v6 and th350 in a 124 Fiat

I helped put a 440 dodge in a 55 Chevy pu because the truck had a rod hanging out of the side block and the 440 was in the garge feeling lonely.

The most obsurd I ever saw was at the Houston Autorama in the late 70s. It was a Honda 650 (the honda that looked like a scuba mask from the rear) with a 455 olds mounted in the front, rear drive. The drivers seat was touching the rear window.

 

friend of mine is going to give me a Subaru 360, tiniest jellybean of a car ever made? going to try and figger out what kind of engine to stuff in that one..a BMW motorcycle engine would go in there, looks kinda like whats in there, cept its all rusty and siezed up..anyone have a pic of a 360? I think they are even smaller than that Vespa..

 

I put a Mercury Capri (German Ford) 2.8 V6 and Dagenham 4-sp into a '66 Mercedes 200D; The diesel engine was a non-player and I had the V6 around. Was actually a sweet combo, especially compared to the smoky, clanky POS diesel.

 

A couple of swaps I did.
A Triumph TR7 with a Mazda 13b rotary engine w/ 5 speed (out ran a TR7 with a 350 Chevy in it).
1987 GMC S15 (same as a chevy S10) with a Ford 302 and C4 trans, (go 60 mph downshift into second floor it and boil the tires off of it).

 

A 59 karman ghia, sitting on a 55 chevy frame, shortened up and a 440 wedge in it.

 

Mechanic mate of mine was given a 20 year old Mercedes sedan several years ago, one of the big ones with red leather interior and everything that opens and shuts. The owner ditched it as the engine was blown and Merc wanted $10,000 for a rebuild, more than the entire car was worth.

Being a bit innovative, my mate went down to the local wreckers with a tape measure and did some calculations. Turned out a late model Ford 250ci inline 6 and auto box would slot right in where the blown merc engine was. All it took was engine mounts, putting the Ford flange on the end of the Merc exhaust pipe, and making a driveshaft. The Merc auto shifter even bolted right up to the Ford transmission.

For the $500 outlay for motor and gearbox, he ended up with a flash looking merc that was quieter, qucker and more economical than the stocker, and unless you lifted the hood you'd never pick it.

I've seen lots of SBC's in Jaguars, and even a 4 banger Hillman Hunter GT works factoy engine putting out 150hp in a bugeye Sprite, now that combination hauled!

I also saw in the 60's an FJ Holden body shell fitted over a shortened 48 Ford chassis, complete with sidevalve V8, a wierd and wonderful package that one was.
Cheers, Glen.

 

blow hemi in the back seat of a corviar, 32 ford with a 430 buick, 63 nova with a pontiac 400. monza with a 350 olds , and me personally ahve alwasy wants to put a 390 into a nova and or a blown nailhead into a gasser nova

 

Prove to me no one put a Pontiac V8 anything in a 49-52 Chevy, clearing the stock steering box had to be a pain in the ass, but I've already heard one story about how it was done back in the day...

 

I think I would win this contest hands down... But the car was an OT one.

Back in the mid 80's I had a VW Rabbit. I had rebuilt the engine with 9:1 pistons, hot cam, ported head, removed the FI for a Webber conversion, etc. It screamed like a little demon, but eventually rust got the best of it, and the front suspension colapsed when I slammed on the brakes one day, so it sat in the back yard for about a year or three.

At the time I had an adopted daughter who was about to turn16 and she wanted a car. we didn't have a lot of $$$ to throw around, so a newer model was out of the question. I finally found a '71 Plymouth duster sitting on the back line of a local car lot. The body was rust free, but the 318 had rod-knock, and the interior was shreaded. Also the paint was flaking. I managed to talk them down to $150, and drove it home.

At first I tried to do some wheeling and dealing. I found a slant 6 that a friend of mine would let me have for a song, so I trashed the 318 and set about cleaning/fixing/repairing the duster. I rebuilt the front suspension, found a junk-yard set of ralley wheels and installed 4 new el-cheapo tires, all new brakes, MC, wheel bearings front anfd rear, etc. Another junk yard provided buckets, console, fold down rear seat, floor shift column, and I hit the fabric store for a few yards of black "leatherette" vinyl, and sewed up a new interior. I sand-blasted the engine compartment, stripped her down, and brought it back up in panther pink with all blacked out trim and painted bumpers, along with a dual scoop hood from a 340 car.

[Wow! Dont we miss the days when you could actually find that kind of stuff in the junk-yards!]

Then I turned to the engine.
My plan was to run the block and crank to the local machine shop for a quickie hone and polish, then bring it back up with new gaskets/rings/bearings. So much for plans...

I droped it at the machine shop.The next day, the machine shop calls and says the block is cracked. Aaaaaw Crap!

I didn't want to turn my 16 y.o. loose in a V8 "muscle car", and the 6 I had was junk... What to do? Then the wife [in total ignorance] says "Wont the VW engine work? What a rediculous wwwwwwww-wait a minute.... Hmmm.

With the aid of a sawzall, I had the VW FWD engine/tranny out in about 1/2 hour.
There were some issues... For starters, the VW distributor came out of the block at an angle, and was right over top of the bell-housing... I could make an adaptor [back in the days when I wasn't smart enough to know that I couldn't do it ] but it would have to be about 9 inches long... Also, the VW 1.6 was TINY campared to a mopar V8 or /6... So it was gonna look silly... But yea... I could do it.

So I did...
I cut plate steel and made a motor plate for the back of the VW engine, then cut plate to make another one for the mopar 904 tranny.

A 8 inch section of GM driveshaft was mounted on a lathe, and a mopar flex plate was welded to one end of it, and another [round] piece of plate was welded to the other. Holes were drilled, and it bolted to the stock VW manual flywheel on one side, and the mopar TC on the other. Had it ballanced, bolted it together, and then welded the gap [6 inches] between the engine and tranny with pieces of scrap plate.

When it was all said and done, it looked REDICULOUS with that tiny 1.6 litre engine in a V8 engine bay, but surprisingly, the VW mill had about the same power as a mild /6, and it returned a solid 36 mpg!

We capped everything off with a chrome valve cover, new alt and water pump, and a nice JVC stereo and Jensen speakers. I had under $1000 in the whole car. Rebuilt engine, new suspension/tires/brakes, fresh paint, new interior.

My daughter was thrilled with it, and within 4 months, she had re-paid me all the $ I had invested [working at her Mc-job ]

She, and the string of owners after her, put over 100,000 miles on that car, and it never needed anything outside regular maintenance except a timing belt and a muffler. She passed it on to a friend of hers who drove it for a few years trouble free, then it got passed to another friend, then another.

About 4 years ago, the owner [her friend] was expecting a baby. The car had started to rust a little, and had some parking lot dings. She tried to sell it, but nobody wanted it because it was pink and it had such an odd-ball engine, so I advertised it FS on the moparts web site. 3 days later it sold for $1200.00

The new owner, who was a died-in-the-wool Mopar nut was so impressed with it, that he drove it with the VW mill for an additional 2 years while he did the body work before he replaced it with a 340 and sold the car. I'v lost contact with him, but the last time I talked to him, he said he had the engine/tranny safely stored in his garage, and would probably install it in another car some day.

 

Remember the guy with the Sherman tank engine Mustang?

 

I love the tale of the VW Rabbit motor,
I helped a crazy friend fit a blown kieth black in a Cordoba,
after a few weeks of fitting axles and transmissions,
none of which lasted more than a handfull of miles,
is back out again and a 2 litre ford OHC has been slotted back in to the Cordoba,
The Hemi is going in a ground up build hot rod,
but for now the Cordoba drives amazingly well.

I have a Subaru trike if that counts ?
made by pulling the engine and trany out of a rott box,
and just bolting a seat to the trany and some modified bike forks to the front of the motor, might only be 1800cc but when you are just piloting an engine and box sure does go kind of well.

 

My dad when i was a young hotrodding kid had a short bed unicab 63 ford with a 430 MEl auto. For some reason he couldnt keep the auto trans in it? So my dad not being so dumb installed a International harvester slant 4 and a three speed in it. I still have the MEL and the farmall engine

 

There's a 49-52 Chev sedan up in the NW (have seen it at a couple of Puyallup GG shows) - has the original factory 'see-through' hood and a shiny Mazda Rotary engine nestled in there.

"The best things in life are not 'things'..."

dj

 

I have had my Vega since 79 and have run it with 270 and 302 GMC 6s. 460 Ford, 455 Pontiac, 392 Chrysler and now it's running a 366 inch '55 Packard V8. The blue roadster started with a 2000cc Pinto in '83. Then I put in a 2000cc Lotus 907 (out of a Jensen-Healy) replaced that with a 32 Plymouth four converted to OHV with a '57 Ford Y block head, and later converted it back to a flathead '32 Plymouth engine.

 

A Toyota 20R in a '38 Bantam. Helped do this a few years ago.

 

go with a old goldwing gl1000 they are cheep and easy to get. I saw one in a chushmen utility trike.

steve