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Flat four beetle mid engine Locost?
Philippe - 2/1/06 at 11:17 AM

I have taken quite a bit of beating on Yahoo's forums for suggesting that the good old air cooled boxer could make a decent mid engine Locost. Of course I would modify it, perhaps turbocharge it and the Locost chassis would be about 6" longer than Book so that the rear hood would not look too disproportionate. Was this such a bad idea?

Humbug - 2/1/06 at 11:26 AM

Difficult to see how you could make it mid-engined when the Beetle engine hangs out behind the rear wheels...

...unless you turn the engine back to front and have 1 forward gear and 4 reverse gears

SeaBass - 2/1/06 at 12:12 PM

Anything is possible! It seems IMHO that the further you move away from the book the longer it will take and the less likely you are to get anything on the road...

Cheers

zilspeed - 2/1/06 at 12:22 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Humbug
Difficult to see how you could make it mid-engined when the Beetle engine hangs out behind the rear wheels...

...unless you turn the engine back to front and have 1 forward gear and 4 reverse gears


That bit is actually quite simple.

The diff is flipped over and you have everyting working properly - just like in a Formula Vee racer which has a mid mounted VW flat four motor and VW gearbox.
Having said that - Mr Seabass is probably quite right :-)

P.S. I would use an Alfa flat four as it's already in the correct configuration. I would say that - I've got one ;-)

Volvorsport - 2/1/06 at 12:46 PM

or a subaru engine , or anything that just about bolts to mkp hewland for example .

as mentioned all ya have to do is turn the diff round - lots of grasstrackers do this .

what about audi/vw?

what about renault ?

sounds like your doing it for cost reasons - so that alone youd probably win - and the fact theres some quite good tuning stuff out there , personally seeing how much oil these chuck out etc , is enough to put me off .

lightspear27 - 2/1/06 at 12:47 PM

Hi,

Everything possible :

imagine the following engine / gearbox installation in a mid engined car.

http://www.blackjackzero.com/pages/vw_parts.html

cheers,

Stefano

... and all the best for 2006 !

lightspear27 - 2/1/06 at 12:57 PM

...

could also be cool to have the engine in the front (front mid engined = engine behind the axle) with the heads lightly sticking out of the body and the gearbox/transaxle at the rear (adding a prop naturally)!

Weight reduction and weight distribution should be good!

lightspear27 - 2/1/06 at 01:01 PM

...

adding a prop could even make possible the use of another gearbox/transaxle with 5 speeds!

I imagine you could do the same with Alfa or Subaru engines and gearboxes.

Humbug - 2/1/06 at 03:53 PM

quote:
Originally posted by zilspeed
quote:
Originally posted by Humbug
Difficult to see how you could make it mid-engined when the Beetle engine hangs out behind the rear wheels...

...unless you turn the engine back to front and have 1 forward gear and 4 reverse gears


That bit is actually quite simple.

The diff is flipped over and you have everyting working properly - just like in a Formula Vee racer which has a mid mounted VW flat four motor and VW gearbox.
Having said that - Mr Seabass is probably quite right :-)

P.S. I would use an Alfa flat four as it's already in the correct configuration. I would say that - I've got one ;-)


Oh, yes.. I think I remember seeing something on Scrapheap Challenge where they made an engine drive in the "wrong" direction by turning the diff over.

Philippe - 2/1/06 at 03:58 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Humbug
Difficult to see how you could make it mid-engined when the Beetle engine hangs out behind the rear wheels...

...unless you turn the engine back to front and have 1 forward gear and 4 reverse gears



R-I am told that the Beetle transmission would allow 180 degrees with minor change in the differential crown.... providing 4 forward and 1 reverse.

Philippe - 2/1/06 at 04:00 PM

quote:
Originally posted by SeaBass
Anything is possible! It seems IMHO that the further you move away from the book the longer it will take and the less likely you are to get anything on the road...

Cheers


R-Thanks. You may be right.

Philippe - 2/1/06 at 04:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by lightspear27
Hi,

Everything possible :

imagine the following engine / gearbox installation in a mid engined car.

http://www.blackjackzero.com/pages/vw_parts.html

cheers,

Stefano

... and all the best for 2006 !


R-Thanks Stefano.
I went to see your three wheelers. They are quite spectacular cars indeed. Glad to see that some people like the good old boxer.

Philippe - 2/1/06 at 06:20 PM

quote:
Originally posted by lightspear27
...

could also be cool to have the engine in the front (front mid engined = engine behind the axle) with the heads lightly sticking out of the body and the gearbox/transaxle at the rear (adding a prop naturally)!

Weight reduction and weight distribution should be good!


R-Front wheel drive mid engine would be cooled indeed . Renault LeCar (5) would be an excellent donor, and a slew of others.

akumabito - 2/1/06 at 06:24 PM

I like the way the aircooled boxer sounds.. it hasa very distinctive sound to it...

Philippe - 2/1/06 at 07:49 PM

quote:
Originally posted by SeaBass
Anything is possible! It seems IMHO that the further you move away from the book the longer it will take and the less likely you are to get anything on the road...

Cheers


R-Hi again JC.
If I were to figure a way to fit the VW flat 4 under the hood (front) the conventional way and mate this engine to a five speed transmission driving a common live or DeDion rear axle...Would I in your opinion depart from the original Locost7 design?

akumabito - 2/1/06 at 08:38 PM

Well, you'd sure make things more difficult for yourself than it really needs to be.

Philippe - 2/1/06 at 10:07 PM

quote:
Originally posted by akumabito
Well, you'd sure make things more difficult for yourself than it really needs to be.


R-It all depends how you look at it. To me designing and building a rear mid engine Locost is a bit of a challenge. I feel more comfortable building a "Book" car ... I was told by so many that a VW in front would be a silly idea that I have looked at the rear/mid engine arrangement. I have some experience in mating engines and non stock transmissions, which involves remachining the bell housing and perhaps fitting a new damper plate and/or a connecting spline. I may mean money, but it is not difficult. Once a new transmission is bolted to the boxer I am back to a conventional Locost with (probably) a slightly wider chassis to accomodate the flat four. Am I wrong?

Philippe - 3/1/06 at 02:04 AM

quote:
Originally posted by lightspear27
Hi,

Everything possible :

imagine the following engine / gearbox installation in a mid engined car.


R-2

Stefano,
Since you are building a car around the VW Boxer, I wonder if you would be so kind to tell me what the oveall width of this engine is. I will eventually have to get my own library about this engine but for the time being I have no textbook.
Thanks in advance.
Philippe.
http://www.blackjackzero.com/pages/vw_parts.html

cheers,

Stefano

... and all the best for 2006 !

lightspear27 - 3/1/06 at 08:50 AM

Sorry ... I'm not building the Blackjack Zero in the posted link ... and unfortunately I do not own one! So I can not give you dimensions for the engine.

Good luck with your project!

Ratman - 3/1/06 at 10:10 AM

Here is a llink to my mid-engine VW car.
http://www.geocities.com/roadratccc
This page needs a bit of updating, I've built a 2165cc engine for the car and this makes quite a bit of difference.
The old dubby engine has quite an appeal for it's classic nature, and it weighs less than 100kg. But the gearbox is a bit dated now. I note that you can buy two whole VTEC Preludes for the cost of parts to build a 100hp VW engine.
Despite this, there is still something special about that tidy little flat 4.
Brian