Hi all,

Reading this forum is a great way to pass time whilst at work!

I bought the INDY built and SVAd (couldn't resist the price tag) so i haven't benefited from the building experience but I’m keen with a very mechanically minded daddy. My MK has a 1.3 Fiesta 1978 engine. It's not quick enough (what do you mean 'what did i expect?'.....That's irrelevant! :-)

I know that i have some choices for more umph.

Bike engine (fast, very fast, but no reverse gear out of the box, much modification needed to get the thing in the car and through the emissions tests, not so reliable, suitable for track use mainly)

Bigger car engine (1700, 2.0l, 2.2 etc) - won't be as powerful but isn't likely to need as much looking after). Possibly even a 2.5/3.5 V8? Or....Cosworth Engine!.... [childish giggles]!

Questions

I'm trying to decide which option to go for. I want quick - very very quick if possible, for track AND road use.

Are there any resources on the web that i can look at and save your trouble in trying to explain things?

Are there any places that specialise in engines for 7s? I remember seeing an ad for a company but it's escaped.

Many many thanks

I don't have £10K, more like 3k :-)

Easiest option would be talk to MK them selves, if you go 'bike' you'll need a cradle, and they fit em as well, if you go 2.0 turbo, i think you need to make the engine bay a bit wider, hense the comment 'talk to MK' they are Very decent chaps up there, and have a wealth of experience in turnkey cars with all manor of different engines.
No links you asked for but hope it helps anyway

Jason

if you want very quick for road and track use and have the 3K budget to include all the extras and fitting issues then a nicely set up 2L zetec could do the business for you or a Vauxhall 2L 16V would be well within your price range.

still within budget would be a conversion to an R1 motor, plenty of bhp = a fast car suitable for road and track just no reverse gear.

the V8 range are ok for the soundtrack but to have a well sorted V8 thats going to please you for any length of time complete with exhausts etc your going to be pushing hard on the 3K limit, and you will probably need a different gearbox if your going to run a nice V8.

Thats my summary no doubt i will get stoned to death by the V8 lovers but in bog standard tune ripped straight out the donor car they are expensive to run and BHP/Litre you dont get that much for your money and with a decent exhaust system at around 300 quid per side its a money burner.

Its worth looking at the conditions of the avaliable engines if your going to go for track use as i will give it a good beating. Rebuilding the average 16v engine is not all that cheap. so getting a 70k mile engine may not be economical.

Newish zetecs are easy to find, as are toyota 4age and rover k series. I found the k to be cheaper to install than a 4age would be (the k was also a much newer engine), the mony left over can be spent on good engine protection and maybe a spot of tuning.

The k and toyota are also much lighter so you will find they handle a little better and brakes very well.

For 3 k i assume you are talking about the full installation, exhaust etc?

As said with that budget you could have almost anything you want engine wish. Try and get a drive in a car as near as to the spec you want. Car and bike engine cars are very different and at the price level you are looking at will offer similar performance just in a different way. The other big issue will be what brakes, tyres,gearbox, diff and rad you have fitted. If they car was built around a 70BHP engine and you slap in 200BHP the rest will need to be up to the job.

The big lesson I am learning is that power is not King, if the chassis is not right you will never get the full benifit of the engine.

You might be better off selling the MK and putting the extra cash towards another car already running as you want, there are plenty out there. Or do the right thing and build one, I bet you won't regret it.

How much are Raw Engineering asking for a Toyota 4-AGE? That would be my choice - light, and powerful even in standard form.

You'd have to find a RWD box as well, which would add to the cost, but you'd have a fairly bullet-proof combination.

David

Hi,

Been having similar thoughts for starting my Indy build. I was keen on a bike engine, but as you say, no reverse without coughing up for a reversing box. That has been the main problem for me cos a lot of roads round me are single track jobs with passing places or at least very narrow roads where there is a strong chance you'll need reverse. Didn't fancy jumping out to push the car out of the way of oncoming trucks etc.

So I've decided on a car engine. I just went for a quick scout around a couple of local scrappers at the weekend. There are a few Vauxhall 16V around, although as they are normally in a Max-Powered Astra, they will probably need a full rebuild to be safe. But there are loads of Zetecs available, some with quite low mileage. The going rate for a zetec engine round here seems to be £100. You'll need a source of sparks and fuel as I assume you won't want the standard system. There's plenty of information on cobbling together an ignition system using Ford parts. Fuelling is going to be twin Webers or even bike carbs.

Hope this helps.

I think it's fair to say that most engines in an Indy will be good for road and track with a bike engine leaning slightly more towards mainly track use.

Reverse can be had on a BEC for about £200 for an electric reverse and a transfer box for about £5-600.

Changing from car to bike engine is not that much hassle but as Zetec says you need to take into account other things such as brakes etc.

I must say I have seen the Toyota 4Age a few times now and it is truly a lovely engine and I know the guys at Raw engineering are top blokes.

Zetec would also be good and so would 16v vauxhall.

Personally I went for bike power as I loved it when I went in one. If you get the right age engine you won't have to worry about emissions although with the budget you are talking about I would go with an R1 and sort the emissions which plenty of people on here have done.

Real test is to go in as many as you can and then decide and as someone already said speak to MK.

HTH,
Rich.

if the car you have brought has allready been sva'd i didnt think you had to worry about ammisions becouse it doesnt have to go for another sva.bike engine bike engine bike engine ,sod the reverse,who needs it

With three K he could drop a blade in and still have money over to by all the LB`s two beers each.

http://biketransplant.tripod.com/ information on Becs

And the man to get you a peach of an engine
http://www.colibriman.co.uk/ builder of seven and purveyor of fine jap ali dynamite.



[Edited on 21-9-04 by mangogrooveworkshop]

3K certainly opens a lot of doors. My Stuart Taylor 7 with 200hp Vauxhall XE engine is going to set me back around £5500 to build the entire car, and the bits from ST cost me around 2K.

For that money, and starting from scratch, I would very possibly go for the K-series option. have a look at stressy's car on the forum photo archive for ideas.

A low mileage 1800 k-series from a breaker should be cheap enough, budget a strip and new gaskets as a minimum just to check it all over. They buy some "direct to head" throttle bodies (45mm) from QED (Quorn Engine Developments) and get an ecu (possibly second hand if you can find one, MBE systems, DTAfast, Emerald M3D are all good but not an exhaustive list by any means. Do that and it'll be lovely and driveable straight off, then spend a bit on cams and porting with Dave Andrews - http://members.aol.com/DVAPower/- (unbeatable value for money I believe!)

A seven with a 160hp K-series is a very well balanced car and lovely to drive, dead reliable and much more relaxed for longer journeys than a bike engined kit.

Always nice to get noticed NS DEV

You can get 150bhp out of k series on the standard intake design, and you can do it with the standard ecu.

When i was hunting for engines i found several with less than 1000miles on them, one only had 7 miles from new!

Didn't expect that much of a response, sorry i haven't replied until now. Was quite shocked to see 2 pages packed with advice, thanks a million.

stressy, 3k is all i got, so i suppose that would have to include exhaust etc. However, one thing i've learned with kit cars is that it all doesn't need to be bought at once so i suppose i could be a little stretchy. I'm sure i'll get my moneys worth :-)

So it looks like the V-4age or the K-series. I take it that there's not much to choose between? Any other INDY 4-age/k series owners out there able to give performance figues (bhp/0-60 - i know that's not the b-all and end all but i'm just trying to get an idea)

Thanks again

With 3K to spend, you can afford something a little more exotic than a boring family-wagon power plant. Two little letters: V and 8

My 3.9 RV8 should put out about 200bhp in standard trim (not a bad 'out of the box' figure IMO) and hopefully 240 or so horses with a warmed up cam and megasquirt.

Total cost will be around £1500, including new cam & gaskets, a second-hand T5 'box/bellhousing and the dreaded exhaust manifolds (I plan to fabricate from scratch or modify a set from eBay, which regularly turn up for around £200). I'm starting with a well looked after 75,000 mile engine that set me back about £350.

Best of all, I'll get the TVR soundtrack.... which is something important to consider when there is no room for a stereo.


[Edited on 21/9/04 by AdamR]

Hi mate, £3k would be fine

I converted a pinto car to k-series, but my choice came down to either the k or the 4age.

I was keen to go for as new as possisble as i was P?)sed off with the pinto running on a comp dizzy and twin carbs.

I went to raw for 4age prices and basically a cheque for £2800 would get me a less thn 60k old engine with twin 45's and ecu, rwd conversion and an exhaust. This yields around 135bhp.

The raw striker was tested 0-60 with this engine at low 5's however it was a light one, running soft A032R and had £800 worth of gearbox mods. I would epect to knock a bit off that putting it in the average indy.

To take the engine upto 160bhp (my longer term target) would cost another £800.

My only concern with the 4age was the tuning stability running on carbs and oil surge issues if tracked hard. Im not saying its common but i know of a few engines which have killed themselves.

In general i thought this was a very good option.

When i costed up the k i was looking at engines between 7.0 and 19,000miles old. On these i coule keep the standard ecu and injection (good for 150 on a 1600 engine), being semi sequential injection the engines are very smooth and more econoical in general terms compared to most carbed engines.

As the k is used in the caterham this gives easy access to oil protection sytsems off the shelf, i.e. supoershallow sump, baffles, windage foam and deairation chamber tc.. also it meant i could get a much better quality exhaust for the same money as the 4age as i got a sh caterham manifold.

The 1600 in stanard trim outputs around 120bhp. in my car this results in a 0-60 in the region of high 5's ish. My conversion cost in the order of £1500-£1700. Another 1500 would get me new cams, ported head, vernier pulleys i.e. 150bhp 0r is spending the eqivelent of the 4age 160spec would get me an easy 170+ but with much better econoy than the toyota.

personally i love the fuel injection option.

At guess i would say the k install is a touch lighter than the 4age.

In conlusion i would go for the k again, but the aage is great and the guys at raw are damn good

Stressy, not seriously considered the K before, but didn't realise that you could keep the standard injection and ECU etc. Suddenly seems to make sense. Are there any specialists for fitting this to a 7 (besides cateringvan)?

Sideways

A number of the kit companies have fitted k's, i.e. sylva and fisher. Ive also seen k's being sprinted in westfields.

To be honest its not a difficult engine to work with, there are many suppliers for the rwd conversion parts.

In case you are considering the 16v Toyota 4A-GE (amazing engine), I have a complete engine and gearbox package for sale at the moment (as I am moving to bike engine for my rebuild).

Please contact me for more details and photos, but in summary, on offer is a stock engine which has only done 9,500 road miles since a complete rebuild at Toyota, all ancillaries, twin Webers set-up for this engine, and the alloy Toyota T-50 RWD gearbox. You would just need to add an exhaust manifold from RAW (or whoever) and adapt/modify the engine mounts to suit your chassis.

I have someone coming round to look at it next week, but please contact me if you're interested.

Couple of pics:

Na Na Na dont listen to 'em!!!!! Bike engine's the way to go! a nice injected blade or R1 engine.......

it depends what you are wanting to do with it, bec are fast very fast but for journeys on M ways they are tire some,
but bec fit in with the whole point and squirt thing but so does a car engined car, best to get some driving experiences under your belt. where are you based?

[Edited on 22/9/04 by macspeedy]

I've heard that K-series can be fitted with the original injection system, but has anyone tried it with a 4AGE? I've been told there's no reason it shouldn't work, but...

Yep, some people are running 7s with the original plenum injection system on 4A-GEs.