Has anyone attempted to put a small block engine in the Fit? My friend has a nice one laying around and he was telling me how he saw an xB with one and it moved.

What do you guys think? Possible?

 

Anything is possible. Hell put it in the hatch just in front of the rear axle! Or better yet get the drivetrain parts from a GD4 shipped to the US! Maybe from a GNX or something made to handle that kind of torque.. but a SBC like a 5.0 Fit (305ci) would be wild.

AWD V8 Franken-Fit

 

Funny you said put it in the trunk my fit plans when im older have a family and money and other daily drivers. Gut the car put a turbo k20 in the trunk in front of the axle to make a mid-engine fit. Put up a firewall and a plexiglass window/wall.

I'm just interested in if anyone else has thought about this.

 

scion xB

 

Define small block since most of us already have 91.2 cubic inches (1.5 L) from the factory at max. In all seriousness though, if you are talking small block V8s then it would be an interesting swap in my opinion.

For starters if the engine was mounted transversely, you'd have to worry about the increased width and length of the engine, the dimensions of the corresponding drivetrain components, as well as altering the steering (and quite possibly the firewall) to clear the engine and transmission. If the engine was mounted longitudinally, you'd have to alter the firewall, transmission tunnel, get and build a AWD Fit/Jazz (or something else) rear end to withstand the additional torque and power.

And thats just thinking about mounting it in the engine bay, if you were to do an MR layout fabrication and engineering would be much more intensive since you would then have close up the empty engine bay (aerodynamic reasons), find the balance point with the chassis, then begin the fabrication work with installing the engine.

All of this is do able, its just going to take a lot of time and money to get it done right. Once it is done though, you can bet it'll be a monster if set up properly and in the hands of a good driver.

 

QFT. Sums up the whole thread really

HondaTuning attempted an AWD Integra way way back using a CR-V drivetrain transplant. Not cheap, but they did it. How effectively, I'm not so sure.

Rear-mounting an engine in the Fit would present a whole new can of worms, mainly around suspension and drivetrain design (there's a reason why the torsion beam suspension is also called a "dead beam axle" - no power flows through it)...but hey, Renault transformed its Clio supermini into the impossibly aggressive Clio Renaultsport V6, and did it twice.

Here's the 2nd-generation model from 2004.


This thing has a mid-mounted engine and more than 2x the power of a stock Clio 1.4...see below and compare.


Images from Wikipedia.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong but the phrase "small block" generally refers to variants of a 350 or so chevy V-8. It's a fairly impractical "Fit".

 

If that could fit thou, man what a ride that would be. 0-60 in 2.5 sec.? 1/4 in 10 sec? the drive trane would weigh as much as the shell! lol

 

I was just picking a little fun with Ciggy. Typically whenever someone mentions a small block they're referring to a V8 by any manufacture under 360 cubic inches (5.9 liters) and anything above that is considered a big block.

The 350 by Chevy is the most common small block swap; other Chevy small blocks include the 302 (they made in the 60's for Z/28s), 305, 327, as well as the LT1, LT4 (C4 Gran Sport engine), LT5 (uber rare C4 ZR1 engine), the LS1, Vortec 4.8 and 5.3 (LS variants for the trucks).

 

I have thought about it plenty! I have the salvageable block and heads from my truck, just waiting to be turned into a large displacement monster. The front engine rear drive set-up would be the easist, logistically speaking. I imagine an S2K could donate a bit of its drivetrain to the cause. 0-60 times would probably not be in the 2.5-3.5 second range due to inability to put the power to the ground. But 4 seconds with the tires blazing would be a big crowd pleaser! What does a complete GD powertrain weigh, BTW ?

 

Well... actually, stated displacement does not determine block size, but you're close. Chevy made a 400 small block and a 396 big block. It is feasible to build a 427 small block, especially using aftermarket blocks. You left out the 283, too.

When someone says 'small block', I think 'One or two piece rear main seal' and carbuerated. That's just me. The LS series get expensive in a hurry as does Ford's mod motors.

You've also left out Ford, which has had 260, 302, and 351 small blocks, plus the newer generations. Ford's conventional (read: older) small blocks have the added advantage in a swap situation like this of having the distributor in the front of the block. Because of that, fewer firewall modifications have to be made.

In that regard, though, newer blocks make sense due to having crank triggered ignitions instead of distributors. The added width of Ford's mod motors and the added height of some fuel injection systems makes an older small block more attractive in a swap like this.

 

That's kinda how I see it as well, deck height would come to mind also. Magnetic Crank Triggers are nice. It doesn't have to be carburated to qualify anymore fortunately.

The LSx blocks are fantastic though, and worth every penny.

 

its possible, but why?

 

the $$, time, and effort you would have into the swap would be nuts.

 

I have a question, after seeing this thread...

What about NOT doing a swap, but ADDING an engine to the rear? Make it a double engine car? Original engine for front wheels and whatever for rear wheels.

I know, it's gonna weigh A LOT and the MPG is going to suffer, but hey, you want power, right?

Ever since last year, when I started thinking about getting a Fit, I had an occurring thought: What can I do to add more power and or make it hybrid-like (if I had the $$$$$$$).

One thought was something like the "regenerative" brakes, electric motor in the Prius. Put that on the rear wheels, literally, INSIDE the wheels, where the drum brakes are now, turning the entire wheel in to a flywheel of sorts. You could make better use of a rear disc conversion, turning the disc itself into part of the motor.

One slight simplification compared to hybrids... no massive battery. In fact, little to NO extra battery. Instead, get a beefier alternator. Then, have the electrical setup in a such a way, that if you want use it for "MOAR HP", then you'd divert nearly all the power coming off that alternator to the electrical wheel motors (no radio, no A/C, etc).

Once you're done trying to beat the other guy in red light race, you can switch it over to something like "neutrality" mode, where it draws just enough juice from the alternator to offset the added unsprung weight of the motor, assuming you could without over working the gas engine.

Who knows, maybe something can be done to make it more fuel efficient too (maybe, maybe not).

Or maybe the whole thing is just a flight of fancy.

 

Well, I hope you have a lot of time and budget to work with! But twin engine cars have been done... Here is a twin engine tiburon running side by side with a bike:
YouTube - Twin-engine Tiburon vs. Bike Part 2

Dyno run and explanation with a 10.9sec quarter mile on street tires:
YouTube - Twin motor turbo hyundai tiburon

A diesel-electric would be cool. Run a small like 3cylinder kubota diesel attached to a generator head at constant speed with a small traction motors as wheel hubs.

 

So true, go out and buy a used Civic Si, GTI, WRX etc if you really want a faster car. I only wish the Fit came with a smaller gas saving engine here, as it does in Europe.

 

To go Stupid Fast

 

How about the Buick 215? After they sold it to Rover (known then as the Rover V8), it became hugely popular for hot-rods and racing across the pond.

It's a really compact engine... heck, they put them stock in one of the editions of the MGB.


UM... OK, I'm confused. Where is this extra power coming from?

A beefier alternator would put a larger load on the gas engine. The greater the power draw, the greater load it places on your car. If you gunned it for "MOAR HP," the only power going to the rear would be power siphoned off the engine... by an alternator that is only about 60% efficient... with transmission losses through wires, to a set of electric motors that are only about 80% efficient. How is pumping this energy through these changes in form, with efficiency losses going to do any good?

Now, those electric motors, since you've now stuck them INSIDE the wheels, are a MASSIVE source of unsprung weight, making the rear tires want to bounce off the road and skitter about - if you've ever had a pickup with a solid rear axle and leaf springs in the back, you know how that feels. Without a good store of power generated during braking (i.e. batteries), you're not going to have anywhere to put it. You'll either vent it off as heat, or fry your main battery.

There's no free energy floating around out there, and I think you may be missing how hybrids work. There's nothing magical about using electrical power...You very rarely need to use all the power your engine has to offer. If most of the time you only need, say, a 50 hp engine, and on occasion you'd like 100 hp, and on rare occasions, 150 would be nice, there's no need to have a 150hp engine. You can put an 80 hp engine in there, and spread the power production more evenly across its operating time, storing that extra power (inefficiently) in the 'bank'

Hybrids work by using batteries as a bank for extra power, so that you can use a smaller gasoline engine and unload some of that stored energy when needed in short bursts. The regenerative braking is just icing on the cake. You could theoretically use other stores of energy besides electrical... put compressed air tanks in there, and use an air compressor to fill them, and then let the air out like a balloon when you want a sudden burst. I've heard of other design ideas which involved using a large flywheel to store power, which sounds to me like you could arrange it on a horizonal plane and use the gyroscopic forces to help keep the car level.

Your design would only change the gas engine's power to another form, and perhaps give you some extra torque from those electric motors. Still, the actual amount of energy has not changed positively - if you wanted to change your engine's set power for more torque (and, keeping it in balance, less speed,) there's a mechanical device that does this. Mine has paddles ;-)

 

And the MoPar 318 and 340. Didn't AMC have a 360 or something close? Did Ford also have a big block 351 in addition to the small block? Was that the Cleveland designation, or what was that? Takin' me back to my youth with this discussion...