On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 11:17:43 AM UTC-4, David Billington wrote:
On 19/10/2019 15:42, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 16, 2019 at 4:48:55 PM UTC-4, wrote:
So when I retire in a few years I want to build a sports car from
scratch. I have the equipment and knowhow except for the bodywork.
Which means I would get to butyand learn how to use an English wheel.
I don't know which engine to use though. So I'm looking for
opinions. I want to use a 4 cylinder engine. The engine needs to be
fairly common and parts must be available for hopping it up a bit and
for general rebuilding.
Very important the engine needs to look great. So I'm looking for
opinions here. A great looking engine that's fairly common, can be
hopped up some, and won't break the bank to work on.
Thanks,
Eric
"Looks great" caused me to slam on the brakes. g As for your other requirements, it's hard to beat Hondas for most of them. Japanese law required that engines be changed at 40,000 miles a decade or so ago, which put a lot of used ones on the US market. Moderate speed equipment is readily available.

I rebuilt two Alfa Romeo 1300 cc engines in the late '60s. They were beautiful. One had a Veloce head with twin side-draft DCOE Webers. I don't know of anything that looks that good today, but it's hard to tell until you get all of that plastic junk off the top of them. I own a 2018 Subaru Crosstrek, and I've seen it with the plastic off of it. Not exactly a thing of beauty, but I do like the engine.

If you want real sports car performance, avoid turbos. The turbo lag is antithetical to sports-car type responsiveness, unless you spend megabucks.. Garden-variety turbos are not sporty engines. They just wind up -- eventually -- and put out a lot of power. In a light sports car, you don't need that much.

What you need is great throttle response and good breathing. There are a lot of good engines out there today. Your project is one I've dreamed about off and on over the years, and having done some sports-car racing between 1967 and 1972, I have a good idea of what I'd want my engine to be good at if I ever did it. I'd look at Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. If one dropped in my lap, I'd look at a 3-Series BMW. But I'd make sure that aftermarket parts are readily available for anything I chose. Oh...and make sure you can mate it up with a transmission for rear-wheel drive. Maybe an engine that's used in a small pickup.

Good luck and have fun!

I'd have to disagree about the turbo, my old Lancia Delta HF turbo ie
had a slight delay which might be a drawback at a traffic light GP but
in real world use such as overtaking the slight delay was more than
offset by the performance increase when the boost came on. I would have
suggested the FIAT/Lancia engine as a very good looking engine, to me
anyway, and lots of tuning potential but they're not nearly as common as
they used to be.

1) Try getting parts for one in North America. d8-)
2) The "slight delay" is not fun when you're powering out of a late-apex turn.