"David Billington" wrote in message
...
On 19/10/2019 21:24, wrote:
On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 3:12:14 PM UTC-4,
wrote:
On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 07:42:27 -0700 (PDT),
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 am also considering motorcycle engines, though I dont know how I
would marry one to a transmission. But a V twin, a BMW boxer twin,
and
a 4 cylinder boxer engine have all crossed my mind. There are some
older foreign engines I really like but then that may make parts
hard
to get and expensive.
Eric
Well, there have been some successful ones. In the early days of
the Locost, at least one was powered with a Honda Fireblade (CBR
1000RR, 998 cc) motorcycle engine, and the report was that it was
faster than a Locost powered by a Rover V8 (essentially the old 215
cu. in. Oldsmobile aluminum V8).

It's all a matter of what you want in a car of this type. When the
original Lotus 6 (soon to be Lotus 7) came out, you could put any
engine in it that you wanted. Lotus would deliver them with 948 cc
Morris engine or a Ford Anglia. Neither one put out more than 50 hp
in stock trim, but they were race winners.

My college roommate has one of the 50 Lotus 7 Mk. 4s delivered in
the US, and he has a 1600 cc Ford Pinto engine it it. That's
essentially the same engine as the English Ford 125E New Kent --
probably the most common engine in Lotus 7s. I've driven it; it
probably doesn't have more than 100 hp, but it weighs less than
1300 lb. and it goes like hell.

So decide if you want a wild thing or something that's a little
more relaxing to drive. It doesn't take much power to make those
little space-frame club racers really run. But it has to suit *you*
or it isn't worth the trouble.

Have fun!

I think you have the wrong engine in mind there, the Ford Pinto
engine was OHC see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto_engine
while the Kent in various derivations was OHV see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Kent_engine . A mate has a
Caterham7 (Lotus 7) with the Kent engine in 135hp Supersport spec
but neither is a great engine IMO just very common and easy to come
by or were.


The latest version of Ford's OHC 2.3 liter 4 :
https://www.motor1.com/news/344547/f...mance-package/