Thread: Big engines small cars

Originally Posted by Pickles2

I owned a Marina,..it was the top of the line 2.6 cyl manual super delux coupe,..very light, it accelerated quicker than a 250 Cortina, but its handling was AWFUL,...I'd hate to think what it would've been like with any more weight up front, let alone a V8!!....Did the owner ever tell you how it went around corners?!!
But in the "old days" there were some amazing "conversions" weren't there,...ya couldn't get away with that sort of stuff now.
The most outrageous I ever saw was an FX Holden fitted with a Rolls Royce Merlin (Spitfire, Lancaster etc) where the driver sat out through the rear window to drive it!!...No, it wasn't a road car, it used to run at the Fisherman's Bend Drags!
Pickles.

I had a manual coupe as a paddock bomb .... I was about 15years old at the time, it was purchased for my sister to learn to drive in ... as her first car.... I took it for a drive around the paddocks .... Wow.... I'd never driven anything like it.

My father comes home "that cars a paddock bomb... Just drive it"..... My grandfather came down .... "just drive it .... it's a paddock bomb".....

yep, they both agreed. Nothing so diabolically evil in it's handling could possibly be safe for a learner drive. The only way to get the POS to be predictable was to keep the go pedal nailed to the floor (it was massively overpowered for the chassis) and flick the clutch as you were entering a corner. This guaranteed 100% massive oversteer. If you didn't do this, it would go from terminal understeer to massive oversteer with no warning at all ( you'd be guaranteed to loose it as you couldn't get the steering wheel onto opposite lock quick enough). Bump steer, roll induced oversteer ... It did them all ON GRASS. On a sealed road would have guaranteed death. Oh yeah, the brakes only worked for a few weeks. It would switch ends under brakes without even trying.

How the hell could the company that made the mini ... make such a POS ?

seeya,
Shane L.

Originally Posted by BMKal

I remember meeting a bloke in Tassie years ago who had an Anglia with a 3.0 litre Capri V6 in it. Went rather well.

I had another mate down there who had a Nissan Personal Six (the model after the Cedric but before the Super Six I think) ................ with a souped up Ford 302 in it. That also surprised a lot of people at the lights around Launceston. But my favorite was an old VW Kombi dual cab Ute, which had a 350 Chev mounted in a bloody great hole in the floor of the "payload area" just behind the cab. That thing could lift its front wheels a couple of feet off the ground from the lights.

Quite a popular concept in the States in their day

If I had an older vehicle I would be tempted to put in a turbo 4 or 6 engine into it. They are smaller and lighter than the earlier V8's and have a hell of a lot more power. The Ford eco boost series of motors would be my starting point.
It may even make the engineering process easier.

Originally Posted by pop058

Quite a popular concept in the States in their day

My old boss back in the 80's had done this. They're called wheel standers over there. He had to cut a hole in the floor and use a piece of acrylic so he could see where he was going.

The Marina. There must have been a fair over estimation of the sales success of those things 'cos I'm pretty sure I had a set of those door handles on my D1. Where did the rest of the bits end up ?