Toyota engine- terrapin ??

[fridrik]

Hi
Im new on the board and Im very happy I found it finally. OK. the story is this, I found "Rally and racecar sourcebook" by Allan at my local Library and liked the idea of building my own racecar from scratch, well then I remembered; "I live in ICELAND!!!(we live in igloos ), there are no tracks here..." but now there is plan for building a track so I picked up the book again and started reading it from A to Z. anyway, Im not far from buying a Toyota corolla GTI AE92 for the project but im wondering if the engine would fit Terrapin MK1, or is it to big? It doesnt really matter because Im ready to plan the car all by my self (with your help of course). ok this is just the beginning, i will probably ask a LOT of questions about everything here.. so thanks for the board

[Stevie]

:)No reason why it won't.Terrapin's have had loads of different engines fitted through the years.It would make things easier if you can get a set of plans and have the engine of your choice aswell,so you take measurements from.

[fridrik]

Ok thats great. but can anyone give me the ca. dimension of the engine bay, because I just whant to be sure before I buy the engine. and I havn't ordered the plans yet.
thanks.

[MiNiTiCi]

fridrik said:

Ok thats great. but can anyone give me the ca. dimension of the engine bay, because I just whant to be sure before I buy the engine. and I havn't ordered the plans yet.
thanks.

Hi,
As you would be building the chassis from scratch, you can adapt Alan's basic design to suit the engine/transmission you choose. Obviously you would not want chassis points to be in the middle of the engine or gearbox but I suspect that most modern transverse mounted units can be adapted.
You should note that the original Mini engine/gearbox unit is very compact due to the gearbox being mounted directly below the engine... a lot of more modern units have the gearbox mounted on the end of the engine - thus making the unit a lot longer in the transverse direction.
Problems with getting the unit in and out of the chassis could be overcome by having removable members or indeed a completly removable rear section as per the Gould-Terrapin as described in Allan's "Race and Rally Source Book".
Try and get a copy of Alan's book "High Speed Low Cost" and order a set of plans - I'm sure that this will inspire you to design and build your own race car!
Regards, Doug.

[fridrik]

hi.
Thanks for the great reply. I think I will do exactly what you suggested, that is, getting the book and plans first before I decide what engine I use. I was thinking the same thing as you, about the "length" of the engine/gearbox so thanks for the reply and all.

[Jawfish]

Hi Fridrik,

Doug is right ! The book and the plans are great to get things stirring up and to think about .

As far as the dimensions. it's not a cube or squared box, on the bottom it start at 23 of free space to about 15 and on the top its the same width and opens up by 2 inches you have about 16 inch of open space between the top and bottom frame rail. It's not the friendliest place for a modern power plant

Have a look at the MK5 mock from Wayne jawfish.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=tech&action=display&thread=1120685199 Once my MK1 is done I'm seriously thinking of building a MK5 with a Honda D-serie Engine and tranny.