This is sort of an all inclusive comment on engine swaps, more performance
in general and vintage driving schools. In reverse order.
Some vintage racing organizations, VSCDA in the chicago area for example,
hold wheel to wheel driving schools. Completion is a prerequisite for racing.
Some people just run the driver's schools year after year and never race.
They have May driver's school at blackhawk farms and an august driver's school
in conjunction with the vintage grand prix au grattan at grattan raceway.
You may receive instruction if you are a novice or feel that you need some,
or you can just drive and practice. very low key and a lot of fun. I can
provide more details upon request.
More performance. For minis, with which i am slightly familiar there are tons
of go faster goodies that will still keep your mini streetable. For example,
a common mini trick is increasing the engine from a 1275 to a 1380 or 1430.
With an oselli manifold and a 1 3/4 SU, one of vizards cars (now owned by a
friend of mine and temporarily in my garage) produced 97 HP at the rear
wheels and does 0-60 in 7.1 sec, enough to take car of even modified pesky
miatas. (that mini is a 1430).
when it comes to getting decent hp out of your LBC, you should be prepared to
do much of the work yourself, except for machine work and the like. It is not
that difficult, just time consuming.... However, if you more money than time,
the work could be farmed out to any number of competent tuners.
engine swaps - The only problem I see, is that in general, it reduces the
value of the car to which the swap is done, unless it is amazingly professional
and amazingly fast.
I have seen several interesting swaps in this area. One of the more
professional and successful is a spridget RXZ, a spridget with a rotary engine
it is a national caliber autocrosser and real fast. spridgets with z straight
sixes have also been successful on the autocross circuit.
lotus europas are prime candidates for buick 215 v-8 conversions and I believe
parts are readily available as it is not an uncommon swap.
at a local british car show, an MGB, wildly modified with a BIG block chevy and
supercharger occasionally shows. It has reall huge flares (bigger than porsche
turbo) and looks very strange. It also probably handles like a holstein, but
it is interesting.
Another interesting chicago area car is a mini panel van with capri 2600 V-6,
converted to rear wheel drive and an automatic transmission. It looks very
professinally done is probably quite fast, but a bit strange. basically mini
stock appearance with fortech flares, until you look inside.
there were two interesting successful autocrossers ( not LBCs, but as long as
I am on the subject) both corvairs, one with chevy 350, one with olds 455. I
am more familiar with the olds engined car. The engine was basically in the
back seat, the car was very low and had big racing slicks and was realllllll
fast.
If you really want to do an engine swap, try to pick on where someone else
has done all the engineering or you may never get the car debuggedt to a point
where you can drive it.
jim fuerstenberg
"No matter where you go, there you are"
Buckaroo Banzai
jfuerstenberg@dcri.dla.mil or
xgg2356@dcri.dla.mil
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