Hacker News Reader

Comment by inetsee | Hacker News Reader

Sounds a lot like the urban legend I read years (and years) ago, about the son of a Porsche dealer who dropped a Porsche Spyder engine into a Volkswagon Bug. According to the story, he had a lot of fun rolling up next to muscle cars at stop lights, and then watching them disappear in his rear view mirror.

View on HN

There's a company that drops Chevy V8s into Miatas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CdOlX1iq_0

Also, there's the guy that built a jet engine into his Beetle:

http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

> We get this a lot. A police officer picking at his nose while trying to figure out what to charge me with. Notice the hopeful anticipation of us on the right. We're rooting for him and offer suggestions but unfortunately, the California Department of Motor Vehicles did not anticipate such a vehicle so he's out of luck.

The guy from your second link seems to be simultaneously completely crazy and completely awesome. I love his edit:

You have to give the California Department of Motor Vehicles (the DMV) credit for creativity on this one. A DMV insider has disclosed to me that the DMV has made a formal request to a federal agency to rule if my Beetle constitutes a threat to national security based on what could happen if it got into the wrong hands. This raises three questions in my mind: #1 Does this mean I’m the right hands? #2 If someone with the name "b_laden13" is the highest eBay bidder for my Beetle can I refuse his offer even if he has the prestigious eBay Red Shooting Star feedback rating (the highest)? #3 Would this affect my eBay rating?

My favorite was the 190mph Volvette. A twin turbo corvette engine stuffed into a Volvo Station wagon. Pretty stealthily too.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GFrPjMVhP04 and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XBu6STlhh8Q

Small Block into a Volvo 240 is a pretty common hack in Scandinavia, to the point that you can buy kits that have all the required hardware and necessary paperwork to get it approved. They won't do 190 mph, but they are able to convert rubber into smoke perfectly fine.

Right...it's the second video where it jumps directly to outrunning a Yamaha R1 motorcycle that shows this isn't just a kit job.

The best souped-up beater I've ever seen is the White Zombie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apoeGMWF17c

(And he's in Oregon! go Oregon! haha)

Acceleration to 60mph in 1.8 seconds. 1250 ft lbs of torque. This was in 2013, too.

Well this is reknown here in Italy, not an urban legend at all, a Fiat 500 (the original model of the 60's) with a Porsche 911 3.2 liter engine:

https://www.omniauto.it/foto/19417/fiat-500-porsche/302209

Now (after having fitted a Ferrari engine) have made another one with a Lamborghini V12 engine (Italian, but not bad at all via Google translate):

http://motori.ilmessaggero.it/news/news_fiat_vecchia_500_pi_...

Favourite silliness was the chap who got a Rolls Meteor aero engine (27l v12) put into a 1920s Bentley:

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/850bhp-aero-engined-bentley...

Was sold to Jay Leno.

The 350mph jet school bus was kind of cool also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvAPzGCqVG0&feature=youtu.be...

Back in the 70s I had a motor magazine with a story titled “Big (Golf) Balls” about a German who split a Golf GTI down the middle to widen it, then put a Porsche 911 transaxle in the back. That would have been a Mk I Golf too.

Back then the title was quite risqué.

A sleeper car. Very common. :)

https://youtu.be/EE5x9vlb0ss?t=25

That’s called a sleeper car. A lot of people do that on purpose.

One of the great sleepers was the Dodge Turbo Minivan[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Gdm_e_hxs

The version I've heard was that someone dropped a Porsche engine into a Trabant, which apparently was an easy swap as some technology for the Trabant was stolen from porche and the engine would just fit straight away. Then the Trabant would smoke everyone from traffic lights. I guess it's just an urban legend.

Back in University, we had one guy in the dorms who said his Uncle Bill put a Miata engine in an MGB. We were contemplating how that would even remotely be possible; looking up pictures of forums boards of both engine bays.

"Well I guess, if you remove all of x, y and z and made custom mounts..."

We later learned this guy ones one of those bullshitters who would lie about everything; told us he was in the national guard and hat to shoot rubber bullets at people looting stores after tornadoes. He was our age and had one of those civilian IDs they give military family members.

Next semester we ask the guy if his uncle will bring his MGB to the car show we were putting together. "Oh he sold it." .... right ...

Anytime we had some crazy idea for our cars. "I wonder if I could convert my mom's Maxima to a 5spd," the respond would always be, "I BET UNCLE BILL COULD DO IT!"

In the UK they do put K-series[0] engines into the MGB.

[0] The K-series is the descendant of the T16, which is the descendant of the M-series, which is the descendant of the O2-series, which is the descendant of the O-series, which is the engine that we /designed/ for the MGB, but never was put into the MGB before it was canceled. The O-Series instead went into a bunch of work vans and other hateful boxes instead.

So he might have sort of been right. But he was probably still a royal bullshitter.

Apt username. Is that you, Mr. B?

>The K-series is the descendant of the T16

Descendant only in the fact it came later. The engines share nothing from memory. The K series was an all new small capacity engine (1400cc) on release. Compared to the O, M and L (diesel) it's a fully aluminium block and head with steel damp liners. The K series had its bore and stroke upped to bring it to 1800cc after launch, along with adding variable valve control with the VCC engine.

The two engines share very little in common, the most frequent thing being they're normally both attached to a a PG1 gearbox.

Source: UK MG owner that used to own 300bhp ZR.

K16 was the motor in the early Lotus wasn't it? I know from my 214 days you could 'easily' change the cams to give more power. I assumed this was what they did for the MG versions. I enjoyed working on the K8 and K16 engines.

While I'm not saying the guy in college wasn't a liar, there have been many MGB conversions to a V8.

http://www.advanceautowire.com/mgbgtv8/ is just one that I know of. Though I only know because when I was younger, my parents had MGs, sadly my siblings all got one for graduation and I didn't. They figured I would want the computer more.

Indeed, absurd engine swaps are not too uncommon in the automotive hacking/hot-rodding world.

Here's one of the weirder ones - a 3-cylinder diesel into a 1970 muscle car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rxf2WZvEbc

6 rotor RX4 800hp street legal - from a crowd down south that do silly things.

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/worlds-first-6-rotor-mazda-...

I've driven a Sunbeam Tiger, which is a Sunbeam Alpine with a Ford V8 engine. 1960s technology - too much power, crap suspension.

That's been done more than once. Jalopnik has coverage.[1]

[1] https://jalopnik.com/someone-should-buy-this-porsche-engined...

I have heard credible similar stories (from an employee) of airship industry's at cardington putting one of the spare 3/4 race Porsche engines (used in the airship) into a Volvo they used as a chase car.

Dunno about a spyder engine, but I used to sometimes tune an old beetle with a 911 (930) turbo engine and transaxle. It ran 9s on the 1/4 in low boost. Shit was scary.

Subaru engine, but same idea... https://youtu.be/hpb2Him9CUo

Reply on news.ycombinator.com