I think you have no idea the bad of worms that you are opening by trying to do a engine swap like this. You may be "solving" a high-hp oversteer with understeer. I think a longblock in the front of delorean would be ridiculous. You would have to do some serious modification to fit in a square frame- there's no real room for it..? About other (really) high HP conversions, I can only think of the 3.8 liter Buick swap (Don Steiger I believe). D-REX has a front engine, though it is not very deloreanesque, as it is like 7 feet tall (don't correct me, it could be 12 feet. It's just big, ok?). I think a sweeeeeet swap would be a mid-engine setup like the Lotus Esprit v8. This would make the car much better balanced. Jim On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 21:32:50 -0600 MPolzin@xxxx writes: > Considering I had little else to do on a Friday night I went over to > visit > with my mechanic. Just to give everyone a little bit of background, > this my > "mechanic" used to build monster trucks, engine, frame, everything. > He can > fabricate just about anything, the resources this guy has are just > incredible - he has pulled out the entire engine in my Delorean, > disassembled, rebuilt, replaced, etc... Its the first Delorean he > has ever > worked on, but he is fearless and needless to say has some some > wonders with > my car so far. > > The first thing I asked him about was frames, because obviously it > has been > a concern of many people that over the long term they would rust out > and > require replacement, and he assured me that he or any good > fabrication shop > could put a tube frame back under that car or repair the frame if > there was > anything left. He felt a frame could be fabricated at a pretty > reasonable > price, much less than the option currently available. Needless to > say I was > impressed (and relieved) that he felt it would be a fairly staright > forward > thing to do. > > This led to my next question for him, which was: What is the most > horse > power you think you could jam into one of these things? His > suggestion was > to pull the frame out from underneath the car, and put a boxed > square frame > underneath which would free up that center area (the middle of the > double > Y's) for a drive train. This would allow you to keep the car rear > wheel > drive and have a front mounted engine. > For an engine choice he likes Chevys because there are so many > options > available, specifically the large block Chevys. I ofcourse asked him > how he > would get that size engine in that area in front and his response > was > classic, "Well, it might stick out of the hood a little." > > I'm wasn't so sure if I would want to have an engine hanging out of > the hood > of my Delorean, so we discussed some of the the newer high HP > engines now > available with twin turbos or something like that. There seem to be > a ton of > options available as far as engines go, and fabricating the drive > train > wouldn't be a problem. > > Has anyone actually attemped to do such a thing yet? Mounting the > engine up > front would certainly do away with the front end issues (lack of > steering > because your tires are off the ground) and putting some real HP into > a D. > Are there any 500+ HP Deloreans out there? I am seriously > considering > undertaking this project, and would be interested in feedback. > > Mike > VIN 4761 > > P.S. Anyone have a D for sale cheap with a rusted out frame and > trashed > engine they want to sell cheap? :) > > > > To address comments privately to the moderating team, please > address: > moderators@xxxx > > For more info on the list, tech articles, cars for sale see > www.dmcnews.com > > To search the archives or view files, log in at > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com