Ben Beacock’s 1981 Volkswagen Scirocco had one slight problem: its engine was toast. So, he swapped it for the beloved 24-valve VR6 engine, and fabricated a ton of custom parts to move the engine to the middle—yes, the middle—of the car. It’s perhaps the most complicated fix to a relatively simple problem, and I…
One of the fastest cars in the world at the moment is a Chevrolet Corvette with a V6 under the hood. Which V6, I wondered, like so many of you at this very moment. As it turns out, it’s a unique one, one with a bit of story behind it.
The Nissan RB straight-six is one of the most desirable engines of all time, and America’s Gran Turismo generation fights to get parts for these forbidden fruit motors. That’s what makes Dillon Merkl’s Skyline-powered 1962 Ford Falcon so funny, since he basically it built out of spares and parts other people were…
Minis! They’re fun cars, but please miss me with that British kitsch—they’re BMWs now and we all know it. So, why not stuff a BMW V8 in the front?
“What in the hell?” That was 24 Hours of Lemons race organizer and ex-Corvette Magazine writer Nick Pon’s reaction after the series’ first C3-generation Corvette popped its freshly repainted, Warsteiner-liveried hood. Inside was the BMW M50B25 inline-six engine out of an E34 BMW 5 Series. Surprise!
Can your Honda Accord go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.7 seconds? Jim Belosic’s can. Belosic turned a car that he bought as a replica of his high school ride into a rear-wheel-drive Gasser-style electric car using drivetrain bits from a Tesla Model S P85. He calls this roughly 536-horsepower frankencar the Teslonda, and…
What have you been working on lately? We’re bringing back Build of the Week, and we want to feature the most fascinating projects out there in the process: wild engine swaps, show cars, race cars, rare cars, and even meticulously well-preserved regular cars no one else has the guts to love. To kick it off, we’d love…
The Ferrari LaFerrari hypercar has always been a lovely car with a profoundly dumb name, but I often like to fantasize about which other cars would be improved by its 6.3-liter hybrid V12 engine. Would it fit under the hood of a Porsche 924? That’s worth finding out, because a LaFerrari engine with just 20 miles on…
The humble Up! is VW’s little city car. So of course you need to stuff the largest engine you can into its front, which as JP Performance did, would be a 1.8-liter turbocharged Audi TT engine. We need it.
Are you there, God? It’s me, Stef. I don’t ask for much, but I just picked up a weird rare Volkswagen race car and its humble flat-four engine is woefully broken. All I need to do is find €10,000 and I can replace it with a Mugen-Honda MF-351 V10 from a Formula One car that’s up for sale on Race Cars Direct right…
I’m sure for our regular readers who spotted my byline here, this isn’t really a difficult question. Yes, under that 1980 Austin Allegro body beats the air-cooled heart of an old Volkswagen Beetle. Actually, it’s the whole chassis, not just the engine, so maybe it’s beats the heart and resides the, um, musculoskeletal…
Engine swaps are interesting: most engine swaps are done for a pretty specific, rational purpose, like gaining reliability or improving performance. Those reasons make sense. But I’d argue that the pinnacle of engine swapping as an art comes when there’s really no rational reasons for it to have happened at all, and…
Internet icon Hert ran one of the gnarliest turbo-LS swapped drift cars in the drifting world, and recently made the switch back to rotary power. Many asked why. This should be as good an answer as any.
There’s no greater joy than taking a race car out on normal roads. Your car has the power to instantly make someone’s day—well, except the person who calls the cops because it’s too loud. But hey, it’s street legal, right? Pro drifter Ryan Tuerck went out for the day in his hood-less Ferrari 458 V8-powered Toyota GT86…
The 1970s ‘Kenmeri’ Nissan Skyline holds a very dear place in my heart, nestled in between the first tree I ever had a crush on and the time [REDACTED] while the music played in the art studio. Here is one with a Mazda 13B rotary swap. Its sound brings me great joy.
