Part two of my "So Has Anyone" series.
I will start by saying that nothing in these series of "Ideas" should ever be considered a good idea. I don't expect anyone to actually do it. The purpose is more to explore the engineering of making it work and the fun and comradery of it. There are not bad ideas in this thread. I would venture to say there may not be any good ones either but if they make us think and occasionally laugh. That is what this is all about and who knows maybe some one will actually build one of these things.
In this one I was thinking has anyone installed a transverse mounted motor AND Trans in to a RWD car? I know you are thinking why would I do this. Well because I don't think I have ever seen it done. (And I am sure there is a reason or three why) I know this is probably the least practical thing that you could probably do.
I know packaging is going to be interesting and then there is the matter of locking out one axle as the other would have to be used attached to a driveshaft that would then power the rear wheels. Driveshaft angle and the offset nature would man an offset rear end would be needed. Then there is the rear dif ratio that would be interesting. You would need an extremely low one like 1:1 in an ideal world. Also you will in affect have two differentials so drivetrain losses are going to be high but no more than a AWD I would think.
What got me thinking about this was I was looking at a complete motor from a Millenia S and thought that is is a really cool motor and complete takeouts with the wiring harness and ecu and trans are under $600. If this could be put in to a similar size platform but say an old ford ranger or something. you would have a really "different" vehicle. LOL
Anyway; Welcome to part two of "So Has Anyone". I hope that gives people a little bit of a break from the current on-goings. It is one way I keep my mind occupied and not dwell on things.
kb58
SuperDork
4/5/20 11:35 a.m.
Sure, it's just a matter of finding the right keywords to do the Google.
MR-2s did, Arial Atom, my own Kimini and Midlana. Now, I realize you're talking about previously RWD cars having a FWD unit dropped in at the rear. You see that from time to time at hot rod shows, often the Toronado drivetrain of all things. Some offroad trucks have moved the front engine to behind the seats. So, yes, they're out there. I had a Datsun 1200 and thought for years of putting a turbo rotary and proper transaxle in the rear of it, but technically that isn't what you're asking about, and I never did it, so never mind.
Ah, Renault R5 Turbo, there you go. Pretty sure it's former pedestrian model was FWD.
EDIT: reread your post and am unsure what you're thinking. Putting a complete FWD drivetrain in the back is pretty straightforward. There is no gearing that has to be changed, and forward is still forward. Now, if you're talking about adding a driveshaft forward to power the front wheels, now you're talking some serious engineering and expense with very little gain. If you're talking about putting it in the center and one axle driving the rear tires and the other driving the front, yeah, the custom differentials are to going to be $$$$$, because otherwise it'll have a top speed of about 30 mph.
Are you thinking tossed in the back seat longitudinally with one ex- fwd axle deleted and the other sending power to the old rwd diff? I've seen rock crawlers do this.
There are many AWD cars take a transverse FWD trans and also send power to the rear wheels.
It makes no sense to have all the weight in the front and power to the rear wheels, which is what happens with the AWD cars, they send less power to the back.
The dirt every day show took a rav4 moved the engine into the middle of the truck and rotated it 90-degrees and used the two outputs to power the front and back differentials. Makes a lot of sense..if you have a youtube channel that does stupid things to get views and you throw away the results after the show.
I saw it done on a Junkyard Wars episode years ago. It made an awesome hillclimb vehicle, though they didn't put suspension on it so that made it much less effective at climbing rough terrain.
Getting a 1:1 ratio differential will be pretty much impossible, even quick change units won't quite do that.
The Jaguar X type would actually be an easy one because of the AWD it already has.
What I was originally kicking around in my brain is turning the FWD engin and trans turned 90 deg and then powering the rear dif off one of the axles from the trans.
The idea of it being a rock crawler had never occurred to me and it would be absolutely fantastic with the amount of gear reduction!!!!
Just take any transverse gm 60 degree v6, add 1998 camaro v6 trans. Flip intake around. Boom, transverse engine for rwd.
I know that's not what you asked, but that is simplest.
I saw one in the old Turbo magazine. They swapped the Focus drivetrain from front to rear and stuck a turbo on it for good measure. On the rear they obviously had to modify the chassis to accepted the front subframe, less the steering rack. They just replaced it with toe-links. The front got the steering rack in an otherwise empty front subframe, with long hoses to the pump in back.
GM did it. How hard can it be?
Wow, you went a whole different way than I was thinking. Years ago I saw a Corvair that a guy had put an Olds Toronado enginge and transaxle in the back of. Never rode in it, never wanted to. It was as scary looking as it sounds. My ex father in law flipped a stock Corvair on the L.A freeway. He said the front end got light and just dumped him in the median.
So you want to build a Fiero. Or a Delorian?
Ford SHOgun comes to mind. I’ve seen it more than once at the challenge - GM 3.8 in the bed of a Toyota Pickup and a DSM-powered rear engine locost.
aw614
Reader
4/6/20 8:05 a.m.
I think the original intent here is to take the stock fwd drivetrain, turn it 90 degrees and use one of the original trans output shafts to attach a driveshaft and power the rear wheels.
As stated above, this would lead to a very low top speed OR a very low numerical rear gear.
Do you mean leaving the engine and trans in the front of the car? It seems like that would be a mess. Wouldn't the differential get a little cranky with one side locked down the spider gears doing all of the work?
I keep thinking that there were a few of one kind of something built that actually did this; sideways engine with a driven rear axle and not AWD, like some kind of British bit of "let's just use this drivetrain and this chassis and badge engineer a real piece of weirdness" but I can't find any proof that such a thing was sold to the public.
