Talk me out of...

78 civic hatch

http://baltimore.craigslist.org/cto/4439741514.html

+

125 of Ford's tiniest ponies...

Ok, here goes...

A K series Honda mill would give you 200 ponies instead!

That miniature engine is really cool. I would only suggest against the old Civic because of the auto trans.

Can you find the electronics to run the direct injected bits of that very cool tiny engine yet? Physically mating the two would seem to be the easy part.

Here's my thought process. Make fiberglass hood, outer door skins and hatch. Remove the window regulators and do lexan 1/4 glass, door glass and hatch glass (all covered in lamin-x). While waiting for a wrecked 1L fiesta donor (which could take a few years). Targeting a sub 1250 weight

Sadly, I have yet to hear of an actual succesful transplant of any Ecoboost engine that does not include a lot of help from F.

(I have suggested a project were we at least calibrate whatever controller is used for the crate engines, but nobody listens. pretends that it's Motorsports job. )

Other than that, what's your goal? There are so very many good Honda engine swaps that your goal can be fine tuned with a whole host of those. From a fuel sipping 1.5 to a fire breathing 2.0l, and many stops in between.

goal would be as light as possible, i'd love to flirt with 1000lb, but know it won't be possible, I think that sub 1200lb can happen though. and i'd like a modern motor (DI turbo; adjustable cam profile is 20+ year old tech now) capable of 150hp with tuning and higher with turbo modifcation or swap (I know that the 1L has the manifold cast into the head, but a billet wheel swap is always on the table). the 1.6L ecoboost isn't much heavier, but the lighter the better. Weight would eb the key aspect of the build.

The 1.0 and 1.6 may be a problem, but just looking at the fordracingparts.com website, I see that for $8000 you can get a 2.0l GTDI engine and then for another $2000 you can get a wiring harness + controller to run it.

Seems a little much for a '78 Civic.

a wrecked 1.0l fiesta (which as previously noted would likely be 2 years to locate) wouldn't cost half that much for the donor.

That being said a KLZE swap, though not as modern as i'd like could be tempting as well.

In reply to captdownshift:

Shouldn't. But getting the controller to work outside of the Fiesta will be painful. Very.

that car plus d16z6 (92-95 si/ex engine) = done

130 hp stock and no fuss

If you want a tiny 3 cylinder engine that can make 130+hp with a turbo, you don't have to look any further than Honda. 2000-06 Insight 1.0 3 cyl has made 130whp on 12 psi (what was the boost on that 146whp fiesta dyno? 18psi?) and weighs something like 130lbs for the entire longblock.

If you dont try to run it at 26:1 AFR like the factory controller, it's just your basic port-injected coil-on-plug motor and could be run by a standalone as long as it can interpret the reference sensors.

Vigo, That's the type of brilliant idea the box idea i'm talking about!

I vote for the Insight 3 cyl as well. Seems it would be much easier to source and tune while still being very unique.

In reply to alfadriver:

I didn't need to hear that. The Ecoboost would be an interesting swap if there were a stand alone controller,

Wally wrote: In reply to alfadriver: I didn't need to hear that. The Ecoboost would be an interesting swap if there were a stand alone controller,

Theoretically, this http://fordracingparts.com/parts/part_details.asp?PartKeyField=22999 plus this http://www.fordracingparts.com/parts/part_details.asp?PartKeyField=22998 would net a fully running Focus ST motor.

continuing on this tangent, I'm going to look more into this- as it would also make a really good research engine.

I keep thinking the 2.0 Ecoboost in a 4x4 Ranger would be ideal for my next car but the more I look into it the more it seems beyond my limited computer understanding.