Well,

As you all know i've been having no end of problems with crossflows, cooling random acts of carburation, and what not.

My plan originally was to convert to BEC in the not too distant future, but I'm now toying with the idea of doing it sooner than later.

The car is ready for SVA retest as soon as I'm back in the UK, and I have a nice weeks vacation to take before I start a new contract, so I'm thinking, why not SVA it, whip out the crossflow, stick a bike engine in and get it over and done with.

So far, I understand I would need

A bike engine - not sure which one yet.
New Propshaft
New manifold
New fuel pump + return to tank.
New rev counter
New shifter

Has anybody done this, what bike engine did you go for and why?

I have a live axle, will this cause any problems? Will the new prop be a one piece or two piece prop? (I want to avoid removing the bodywork as much as possible)

What are the main problems in getting a BEC up and running?

The other option is i just go out and buy a new xflow or tinker with the one i have, but it seems silly to spend the time and money for something which will be removed in the near future.

What do you think guys?


David

Hi there

Don't forget that sticking a bike engine in will have it's own potential problems.

Things like sorting out the carburation / fuel injection mapping will still have to be done because your air filter and exhaust will be different from the bike installation.

I would spend a little money getting the crossflow running reliably, perhaps taking it to a local garage to get it done properly. Then get it on the road and start driving it. Once you have SVA'd it and registered it, you can drive it during the few dry days we get in the Autumn / Winter.

Then you can start building up a collection of bits for the swap, over a period of time (assuming you couldn't afford to buy it all in one hit).

Then do the swap and sell the xflow as a package, with a sorted carb, reliable running, matched gearbox and exhaust manifold, it will be worth much more than an unreliable difficult running xlfow!

Just my 2p.

HTH

Mike

Yeah,

At the moment I'm trying to get a feel for the effort involved. If I dont switch to bike, I'll drop a 1700 xflow in, since that will be a fairly effortless swap, but with a week of tinkering, I'm also thinking well why not make life dificult and get a bike engine instead...

Nah, it's a simple install - mine took 3 months of occasional evenings and weekends. Welding outside in the snow was fun too.....

Between you and Guinness you've covered most things, including fuelling. I wouldn't get too worried about that though as if you use one of the usual motors (R1 for example) you can buy a carb jet kit off the shelf that works a treat (TTS) or if injection you can download maps that are known to work.

It's not as much of a daunting task as some people think - at the end of the day you're swapping one engine and box for another - there's nothing alien about a bike engine!