Hi guys,

I'm building a locost 7 and I've reached the stage to choose which engine to fit in my chassis. My main preferences are either a BEC, some fireblade or so, or a VR6 engine out of a VW. I just love the sound and performance of those engines. What do you suggest? The only issue with the VR6 is that I need a RWD gearbox for it and I don't know which is best to use.

Would appreciate to have any suggestions on how to reduce emissions in order to have a cheaper registration fee and road tax.

If you use a bike engine you will need a reverse gear option as well. A 1 litre engine will be cheaper to tax. Unless you go for a new registration your tax bracket will be already set.

VR6 engine is really tall (bear in mind it's barely a 'V'- it'd be possible but not sure it's massively practical to fit under the bonnet!
There are companies that do a bell-housing for the 4-cyl turbo VW engines and I'd imagine they're compatible as pretty much everything VW is compatible!

BEC has a lot of advantages but not everyone wants the noise/hectic revving of that.

You need to think about what you're mostly going to use the car for. I mostly bimble about in mine and commute to work in it- so a 4-pot car engine is most suitable. If you're tracking every weekend I'd want a BEC.

Cheers,
James

Yeah I still have to check the dimensions of the engine, I do think it might be an issue to fit it's height under the hood. As for the bike engine, I don't think I will be tracking every weekend, but I do love the high revving sound of it so it won't be a problem for me.

I've searched on reverse gearboxes for bike engines and found they are pretty unreliable and quite costy for an unreliable gearbox which goes only fwd and rev. :/ VR6's are relatively cheap and they do offer a good ammount of torque compared to a bike engine at least.

What would you recommend as a reverse gearbox?

Manuel

[Edited on 29/5/13 by gatt710]

A quick Google suggests a weight of 130kg for the VR6 motor, roughly the same as a Ford Pinto - not light. Ford Zetec or if funds allow Duratec has to be the most proven and cost effective option for a CEC.

Because of the layout V6 engines have a lot of inherent vibration, in its tintop home they have lots of carefully designed soft rubber mounts to hide all the vibrations, in a very light car with stiff enginemounts the bad vibes will be more apparent and tiresome.

Have you considered the Mazda 6 pot.

Claire used to run one in a Fury. (username clairetoo )

If the Mazda 6 pot is even half as good as the excellent MX5 4 pot it will certainly be a good engine.