Mega Woo

[Kev Read]

Hello, I don't come on Pistonheads that much, but I finished building a car that I started a few months back and thought you guys might want to see it?

It started life as one of the most undesirable cars ever made, now it's still one of the most undesirable cars ever made, but with a little less room in the back. This is the Woo.....

Just a normal Daewoo Nexia.....


But has a 243bhp Vauxhall C20 LET engine in the front


.....And another one in the back.






I've always fancied building a twin engine car since I see a Golf with two VR6 engines years ago. I've had the Woo for a while with the C20 LET up front, so I thought I would put one in the back as well as half the work was already done (sort of? lol). It didn't take too long (6 months start to finish) and wasn't too difficult to do either. It's very fast and doesn't drive nowhere near as bad as I thought it would, gear shifts are difficult, but it all works. I've made it so I can drive it with either just the front or just the rear engine, which helps massively on long journeys (I have a few other cars that I use for work etc, but when I do use the Woo I drive it on one engine, unless I wanna have a bit of fun).

For those that are interested, here's some build pics -

So I started off by cutting the front of another Daewoo off


Then cutting a big hole in the rear of Woo


Then welded the two together (there are loads more pics, but these are the highlights if you like)


Plonked the engine in


And voila! Super Woo became Mega Woo.

I took Woo to a rolling road recently, both engines pulled 240bhp. I was a little disappointed as I was hoping for at least 260bhp per engine, so I'm fitting bigger intercoolers at the moment with stronger actuators and a 50bhp shot of NOS per engine (pics to follow). Twin engine mode wasn't too bad with 450bhp/499lbft torque. Woo weighs in at 1341kg, which isn't too bad (lighter than a new Ford Mondeo)


So what’s it like to drive? Nasty, loud, but fast! There is absolutely no wheel spin. You can drop the clutch off the rev limiter in 2nd from stand still and it will do what seems like a 0-60mph in 4 seconds flat! The bump steer from the rear is a little frightening at times, but I’m still running standard rear shocks and springs (which are standard front shocks and springs if you know what I mean). I have some coil overs being made which should help with that. Handling was never good, so I haven’t lost anything there, lol. I haven’t taken it to pod yet, but I’m aiming/hoping for around a 12.2@120mph without NOS. Not sure if I want to take it on a track yet, but it is fully road legal so it gets used occasionally anyway.

Here's some details of the car

C20 LET front engine with F28 6-speed gearbox (standard cable operated clutch & soild lever gear linkage)
C20 LET rear engine with F28 6-speed gearbox (hydraulic clutch operation with cable operated gears running off front linkage)
Both engines run completely indipendant of each other, only syncronised through throttle (cable) and clutch pedal.
Single 50ltr fuel tank with lift pump to swirl pot; two ECU controlled high pressure pumps.
Vauxhall Meriva front discs & calipers
Vauxhall Meriva rear calipers with integrated handbrake adapted to fit.
Rear TCA arms mounted rigid to chassis with outer rear adjustment
Alloy rear rad with twin swichable 14" rear fans extracting through hole in tailgate

[Kev Read]

5RedLights said:

I assume the front strut brace has a the dual role of also stopping the engine jumping out the bonnet?!

Excellent job, totally and utterly nuts.

Also, 79 months and 1st post?! King of lurking.

Yea, I did notice that! I post on other forums but have bought and sold a few cars through pistonheads, so maybe thats why?

As for the brakes, they seem to work pretty well. Fronts are the same as V6 calibra, Vectra etc, all of which weigh more than this. I'll probably need to get some decent pads for the track, the ones in there are in the calipers when I got them from the breakers yard! lol.

[Kev Read]

C.A.R. said:

That is so, so cool. How are the gearbox(es) mated up, is it a pig to drive?

It's not too bad, but a complete pigdog compared to any other normal car. Gearboxes (as with the engines) are are completely indipendent of each other, but are syncronised via linkage and clutch actuation. Basically, the controls (accel pedal, clutch, gearstick) operate both engines and gearboxes.

Throttle was easy (longer cable to rear engine running off the same pedal)


Clutch a little more involved (universal master cylinder running off original pedal box that operates front clutch via a cable). The rear F28 needed to be converted to hydraulic operation, but this has been done before, so I just copied that.




Linkage is a pig, but it works (standard calibra front set up with cables running off them for rear gear selection operation)


This was my first attempt, which I had to modify to get more side to side throw (no pics of it at the moment, but looks the same)

It's a complete lash up, and there are better ways of doing it, but I built it on my drive for a laugh and it works, so I really can't be bothered to change it! lol. I'm converting an S1 Elise to Exige now, which takes up all my time.

[Kev Read]

Thanks for the comments

I don't have any decent videos yet, but here is a link to one I put on facebook a few weeks back of the speedo - https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=1020375042...

drichardw said:

This had me cracking up as soon as I got to the "big reveal"

I used to be hugely into my VW's and remember the twin engined golfs that you're referring to. I think the twin 16v car had independent cooling per engine and the twin VR6 car had shared cooling - essential for twin-engined, drag racing emergencies . What did you opt for?

Both run on their own coolant circuit mate.