Wildcat E-Type Low Drag coupe kit car
Discussion
montyjohn said:
Ye I did consider the AJ16 (after I abandoned the dream of squeezing my V12 in). After forgetting the V12 idea, I decided to focus on performance instead.
The Aj6/16 was my next obvious choice. I would have gone for the none supercharged version mind. Less plumbing, weight and whining so I’d be looking at the 4.0 AJ16 which is circa 246 bhp. I’m expecting 220 bhp form the BMW so similar power, but the torque is much higher on the AJ16. The reasons for choosing the BMW engine, as is often when you embark on such a task came down to practical reasons.
Mainly weight. It’s 240kg so 70kg more than the BMW engine. The JPR will hopefully only weight 800kg and the back end is very light, so I really have to keep the front end weight down if it’s going to have any real performance.
Second issue was packaging. It’s a really big engine and space is limited in the JPR engine bay. Not impossible, but would require some chassis modification as the chassis was built for Cortina parts originally. Modifying a chassis means IVA, Q plate, a whole avenue I wasn’t prepared to go down.
Finally, and I’m going form memory here, getting a manual box for these cars as I remember was nearly impossible. So then we are talking about custom conversion plates and trying to piece meal a working clutch together which would be a lot of hassle I wanted to avoid. All this adds to the cost and time.
Second finally, it would need to sit upright (as I have done with the BMW). The AJ16 cants over 20 something degrees and I don’t know if this has been done on the AJ engines before.
The BMW is a very small packaged engine, weights only 170kg, I bought it for £150, the manual gearbox was £50 and I think it weights something like 40kg which is nothing. Loads of cheap manual gearboxes out there and loads of aftermarket parts.
Putting a sensible hat on, it was the real winner of the two.
Without the sensible hat we were back to the V12 and god know what rabbit holes that would have taken me down.
Having read your build pages (well done; I will return to it with interest), I can see where you're coming from regarding physically fitting the AJ16 in a hole designed for a Pinto engine, although I suspect that you'll need an IVA in any case owing to the engine & gearbox type change. A manual box would be easy enough though; there are a fair number of manual non blown AJ16s about (especially 3.2s). You'll struggle / spend a lot of money to get another 30 bhp from the M52, nonetheless, all the best with the project. I would love to see it when finished. The Aj6/16 was my next obvious choice. I would have gone for the none supercharged version mind. Less plumbing, weight and whining so I’d be looking at the 4.0 AJ16 which is circa 246 bhp. I’m expecting 220 bhp form the BMW so similar power, but the torque is much higher on the AJ16. The reasons for choosing the BMW engine, as is often when you embark on such a task came down to practical reasons.
Mainly weight. It’s 240kg so 70kg more than the BMW engine. The JPR will hopefully only weight 800kg and the back end is very light, so I really have to keep the front end weight down if it’s going to have any real performance.
Second issue was packaging. It’s a really big engine and space is limited in the JPR engine bay. Not impossible, but would require some chassis modification as the chassis was built for Cortina parts originally. Modifying a chassis means IVA, Q plate, a whole avenue I wasn’t prepared to go down.
Finally, and I’m going form memory here, getting a manual box for these cars as I remember was nearly impossible. So then we are talking about custom conversion plates and trying to piece meal a working clutch together which would be a lot of hassle I wanted to avoid. All this adds to the cost and time.
Second finally, it would need to sit upright (as I have done with the BMW). The AJ16 cants over 20 something degrees and I don’t know if this has been done on the AJ engines before.
The BMW is a very small packaged engine, weights only 170kg, I bought it for £150, the manual gearbox was £50 and I think it weights something like 40kg which is nothing. Loads of cheap manual gearboxes out there and loads of aftermarket parts.
Putting a sensible hat on, it was the real winner of the two.
Without the sensible hat we were back to the V12 and god know what rabbit holes that would have taken me down.
Sahjahd said:
Having read your build pages (well done; I will return to it with interest), I can see where you're coming from regarding physically fitting the AJ16 in a hole designed for a Pinto engine, although I suspect that you'll need an IVA in any case owing to the engine & gearbox type change. A manual box would be easy enough though; there are a fair number of manual non blown AJ16s about (especially 3.2s). You'll struggle / spend a lot of money to get another 30 bhp from the M52, nonetheless, all the best with the project. I would love to see it when finished.
It's been a slow build, I've had two kids since I started which has somewhat slowed progress a bit.Time will tell on the power, the M52B28 was de-tuned form the factory with restricted inlet manifold so you can get 20hp extremely easily simply by fitting a M50 inlet manifold.
As for the rest, a combination of no cats, removal of power steering, viscous fan, AC and using ITBs should all help.
Another trick is the M54B30 cams apparently give a nice increase, although once you start changing internals might as-well throw a M54 in there. Fun for the future.
That's the thing, and it's my biggest criticism of the Wildcat, the bulkhead is about 200mm further forward than a original E-type. As you say it was meant for i4s and V6s from Cortinas.
montyjohn said:
Furyblade_Lee said:
As a side Monty, I used to be friends with Derek Argyle from the Wildcat scene, toured France with him a few times. He used to drive his 240Z like he had stolen it! I lost tough with him years back when he got ill, do you know how he is?
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