Largest Possible Engine?

[xintersecty]

There is fantasy. There is real. And, there is negative. We all have all three on this board. Rabbit is the kind of person who could drop a 502 in an aveo and has the ability to do it. So our fantasy is his reality. Go figure.

zchandran makes a really good point about the practical side of things. I love the MBA that took an extra 5% off the parts. Sheeeet it happens where I work too.

Considering I spent yesterday with my hand trying to put the head back on my car, I say instead of bigger go smaller.

[06T200]

No replacement for displacement, im with Rabbit. Go big. Drop a 572 in there, back it with a pro glide. May be quicker to just take the body and drop it on a tube chassis, line it with some tin and wheel tubs = STYLIN! 8 second Aveo on pump gas.

[zchandran]

No replacement for displacement, im with Rabbit. Go big. Drop a 572 in there, back it with a pro glide. May be quicker to just take the body and drop it on a tube chassis, line it with some tin and wheel tubs = STYLIN! 8 second Aveo on pump gas.

I have to say I like the idea. But this is basically what we're talking about - throwing an Aveo body on an entirely different car (lots and lots of welding).

Personally, I would go down the route of forced induction and squeezing more HP out of a small engine. Remember that a Formula One car these days only has a 1.6L engine, and they do just fine with that displacement.

[petrified.rabbit]

There are people who install 5.0L V8's into tiny cars (look up Monster Miata). But those kind of engine swaps require incredible knowledge of automotive engineering, and insane levels of attention to detail. Not to mention, you better have a full garage. Not the usual socket/ratchet stuff, but welding equipment, lathes, grinders, etc etc.

That said, an Aveo is a horrible choice for a project like that. An Aveo is built cheap. Real cheap. The way I explain my car to people is like this - imagine GM told its engineers to build a car for $10,000, and those engineers spent thousands of hours designing the absolute cheapest car, with the cheapest parts, that they could.

Then imagine that an MBA came in behind them, and took another 5% off each part. "OK" bolts became bolts that would become brittle in 5 years. The cheapest metal thermostat housing became a plastic (?!) thermostat housing. Metal radiator drain bolt became a cheap plastic one. They got rid of the transmission drain bolt to save $2. No user replaceable fuel filter. Etc etc.

That's your starting point. There are far better cars to use if you want to do an engine swap that's worth talking about. An Aveo is a great car to keep running at rock bottom prices - mine has 130,000 miles, and while requiring a steady stream of parts, is cheaper than my Subaru overall. But the only reason I could see to do an engine swap would be to take on a ridiculously difficult project for the hell of it.

actually the aveo is a higher end subcompact out of eastern asia.. meant for that market and brought here by GM. Your reasoning is 100% correct about how the cobalt was built. But the aveo was not. This is also one of the reasons why the new cruze and spark are so much better than the cobalt. They were both designed and built for countries that don't consider cars disposable.

[petrified.rabbit]

No replacement for displacement, im with Rabbit. Go big. Drop a 572 in there, back it with a pro glide. May be quicker to just take the body and drop it on a tube chassis, line it with some tin and wheel tubs = STYLIN! 8 second Aveo on pump gas.

Thats almost exactly what I'm doing with my 75 rabbit.. Body dropped on a tube chassis, VW 16v 2.1 stroker mated to a supra transmission, and a miata rear end.. Somehow though (Too bad?) the aveo got in the way of finishing the project too far along :P

[zchandran]

actually the aveo is a higher end subcompact out of eastern asia.. meant for that market and brought here by GM. Your reasoning is 100% correct about how the cobalt was built. But the aveo was not. This is also one of the reasons why the new cruze and spark are so much better than the cobalt. They were both designed and built for countries that don't consider cars disposable.

I don't have any inside information into the manufacturing process - I'm just basing my observations on what I see from doing all my own maintenance... so please take with a pinch of salt...

When I work on my '99 Subaru Outback, I rarely snap a bolt. With the '06 Aveo, I have to use penetrating oil on all external bolts to be safe. And I've been hit with the same problems as numerous others on this forum - the cheap plastic thermostat housing coming apart, the entire throttle body needing to be replaced because GM was too cheap to make the sensor detachable (infamous P2135 code), etc, etc.

Let me put it this way - how can a car that is not meant to be disposable have no maintenance schedule for manual transmission fluid? That is insane. Any engineer will tell you that transmission fluid degrades with use, and I have yet to meet any mechanic who will trust synthetic past 200k miles without a change. GM did not intend the transmission to last that long. You and I know to do it on our own schedule, but someone religiously taking it in for maintenance to the dealer will not know that.

Still, don't get my wrong - I love my Aveo. Since I do all my own maintenance, it is dirt cheap to maintain. My maintenance cost on my 10 year old Aveo is less than my wife's 2 year old Fit, which is still under warranty. And I'll probably get 250k miles out of it easily.

[xintersecty]

Why bigger? Bigger engines have lots and lots of torque and power. Smaller engines have less torque and still lots of power. Why one over the other? It's about your end goal and mission. For street dragging, I would say go bigger. For cruising at speed go smaller as you will save on gas.

I just love the sound of the turbo on this 1L

[petrified.rabbit]

^^ he should be wearing a helmet...

I don't have any inside information into the manufacturing process - I'm just basing my observations on what I see from doing all my own maintenance... so please take with a pinch of salt...

Not to get off topic, but sealing a tranny prevents uneducated people for damaging it with the wrong fluid, checking it incorrectly and over filling it, etc. A lot of manufacturers seal their transmissions now, quite a few sealed them in the past. But I agree, nothing is made like it used to be. Your definition of what makes a car "disposable", overlaps with design cuts for larger profit. Which the aveo has, but the reason that you know how to take care of it, versus following a book for maintenance does make the car last longer. If rust was't an issue for the guys maintaining these car properly, they might be on the road forever.