Dutton Kit Cars and their owners

Engine swap or serious upgrade

It was all Paul Sheridan's fault by talking about 500bhp engines in Astras, not that I can afford such a beast nor that I think that it would make a lot of sense in a Dutton. However, I am thinking about ways to add power to my Legerra.

What I'd like would be to fit a Vauxhall V6 from an Omega but there is no way that it would fit - there is a reason for that huge bonnet on the Omega! The Legerra engine compartment is rather snug. A Rover V8 is much too long and a bit too wide, an Essex V6 is too wide (and heavy), most modern V6's are much bulkier because of all of the overhead cams etc.

I have thought about going down the Zetec route, looking at the engines that Omex offered, although they have now moved on to Duratec. Both of those engines have the coil pack and water housing at the back of the engine where it wouldn't fit against the Legerra body. Plus it is not cheap, at £7700! Also I am not sure whether an engine needs to have the emission paraphernalia appropriate for its date of manufacture.

All of that leads me back to my Pinto. I don't want to spend a fortune on making it rev to 8000 rpm and I want it to remain easy to drive in any gear, rather than having something temperamental and lumpy. So I think that it only leaves 3 options: supercharger, turbocharger or nitrous oxide injection.

As far as I can see, all modern superchargers and turbochargers are designed for dry air, i.e. the pumped air is fuel-free, this affects the internal design and they don't expect to have a vacuum which would suck the oil out of their bearings. Therefore I'd either need a blow-through carburettor, which are rare, or I'd need fuel injection.

I've seen suitable superchargers on ebay from small Mercedes but they are not simple and expect electronic control of the clutch in their drive pulley. I prefer the turbo option as it is less challenging mechanically and as far as I can see the TD04-14T from a Volve V40 (200bhp) looks a pretty good fit with a wastegate set at 0.7 bar - that should give me a 60-70bhp increase. However, it would need fuel injection, and that is a considerable extra cost when there is no guarantee that the project will work.

The only 'simple' option is N20, which could be done by adding an injector below my existing carburettor - the carb need never know about it! From what I can see N20 should be good for about 50-60bhp extra without making any real changes to the engine. I have been reading up on it in a book that I bought and on the net, particularly www.nitros.info which was created by a guy calling himself burgerman. He made up systems himself and seems to think that I could make a home made system (for less than £200) that is superior to the systems that I could buy for £900. I am rather inclined to believe him as I cannot see why the kits are so dear. I am thinking seriously about doing that.

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Permalink Reply by James Doulton on December 10, 2014 at 21:07

Luckily, the Legerra was designed with the 3 litre Essex V6 in mind - throughout the build manual it mentions the installation differences between the various engine options, i.e. X-flow, OHC or V6.

Martin, you cannot possible mean me if you are talking about rushing into things, I have not even finished the CAD drawing of the chassis yet nor have I measured up the engine properly, let alone started its drawing. It'll be ages before I actually DO anything! For now I am enjoying thinking about it and dreaming. Oh and keeping an eye out for suitable parts on ebay ;-)