flipper

hi. ive not been postin on the site in quite a while because i was really busy with school and all o that. i remembered askin about the tuning aspects of the favorit engine. i realized that here in jamaica we dont have many resources for skoda tuning so i wantedd to know ur opinions. i want to make my skoda fast because rite now i cant compete with any car on the road here in jamaica. i want it to be peppy and more fun to drive. i was thinking of doin an engine swap. i was thinkin of goin either 4efte, 1600 vw engine, 4age, or even a honda engine. i need some hp. im in desperate need of help. do u have any suggestions in terms of the engine i could use or the tuning that could be done to the skoda engine.

TeflonTom

personally i wouldn't bother with trying to fit a honda engine, or either of the toyota engines you mention...

fitting the 1600 vw engine is dead easy... all you'd need is the engine moutings from a 1.6 felicia plus a few other bits and it would go straight in

flipper

thanks, Teflon tom. I thought that doing the 1600 vw swap would be the most practical thing to do seeing that the 1600vw engine was in the skoda favorit 1600H. The skoda favorit H produced about 175hp. Thats the kinda power i want from my favorit but i dont think i want to go N/A tuning cuz its expensive. i want to go turbo. i've been searching for the engine an i wanted to know if the 1600 engine from a 1994 vw bug will work. and if it would be wise to use mt current favorit gearbox, if it could work with the engine. And by the way, would this swap require a lot of modifications to the engine bay of my car?

ugluk

is it just straight line traffic light grand prix stuff you are talking about? The little favorits and felicias are more than capable cars with the original 1300 engine tuned as long as they are given the right suspension and tyres and corners though which to compete. Theres a reason the skoda favorit on a 1300 breathing through carbs was able to win the world 2litre cup outright, The cars secret weapon is its handling and its bulletproofness. However off from the lights the favorit wont be so good, but through corners even in stock form they can surprise people in the right hands .

People have turbo'd the 1300 favorit lump using a renault 5 carb and turbo I believe. If you have a 135 instead of 136 engine they already have quite a low compression ratio which you can play around with.

TeflonTom

the old skool flat four engines found in the beetle would only work with the beetle gearbox... and these are disigned to be in the back of the car, so it would be the wrong way round, so you'd have 5 reverse gears and one forward gear

whatever engine you fit, if it wasn't originally fitted to a fav/fel then it would require modifications tothe engine bay

flipper

i know that they win rallies but i was thinkin of building a drag car.
i have a 1994 favorit comfortline so i guess its a 135. its really hard to the parts to turbocharge the favorit here in jamaica. i even checked on ebay for the renault 5 gt t carburettor and i just couldnt find one,so thats y i opted for an engine swap.
i know it wuld require modifications but would it be alot. for example reshaping the engine bay.. cuttin and weldin alot stuff and so on. so what vw 1600 engine could i use?

ugluk

Wouldnt be able to offer mcuh help on drag racing the favorits, off the lights really isnt their natural strengths. Any engine swap will require major amounts of cutting and welding EVEN going to the VW 1600 The favorit and late felicia had different front subframes which are not interchangeable, the engine and gearbox mounts within the engine bay were altered a few times over the years, the inner wing design is very different between favorits and late felicias. The VW1600 will be one of the easier transplants to make being as it will physically fit, and willcome with an adapter plate to make the engine fit the skoda gearbox, this same adapter plate can be used tomake most of the VW range of engines fit the favorit gearbox. This adapter plate can be used to make the 1.8Turbo engine fit, the VR6 engine etc etc, but those would require far more working out to get under the hood. Fortunately the favorit has a large engine bay for its size.

Its also worth noting that the favorit shell is very flexible, and if you want the car to stay around for a decent amount of time, you will need to reinforce the shell some seam welding and a roll cage would probably help keep the shell straight for enthusiastic use with large amounts of horse power.

One of my friends who was rallying skodas before I got into them had the plans worked out to fit theold vauxhall 2ltr 16v engine to the favorit and reckoned it would fit. (but again an engine swap takes more effort than you might think).

Ive been involded in many engine swaps and few of them are as simple as drop it in and it all bolts up . Even swapping engines from the same manufaturer, I remember replaceing a CVH with a pinto engine, in a car, it started out as being just a set of engine mounts need fabricating, and a cut and shut on the exhaust... 6 months later it was running with a completely fabricated exhaust manifold, downpipe and system re routed steering rack, repositioned battery, new fuel line setup new fuel pump, etc etc and more delays and small engineering challenges than I care to remember.

Even the old 2litre pinto to replace the 1.6x/flow in a old escort was never as easy as just "dropping it in" and thats one of the most common engine swaps ever done.

There is NO such thing as CHEAP speed, its all going to be hard work and space and you need to be sure you can put the work in to fuel your hobby, you can do it all yourself if you are prepared to take the time and effort and advice from people near to you who have done a few engine swaps.

There is even more hassle than you would think swapping over the 135 favorit engine for the 1.4 fabia version of the same engine!!

When you are planning an engine swap on a car work itall out get your diagrams and measurements together start costing up the parts you are going to need including postage etc, price up any labour on parts you wont be able to do yourself, price up the engine and any new ancillaries you think you are going to need, make sure you consider issues like flywheels and clutches, once youve got a figure you probably wont be tooput off but now 4x it if you havent done the job many times before if youve done a few engine swaps double it .

I still work things out in advance and still know its going to cost over double what I first think.

TeflonTom

to fit the 1.8t engine to a skoda gearbox you'd need the adaptor plate form a diesel felicia...

and the vr6 has a totally unique bellhouse which wont interchange.... you would need to use the vr6/v5 gearbox

flipper

well i dont think im goin to be goin 1.8t anytime soon. i think i'll jus have to stick with the favorit engine. since i cant go for a drag car, it might jus be practical to make te car more fun to drive. im thinkin of turbocharging it. i think the renault 5 gtt uses a solex carb. saw it for sale on an english site for 200 pounds. need to find a cheaper price. an if i run a turbo setup with stock internals, how much psi should i run it on and about how much horse power will the engine make? would i have to get upgraded clutch, pressure plate ..etc..?

TeflonTom

i thought the r5 turbo had renix fuel injection??

the early gordini r5 turbo has a webber 32/34 carb

ugluk

I think it was a Solex 32 DIS used on the renault 5 GT turbos, wouldnt swear to it though, it wasnt me who did the conversion but a friend who did it to a rapid, with some interesting results .

As for the adapter plates Ive seen photos of the 1.8t in a rapid and vr6 in a favorit, and was told they used the1600 adapter plate. Ive never done the conversion or even owned a vw engined skoda though. I wasnt aware VW used so many bell housing stud layouts, more used to skoda and ford where they use pretty much one bolt layout for years and years.

flipper

i'm still undecided to whether i should go turbo or not.
what are all the things i would need if i were to go turbo?

flipper

i have fully decided o go turbo. its easier to get power out of it and i love the sound off a blow off valve. i was wondering if anyone could help me with a few things. so wat i need:
garret t25 turbo
solex 32 carb
custom headers
oil cooler
blow off valve
wastegate
intercooler and piping
2 inch exaust
boost controller
boost gauge
turbo timer

did i leave out anything?

KenONeill

Just answering a couple of points:_
1) Yes the old flat 4 reversed would give you multiple reverses, but it's one of the few transaxles where you can reverse the diff by moving the crownwheel, so that's not a major issue.
2) The R5 Alpine/Gordini (depending on market) Turbo used a carb, but the "SuperCinq" Turbo had fuel injection.
3) If you can afford it, I'd go with fuel injection rather than a carb with a turbo project. There's not much point in buying a boost controller unless you have a fuellie, because you'll have no control of the fueling with a carbie engine.
4) Save money on the turbo timer; just idle the engine for a couple of minutes before switching off, which is basically all a good timer like a GReddy one does. The bad ones are basically just stopwatches!

TeflonTom

the othe alternative is to use an alfa 33 gearbox and a bellhouse adaptor plate... they sometimes come up on ebay

i had a gordini for a while... loved it, miss it, wish i hadn't got rid of it.. but it is difficult getting spare parts for them..

a lot of those parts you wont need. if you use a solex carb then it will have to be mounted upstream of the turbo because they cant be pressure charged... in which case you wont we able to use an intercooler becasue it's not a good idea to have an intercooler when the fuel is introduced before the turbo... also a blow off valve wont be needed in this application, in fact it would be dangerous to have hot fuel vapour floating around in the engine bay. if you want to use a garrett t25 it will almost certainly have an internal wastegate(most do but there are afew that dont) so you wont need an external waste gate either. boost control would not be necesaary because that is controlled by a spring in the wastegate actuator on a T25(and most others)...

the most important thing would be getting the ignition timing right. you would need to retard the ignition timing because of the extra heat inside the combustion chambers

also running at pressure you need to lower the compression ratio of the engine.

fabricating an exhaust manifold/header is fairly easy. but you need to fabricate a custom downpipe as well to match it all up to the exhaust system