Engine conversion help needed

T

TurboPadawan

New member
Points
13
Location
United Kingdom
Car
Alfa Romeo 156wagon
Hi guys,
I have an Alfa Romeo 156 wagon and want to do an engine swap, would you recommend a v6 or a v8 for such a conversion and which engine would you recommend? Also, I would like to make it awd as it is currently fwd, if I swapped in an awd engine would this make this easier rather than fabricating the parts needed for a fwd to awd conversion?
If you could let me know as I would like to get the project underway asap.
Thanks in advance
 
You'll also need the ECU and gearbox from an AWD. Front suspension will need to be revised. At least the alfas are RWD so you don't have to worry about a transmission tunnel although isn't the gearbox mounted on the rear axle on some Alfas - this would be very hard to convert to AWD.

Your best bet is to look at the v8 156 engine rather than try to fit one from another model in your car (if they do one that is, or choose the most powerful you can get.)
 
obi_waynne said:
You'll also need the ECU and gearbox from an AWD. Front suspension will need to be revised. At least the alfas are RWD so you don't have to worry about a transmission tunnel although isn't the gearbox mounted on the rear axle on some Alfas - this would be very hard to convert to AWD.

Your best bet is to look at the v8 156 engine rather than try to fit one from another model in your car (if they do one that is, or choose the most powerful you can get.)
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Thanks for your help so far. One issue though, my car is front wheel drive will that cause me any additional problems like the transmission tunnel you mentioned? If so could you give me a brief explanation as to what that means?
 
You need to modify the floor pan structurally to accommodate the prop shaft to the rear wheels. You also need to modify the rear end to accommodate the differential, CV joints, drive shafts etc. This is a massive massive job you're contemplating. There is a 156 Sportwagon Q4 which is AWD by design. It would be much cheaper to buy one of those rather than go through this huge customisation process.

Staying with FWD, dropping in the Fiat/Alfa 2.5 V6 engine (Alfa didn't offer a V8) is a 'relatively' straightforward job - compared to converting to AWD and using a 3rd party V8 engine.

As far as engine swaps go don't dismiss the 175bhp 5 cylinder JTD 2.4 litre unit. It's far lustier in general use than the V6 petrol and remaps easily to over 220bhp.

Hello and welcome btw :)
 
HDi fun said:
You need to modify the floor pan structurally to accommodate the prop shaft to the rear wheels. You also need to modify the rear end to accommodate the differential, CV joints, drive shafts etc. This is a massive massive job you're contemplating. There is a 156 Sportwagon Q4 which is AWD by design. It would be much cheaper to buy one of those rather than go through this huge customisation process.

Staying with FWD, dropping in the Fiat/Alfa 2.5 V6 engine (Alfa didn't offer a V8) is a 'relatively' straightforward job - compared to converting to AWD and using a 3rd party V8 engine.

As far as engine swaps go don't dismiss the 175bhp 5 cylinder JTD 2.4 litre unit. It's far lustier in general use than the V6 petrol and remaps easily to over 220bhp.

Hello and welcome btw :)
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I didn't realise they did an awd 156, what years were they made? I'd rather have it as awd, not a massive fan of fwd. Would you not recommend a 3rd party v8 at all?
 
Definitely skip the idea of a 3rd party engine. It's going to be like building your own car from scratch. As would converting a FWD to AWD.

The Q4 edition was made from 1997 through to 2005 AFAIK, not sure if it was ever sold natively as a RHD UK model.

What's your particular dislike of FWD? It does have some plus points, although I tend to agree that it was initially conceived as a cheaper way to package more stuff into less road space. There's a good few reasons that BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Lexus, Rolls-Royce (BMW owned) and Bentley stick with RWD. That said, there are some extremely capable FWD cars around. The Alfa you currently have would sit in my list of better FWD efforts.
 
HDi fun said:
Definitely skip the idea of a 3rd party engine. It's going to be like building your own car from scratch. As would converting a FWD to AWD.

The Q4 edition was made from 1997 through to 2005 AFAIK, not sure if it was ever sold natively as a RHD UK model.

What's your particular dislike of FWD? It does have some plus points, although I tend to agree that it was initially conceived as a cheaper way to package more stuff into less road space. There's a good few reasons that BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Lexus, Rolls-Royce (BMW owned) and Bentley stick with RWD. That said, there are some extremely capable FWD cars around. The Alfa you currently have would sit in my list of better FWD efforts.
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I find that they're too slow off the line, I had a fwd impreza and my friend had the awd version, I got destroyed every time we raced lol
 
Are there any awd wagons that you would recommend instead of the Alfa? I am a fan of the Alfa but would quite like an awd wagon, preferably available under about £5k?
 
TurboPadawan said:
That's the issue, I'd quite like a non-obvious choice ;)
Click to expand...

Or Audi perhaps? That, too, is a pretty obvious one. Plus I have serious reservations about VW Group reliability and maintenance costs.

Others: BMW's X Drive models. There's a Jaguar X Type with all wheel drive. Volvo XC70?

The Mazda 6 is a great car, but I have no idea if there's an AWD model in the UK.
 
I found a Mazda 6 2.3L Sport 4 on auto trader, four wheel drive, for around £1k. Only issue is that it's automatic, would an auto to manual gearbox conversion be challenging in this car?
 
TurboPadawan said:
I found a Mazda 6 2.3L Sport 4 on auto trader, four wheel drive, for around £1k. Only issue is that it's automatic, would an auto to manual gearbox conversion be challenging in this car?
Click to expand...

To be truthful I really don't know. I imagine that it would b more involved than converting a RWD or FWD from auto to manual. You definitely don't want automatic yes? They're improved massively over the years.
 
look at a nissan stagea. about the same size as a volvo.v70
2.5 6cyl turbo engine from a skyline ., awd , and nobody knows what they are ,well mabe a few people do .
you can buy a nice series 2 tiptronic car for £3-4 k or a manual one for £5-6k mind you these are much better cars have skyline like handling and are very quick (280bhp as standard) very easy to tune.they also do a twin turbo model but theses start around 10K
yyou can also get a later series 3 v6 turbo for%5-6k but these are all autos
 
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