changing a drive type

What would be the going price on changing the drive type of a car?

I currently drive a front wheel drive and wanted either a rear wheel or four wheel.


Or would it be better just going a new car?

Do a search. In general, switching drive types is insanely expensive, difficult, and involved for most cars. Often times people see the RWD conversions on FWD cars at car shows and get all misty-eyed, but the truth is, those are almost always a custom built tube-frame race chassis with some sheet metal hung on it that vaguely resembles a Cavalier. There is absolutely nothing about the cars that came from the original cavalier any more than a Monte Carlo has in common with a NASCAR nextel cup racer.

Converting from one to the other requires EXTENSIVE surgery on very critical fundamental structural pieces of the car. Without access to the original stress analysis from the manufacturer's billion-dollar computer and an engineering degree, the chances that you can alter their unibody structure that extensively without turning the car into a limp noodle are rare.

With a FWD car, you design a stiff cradle up front. That is the tow vehicle. The rest of the car is a trailer. 90% of the torsion in that car is held in 30% of the car. In a RWD car, its more like 50% front, 40% rear. All of the power of the engine has to be transfered over the entire length of the wheel base. Completely different engineering bases. Converting a FWD to a RWD is no easier than converting a boat to a car if you want to do it right.

If you want to do it right, the cost would literally cover the purchase of a new RWD Ferarri.

I'm all for taking what you have and making it what you want, but in some cases its just so off the charts difficult that I want to shake my head in wonderment. Manufacturers spend literally billions designing cars for a certain drive layout, so trust that their 100 years of experience has a little engineering credibility. :)

Buy a RWD or AWD car and skip the conversion. Even doing it half-acsed will cost as much as three camaros.

it depends on the way it's done. you can build a totally new chassis, you can do extensive work and add new parts to the existing chassis or you find the floorpan of a car with the desired drivetrain and you weld in parts of that floorpan into your car.

my friends work in the business of building racecars and they've done this kind of conversion before. it can be done and it is expensive. it's not, however, the cost of either three camaros or a new ferrari; depending on the way it's done.

my friend converted his FTO from front-wheel drive V6 to four-wheel drive evo-powered. it takes a lot of work including fabricating new engine and gearbox mounts. cutting the transmission tunnel out and replacing it with a one-off custom job complete with mounts for a centeral universal joint. the rear was cut out and part of an evo chassis was welded in to house the rear diff and new suspension. the total cost was about $50k if i remember corectly. including the wrecked evo for donor parts.

they needed to make a custom one-off roll cage to ensure both safety for racing and also to make sure the chassis was strong enough following the changes.

it's a lot of work and it requires a lot of time, skill and all the right exipment. so unless you have a company with all the neccesary gear and people, as well as the knowledge it's best you just go and buy something that's rear-wheel drive. might save you just a little time and money.

the simple answer is, if you have to ask about it, then its not something you should realisticly persue. If you have to ask, then most likely you don't have the equipment or experience to do it yourself, and that means you will have to have some or all of the work outsourced....and that will be very very expensive.

I've been planning on building my own car from scratch, with some undertermined "skin" to register it under and give it its looks (although it would be fun to make the panels too).....but its definitely no small project, and until I have a real garage, its only on the drawing boards....but it would be an extremely light twin engine AWD setup. Front engine NA, rear engine highly tweaked turbo'd....I was thinking about a Geo metro skin....just for the humor factor. :icon16:

wouldn't you want the two engines to have almost identical specs, engine response is different between N/A and turbo so one would accelerate faster, and that would screw everything up.

my friend converted his FTO from front-wheel drive V6 to four-wheel drive evo-powered.


Your forgetting something, the FTO shares a basic design with the Lancer, so the FTO already has alot of the torsional regidity through its length needed to make it AWD (since the Lancer was designed with an AWD in mind).
It also means its relativly easy to make the Lancer rear end fit the FTO, certianly easier than designing your own. And while you had to make some custom mounts, the FTO was designed to take the 4g63 engine from the Lancer, so you know it will fit.
Its also a performance orintated car, which requires a stiff chassis.
Something like a Geo Metro or a toyota corrola however will not have the same level of strength through out its length.
And of course putting say 300hp through an AWD puts far less strain on the back end that it does putting it all through the rear wheels only.


Don't know about the cost of a new Ferrari though, I think Curtis was just getting excited :p

wouldn't you want the two engines to have almost identical specs, engine response is different between N/A and turbo so one would accelerate faster, and that would screw everything up.


I thought so to, then I saw a car with twin engines, that were both very differnt.

As long as the drive line is not linked then you don't have a problem.
A tuning company in Germany made a version of the Audi TT with standard spec motor in the front, and a twin turbo V6 in the back. About 400hp in the back, and only 200 odd in the front.
I guess the effect is similar to having a variable centre diff in an AWD car that is able to split how much power goes to each axle.
The biggest problem I could see then is giving both engine the same red line, and gear ratios.

i think you're talking about the MTM bimoto, from the pictures i have it uses a pair of same-spec VAG 20v 1.8T engines, maybe you saw it at a different point in its life.

Your forgetting something, the FTO shares a basic design with the Lancer, so the FTO already has alot of the torsional regidity through its length needed to make it AWD (since the Lancer was designed with an AWD in mind).

i wasn't aware of that, i don't know how they did the work, i assumed they did it how i said because i've seen a few cars here with that work done, including a peugeot 206 with a ford sierra saphire cosworth floorpan welded in. i'll ask my friend how the work was done.

one of our members, texashotrod, is building a V8-powered civic, although i haven't heard from him recently.

wouldn't you want the two engines to have almost identical specs, engine response is different between N/A and turbo so one would accelerate faster, and that would screw everything up.
the front engine is for economy...the rear engine is for real acceleration. But I'm sure there's several here that might dislike that "opinion" :screwy::icon16:

Put both together, and you have a perfect car. I might put a smaller turbo on the front engine....but its not something that is a big deal....turbo or no, I'd build it for one either way....I can't help but play with the engines I have around. I'd probably try 16 different configs.

But 1500 pounds, 600HP (total), 50mpg freeway. sounded pretty good to me....

true. is it road legal to have two engines? in britain you can't have two engines in one car.

"legal" is a funny word in the states. I guess the question would have be asked....if the second motor isn't currently running, does it count? :icon16:

Cops don't really care as long as you don't give them a really good reason to go over your car with a fine tooth comb. And depending on the state, there is no inspections, so there is no real scrutiny on what you do to a vehicle.

That wouldn't work in states, such as california, which do have inspections and are very strict on emission equipment.

"legal" is a funny word in the states. I guess the question would have be asked....if the second motor isn't currently running, does it count? :icon16:

Cops don't really care as long as you don't give them a really good reason to go over your car with a fine tooth comb. And depending on the state, there is no inspections, so there is no real scrutiny on what you do to a vehicle.

That wouldn't work in states, such as california, which do have inspections and are very strict on emission equipment.

Absolutely!
The only things you are accountable for in my state are insurance, registration, and a once every two years smog check. My state only cares that you pass the smog check, they don't care what you've done to modify the engine.There is no anual safety inspection.
My insurance provider doesn't have any photos of my cars, and they don't care about their condition or modifications.
And (unlike Britain), if you get into an accident--unless it caused the accident-- they won't refuse coverage for modifications.
I could go on and on but the upshot is, is that Americans have a tendancy to thumb their noses at "the authorities" and will do whatever they want with their cars. Or at least, as much as they can get away with.

if you modify your car here (and they can tell) and you dont declare it to your insurance company, in the event of a crash you're not covered. not at all. when my mum bought her car she fitted it with 19-inch RS4 wheels, up from the stock TT ones. she had to declare that as a modification and also she had to have the speedometer recalibrated to compensate the change in wheel radius.

if you crash with undeclared modifications not only ar you not covered but you'll also be black-listed, and it'll be hard to get insured again, especially in another modified car.

Here's (http://www.automotivearticles.com/AWD_Conversion.shtml) an article about doing a FWD to AWD swap on an Eclipse.

Here's (http://www.automotivearticles.com/AWD_Conversion.shtml) an article about doing a FWD to AWD swap on an Eclipse.


Yes, but then there is already an AWD version of the same car, and of course it shares the same Lancer based heritage as the FTO