How do people fit engines into cars not ment for them?

Question

I’ve seen engine swaps and stuff and I am wondering how people fit engines/transmissions that are for bigger cars.

I’ve seen the SRT Hellcat in the Prius and how they modified the car basically around the engine but I’m interested in like how they fit something like the Viper V10 or LS into cars that don’t have the same engine compartment but it doesn’t look like they did anything to it.

In: 0

Answer 1

V8 engines are actually pretty small. Most V8s used for swaps use pushrods rather than overhead cams. That means there is a single cam shaft in the middle of the engine, and rods go up each side of the V to open the values.

Pretty much every other engine used these days is dual overhead cams. That means the cam shafts are on top of the cylinders which makes the engine a lot taller and wider.

Here is an example of the size of an OHC engine vs pushrod: https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/cimg/www.ls1tech.com/1600x900_85-1/954/Slide-1-229954.jpg

So a pushrod V8 can be about the same size as an OHC I4 or V6, making not that much difference in space needed.

Obviously a tiny 1.5L I4 will be a lot smaller, so in that case a lot of modifications will be required.