I've looked in the back of my 2b Tubular chassis and reckon there is room for an engine in there with a small modification to the chassis.

 

Has anyone considered this before?

RHE themselves made a short-run kit (prototypes only, maybe?) with the lump in the back (the Rover engine, if I remember correctly)...

 

I can't imagine the car would handle very nicely though

Edited September 7, 20188 yr by brumster

Agree with what Dan said, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

 

Out of interest though, what engine were you thinking of?

would be good for wheelies with all the weight in the back

Unless you were considering a bike engine I dont think it would be worthwhile. And even running a bike set up you would have to fit a counter weight in the front which is just adding unnecessary weight overall.

It took Porsche 50 years to get that configuration working ie. to not kill its occupants. I would suggest it's not a good idea... ☺

Mev rocket has engine in the back, seems to work ok

I have no problem with the engine back there

 

Looks like the handbrake is not too good though! I  The Robin Hood had a shorter bonnet and the driver was moved forwards a bit. Although the K3 GTM I had handled very well, the handbrake was awful on that.

11 minutes ago, Peter Bell said:

Looks like the handbrake is not too good though! I  The Robin Hood had a shorter bonnet and the driver was moved forwards a bit. Although the K3 GTM I had handled very well, the handbrake was awful on that.

Handbrake is perfect, not sure what the K3's used as they were Metro front subframes on the rear, when the Freestyles did that with the Mini's  front drums the handbrake was not good, but this uses a MGF rear subframe, suspension & the calipers so rear brakes & handbrake is very good. Surprised you did mention that the battery must be knackered as well seeing that there are jump leads in the image.

You could always have the counter weight in the front being another engine. Busa in the back, Busa in the front, what could possibly go wrong?

8 hours ago, phaeton said:

Handbrake is perfect, not sure what the K3's used as they were Metro front subframes on the rear,

GTM provided a load of cut steel that you sandwiched together to make up a secondary caliper, and you then popped a couple of Citroen 2CV brake pads (about the size of a 2 pence piece!) into each side and presto, a handbrake mechanism.

It was borderline effective 😕

(I'm being polite)

I’m guessing this is what you were talking about...

Rear Engine

 

There you go, yep!

I did wonder about this as a concept but not an engine in the rear but a motor! If you had the batteries up front where the engine used to be and mounted an electric motor in the boot it would balance out the weight a bit. You could then lose the prop and gain more space in the cockpit. Not sure whether it would need a gearbox on the motor though. Depending on the setup i wondered if you could add a sprocket to the front of the diff where the prop normally connects and then a chain drive to the motor/gearbox above.