1.6 MPi Felicia transplant into carb Favorit

[cloggy-jasiri]

Hi,

I have a LHD Favorit rally car with a 1.3 carb engine. I am about to transplant a 1.6 MPi in from a Felicia donor car.

I have a few questions to start with and no doubt others might materialise as the project unfolds!

1. Does the 1.6 MPi engine fit directly onto the Favorit gearbox? If so is it wise to do so?
   
2. If so what mods are required for a 3rd engine / gearbox mounting?
   
3. Is it better to use the entire engine / gearbox from the Felicia and weld/fabricate a new rear mounting fixture for the gearbox onto the Favorit?
   
4. Is it better to use the entire front sub frame assembly with engine and gearbox and the entire drive train including hubs rather than following steps 1-3 above?
   
5. Is it indeed possible to transfer the sub frame from the Felicia (with its anti roll bar) directly to the Favorit and use exactly the same mounting points?
   
6. Clearly the 1.3 carb engine does not have a loom compatible with an MPi engine. The MPi engine loom from connects into the main loom with 2 plugs and sockets. Is there a simple wiring diagram of how to integrate or connect this into the Favorit or is it necessary to improvise with a 'home made' loom and pick up power from elsewher? I see this is potentially the trickiest part of the ytransplant, the mechanical bits are l think less daunting.
   

Any advice will be appreciated, if none then it will be a case of making it up as we go along by trial and error. I acknowledge that it may be necessary to modify and weld, but any prior experience by forum members may help us get there a bit quicker.

Thanks in anticipation, any other useful tips would be welcome.

Regards

Herman

(cloggy-jasiri)

[wkdrwd]

dont know the answers but looking forward to hearing your progress on this, Take loads of pics please

Will be a quick wee car with that i'd say!!

[Cepheuz]

i don't know the answer eyther, but first of, take picture of both mounting points and engines so that people here can give you a more informed answer, also, just out of my head i think the most logical thing to do is to use as much as you can from the 1.6 engine and mounting to the favorit, since i think the 1.3 carb (thats the engine i have) is not as powerfull so i guess that was taken into consideration when mounting to the felicia's body

[pinkskud]

the gear boxes should be the same, but you'll need the adapter plate to go in between them

swapping the sub frame could be hard because the floor pan is slightly different. one floor pan has straight rails, and the other has ones that bend at the end. this means there are two slightly different sub frame designs, and two slightly different rear-wishbone-bush designs.

they are sometimes lister differently. "reinforced body" means one designed to take an anti roll bar.

[TeflonTom]

[*]Clearly the 1.3 carb engine does not have a loom compatible with an MPi engine. The MPi engine loom from connects into the main loom with 2 plugs and sockets. Is there a simple wiring diagram of how to integrate or connect this into the Favorit or is it necessary to improvise with a 'home made' loom and pick up power from elsewher? I see this is potentially the trickiest part of the ytransplant, the mechanical bits are l think less daunting.

the mechanical bits are easy, ok can you clarify what you mean, are you intending to bring over all of the fuel injection gear also or running the engine on a carb? there is a single point injection version of the 1.6 engine found in a mk3 golf which has the necessary manifold you would use to convert it to carb with a little bit of bodging, also the mk2 polo 1.3 has a very useful distributor which could be retro-fited to the aee 1.6 engine to make it run on old style coil/amplifier which would run without an ecu , or indeed if you go back even older you may be able to find a mechanical ignition dizzy that will fit... this would be my favourite option because that would give you the option to convert to twin 40 dcoe style carbs in the future...

the wiring isn't a problem as such, and i could help you with that, the biggest problem woud be the immboilizer(or lack of) in the favorit, the felicia ecu wont run without the immobilizer, although iirc there was a real early model mk3 golf which had an aee lump without an immobilizer, i think that was a bosch motronic ecu, but they will be really hard to find

[TeflonTom]

the gear boxes should be the same, but you'll need the adapter plate to go in between them

yes you would need the adaptor plate, plus the clutch and flywheel from the 1.6 felicia

[cloggy-jasiri]

Thanks for the replies so far, the engine will stay as 1.6 MPi, the carb mounting system is prone to damage on the flexible mounting on to the manifold.

I will take some pictures as we go so we can load them up on to the forum.

Thanks for now

Herman

[KenONeill]

Further to Tom's essay on the ignition and fuel system, you could also think about dumping the Felly ECU for a Megasquirt.

[cloggy-jasiri]

Hi all,

Thanks for your earlier comments. I have finally completed the engine transplant, both mechanically and electrically with the exception of the immobiliser wire from the ECU. I am not sure if the donor car has an immobiser or not, or where it is located as the wiring diagram and the manual do not give much of a clue.

There is healthy spark, and I have had a couple of coughs but no sustained running yet for more than a second or so, and eventually I flattened the battery. Have tried squirting a little fuel direct into the intake so not sure if the coughs are due to the fuel in the air or if the injectors are indeed functioning correctly

Will try again on Saturday with a powerful / new battery, but in the meatime some inspiration would be helpful. TeflonTom alluded to a potential problem with the immobiliser. The wire is at present not connected to anything and has approx 10 volts on it with the ignition switched on, may be more if the battery is fully charged or a new battery installed, perhaps it would be 12 volts.

When the immobiliser is functioning how does it immobilise or should it work? Does it work on the ignition circuit (i.e. spark) or on the fuel injectors? At present we have a healthy spark so my guess is if works on that system there is no need to do anything with the loose wire. If it is linked to the injectors then clearly I'll need to find a solution. Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

Would a resistor on the immobiliser output from the ECU to reduce the output volts have the desired effect, if so what should be the voltage? Clutching at straws here!

I know people in the grass tracking fraternity use fuel injected engines, presumably also from cars with immobilisers, so how do they get around the problem to trick the ECU into believing the immobiliser is deactivated.

Looking forward to some ideas. I will eventually post some pictures of the mods once the systems are all working OK.

Cheers

Herman

[TeflonTom]

have you still got the donor car?? the best bet is to remove the immobilizer unit and the key reader coil from the donor car and splice it into the fav, failing that you could just get it from any felicia in a breakers yard but then you would need to reset the learned values in the ecu for it to work...

[cloggy-jasiri]

Yes, still have the donor car. Where is the immobiliser unit and key reader coil located? Is it in the steering column area?

Thanks

Herman

[TeflonTom]

the key reader coil it a ring shaped thing that is over the end of the ignition switch, it was a cable attached to it which goes down and plugs into the immboilizer unit

[cloggy-jasiri]

Have transferred the immobiliser / transponder from the donor car into the Favorit and spliced the unit into the Favorit car loom and 1600 MPi engine loom (with ECU) and now have the engine working fine.

Not long before we get it on the road, fabricating a new supguard and tidying up a few other minor tasks before it is ready for action!

[Act a fool]

So to transplant the 1.6 MPI, we have to buy:

Motor

ecu

cablage

adaptor plate for the gear box

Immobilizer (located near the ignition key)

Why use the 1.3 gear box? In this case we have the same speed of the 1.3

For future upgrade... for example turbo convertion... what is better carb or multi ignition?

Cheers Act....

[KenONeill]

Which is better; 1 choke per cylinder carbs, or port injection? I like multiple side-drafts, but I like FI too. There's only one way to settle this:-

FIGHT!!!

Seriously though, there's not much to choose in full throttle high revs running, but a well set-up FI system will give you better power and/or drivability everywhere else.

[cloggy-jasiri]

Hi,

The project is 95% complete, the mods undertaken are:-

1-Use the 1.6 top engine mount (but you need to adapt the chassis rail on the Favorit to accept the transverse bolt of the bigger mount). We fabricated a bracket with a cative nut and welded it to the chassis rail on the Favorit.

2-Dispense with the lower OS engine mount of the 1.3 (downward peg)

3-We used the 1.3 gearbox mount, but then unbolted the 1.6 gearbox trailing mount from the 1.6 bolted it to the 1.3 gearbox and fabricated /welded the rear mount onto the subframe, replicating the felicia rear g'box mounting arrangement

4-Used the Felicia 1.6 engine/adaptor and mounted the 1.3 gerarbox directly onto it (no mods required)

5-Fabricated an alternator bracket and used the existing 1.3 alternator + wiring arrangement. Swapped the pulley (multi V) from a 1.3 Spi onto the 1.3 which was a single V. A Fiat Bravo fan belt was the right choice).

6-Used the Felicia 1.6 MPI engine harness and integrated that into the 1.3 loom

7-Needed to use the 1.6 immobiliser,if not the unit will start but stops after a couple of seconds.

8-Used the Felicia tank (with integral fuel pump) to replace the Favorit pump.

9-We have used the 1.3box mounted it directly onto the 1.6 engine and adapter

10-Used the 1.6 rad to replace the 1.3 rad

11-Mounted the ECU in the same physical place as on the Felicia (innere wing near header tank)

A bit of a challenge in all but an interesting project. Have yet to test the unit in anger, perhaps this weekend! But it runs sweetly. I will in due course add a more comprehensive report supplemented with photos, took quite a few.

Cheerrs

Herman

[pinkskud]

how are you rigging anti roll bars? iirc the fav didnt have front arb's.

with that anvil in the front i'd think you'd need something

[cloggy-jasiri]

Have not fitted the ARB as the car is a rally car with adjustable ride height coilover shocks with stiff off road spec springs, so the 'anvil' is quite well planted and road holding does not seem to have materially changed.

Took it out on the road for a spin for the first time yesterday and the improvement in performance is very noticeable. If however, it later transpires that an ARB is necessary, I still have the complete front sub frame assembly from the Felicia which can either be transplanted complete, or the Fav can be modified to take the Felicia swing arms which has the ARB mounts, either way not an insurmountable task.

A fun project, worth the effort!

[pinkskud]

cool,

i think swapping the sub-frames is the best way if it comes to it, but the chassic rails on the fav and felly are slightly different.

but would be fun eather way

[Act a fool]

Point 5, why do you use the 1.3 alternator? I don't understand at all...

Please post photo, In future I am going to do this transplant. :-)

[cloggy-jasiri]

The reason is because the wiring loom connections on the 1.3 alternator are different to the 1.6 alternator. We did not use all the looms from the donor car, just the engine loom and made the few connections necessary for the ECU etc into the existing 1.3 loom.

As for photos, I have will take some soon and try and upload, but I have not previously been successful,must be doing something wrong!

[Act a fool]

If you have some photo, you can send them trow e-mail and then I'll put here... if you this problem send me a pm...