None dually truck question.

My son wants to build a mazda pickup. I was thinking it might be kinda neat to put a newer motor from a front wheel drive car in the rear. I know it has been done before, but what do you guys think. My thought was we wouldn't have to worry about the tranny or hood clearance when we bddrpd it. I was leaning towards a mazda motor so I don't know what car I should be looking for. But I'm pretty sure that anything we find will have strut front suspension so I see that kinda being a thorn in the side.

Tell me what you think.

too much work

I think we are starting out with a cab and frame from the junkyard, so it is going to be a lot of work regardless. But it should be cheap.

go with a 2.3 ford motor and a vw transaxle. that will be the cheapest way possible.

build the engine in the bed ....... i like it , over here we use the transaxle from a renault but i doubt it will be available in the states , the Vdub or porshe transaxle would be my best bet too
it might be possible to mount the frontwheeldrive jap motor the way it comes out of the car by partly welding in the subframe and basicly use the whole drive mc personstruts hubs and everything intoo the frame of the pickup but the bottleneck would be the controlls for the gears and clutch ........ does leave lotsah room for turbo's and intercoolers though
iyou might even be able to mount everything under a bed top if not you could allways consider a campershell
a saab engine has the gearbox under the engine , a olds toronado next to the engine some of the bigger caddy's have front wheeldrive units on a lengthwize mounted engine

If we do it it will be a matter of finding a wrecked say mazda 626 or honda civic, something like that. Dropping the entire front drivetrain and building it into the frame. I'd love to use a supercharged 3.8 from a bonneville ssei but they are way to wide.

I saw a s10 blazer along time ago that put a fiero engine in the back. It was also body dropped to the tailights. seems like that would be the easiest set up to work with

Never thought of a fiero, might be hard to find.

X's 2 for 2.3 /w/ V-Dub transaxle.

i know there kits to fit a caddy northstar engine in a fiero now thats a realy nice engine .
come to think of it

realy long link .... its a homebuild midengine honda looooooootsah pictures