Just a few fun pics of Yep, that’s right a Yugo with a wide body kit, big tires and a turbo Chrysler 4 cylinder driving the front wheels and a big Cadillac V-8 mounted in the rear seat area driving the rear wheels! The mastermind behind this thing is Bill Grabel of Valparaiso . Of course he was assisted by the ever inventive Jim McKamey.

Front motor

The V8 in the rear

Wow, how the hell does that all work?!?

HAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAA

Makes you wonder what they could accomplish if they used their powers for good instead of evil


How the hell does that work anyway??

I honestly don't know. He will be at the next AX and I will get some more details.

My bet -- He's only running the V-8 when hes' racing. Use the 4cyl for around town and the v-8 for racing.

Shannon

I bet he needs the front engine for dead weight over the front wheels so the car doesnt pop wheelies!

Wasn't there a production race or rally car somewhere with 2 mid-mounted V6 engines, one in front of the rear axle driving the rear wheels and one behind the front axles driving the front wheels?

I think it was Japanese, but I can't remember what it was.

Was the Renault R-5 that way? Or just one in the back?


edit- Nope, just one midship. I should use Google more...

could you imagine losing a race to a yugo? i don't care what's under the hood, it's a yugo. i don't even think it's country of origin exists anymore.

There's an Audi TT out there with 1 engine/ transaxle combo for each set of wheels. I done seen it on the TV! But they had a pretty sophisticated engine management system that ran both sets (engine and trans) in tandem all the way down to spark to keep them in sync.

I think that's probably out of the question on the Yugo though.

Yeah, how do you balance the performance of two so different engines?

There have been a few multi-engine racers in the past. In one of Karl Ludvigsten's Indy 500 photo books there is a twin 911-engined Indy car from the late 60's. One engine drove the front and the other the rear. DNQ though. In a Can-Am history book I have there is a four engined Can-Am car with one motorcycle engine driving each wheel. Not too successful.

I guess the only successful multi engine cars have been dragsters and land speed racers.

Of course one twin engine road racer that was fast, was the Chaparral 2J, the sucker car. It had an aluminum big block Chevy (494 ci?) driving the rear wheels and a snowmobile engine driving the vaccuum fans. Twin engined, but not quite the same!

VW (or VW Motorsport) built a twin engined Scirocco in the early 80s. There were some pictures in a book I had long ago.

actually, there was a german car that was used a lot (and still is!) in ralley and hill-climbing events that was commonly modified to a twin-engine layout ...

i have seen them running numerous times, absolute hill-climbing killers!
even with just one engine

Andy

NSU Prinz TT

here's a pictures of one (with just one engine tho):

and if you want to read more about the NSU Prinz ...

http://www.audi.com/com/en/company/history...z/nsu_prinz.jsp

Andy

Umm, a E mod car is NOT a street car. He was running both engines, sounded very cool. I want to know what he is using for brakes. I never did get to talk to him, but I will next month.

During WWII the Sherman tank was mass produced. Engine supply could not keep up with demand, so Caddilac V8 automobile engines were ganged together to run some models of the Sherman, I believe they used four V8's. Yankee Ingenuity like this won the war. Not an autocross winner, but it still "blew away" the competition!


dave

i know of 2 killer twin engine cars. the suzuki Escudo( vitara) from the Pikes leaks hill climb , know in granturismo, and the twin engine hyundai Tiburon in the Sport compact car challenge 2 years ago... 2 350 hp yurbocharge, methanol, auto tranny drag machine, that does the 1/4 in the low 10sec.... the 2 transaxle arent connect so it isn't a trac machine like the Escudo

I guess to tune the handling you just turn up the throttle on whichever engine will balance the car.
Oversteering? Crank up the front engine.

Understeering ? Crank up the rear motor.

Seriously though, I have heard that the torque converters kinda even things out, but I would think you would need to start out with the same drive ratios.
Man that is a lot of work.

George

For another interesting twin engine car go to:

Car Videos

and check out the VW twin vr6 video. The video is on the bottom right part of the page. Impressive sounding on boost!