Fun, powerful and economical Engine - suggestions ??

it all depends what its in and the power to weight ratio

eg I had some 5occ petrol powered skates plenty of power,lots of fun,and cheap to run.

Depends on your idea of power, your idea of economy and your idea of cheap!

Fiat Cinquecento Sporting is meant to be a right laugh. You won't win any prizes with those figures in a game of Top Trumps, but they're supposed to be a real hoot. I'd imagine economy-wise they'd be as frugal as they come too.

fairly good stats there.

my thinking is whatever the best suggested is it may well end up in my yank pickup somehow

I have been looking into duratecs but don't know masses about them and how cheap they are to tune. Seen many parts but a set of bodies and manifold can cost three times that of a donor car unless someone more educated than I knows better (and they shouldn't be hard to find ).

Winner. Lotus chose it for a good reason.

Cosworth v6. 210 bhp, 300 quid gets you a the whole car its fitted in, and 25 mpg ish....

I had a Rover 75 1.8T - Turbo charged version of the 1.8 K-Series. I was highly impressed! Very good low down torque and went well in such a large car when wound up. Only 150bhp in Rover trim or 160 in MG trim but can be remapped up to approx 180 in standard trim, more with extra work.

The killer for the K-Series is poor maintenance. The head gasket problems (which were often mis-diagnosed inlet manifold gasket failures due to the engines reputation) have been largely reduced but the cooling system must be kept in top condition. Skimp on the anti-freeze and let the level drop too much and you're asking for trouble. The problem here lies with the previous owners, did they all look after it?

My car suffered a split cooling hose from the turbo. The temp gauge is infamous in the R75 for hiding the truth until things really have got too hot (it's ECU controlled, not a direct reading) and mine suffered. On removal of the head I found quite deep corrosion on the mating face of the block right by most of the water ways along with lots of sealing goop.

Find a good one though and look after it and I reckon they could be pretty potent for something flexible enough for daily driver duties.

Lexus V8 - 30mpg (even in an LS400 if you stick to sub 70mph speeds on a long run) is possible, cheap as chips to buy a donor car (seen a couple of the Mk3, 265bhp models go for <£500 on ebay recently) and 245-285bhp dependant on the model of LS400 you get.

Think his user name is Devon Utopia. Any PD 130 with a remap will be quick and reliable, or even the pre PD TDI with a landrover injection pump and bigger turbo 200bhp + possible i.e MTDI, and also does away with wiring at same time. But dervs don't float everybodies boat.