Twin engine car build stuff... talk to me

Yea that's the one

These type of builds always bug me as the end results are rarely worth the effort . Putting legalities aside the actual driving experience is always compromised by the amount of time you spend worrying you’ve selected both gears and managing traction as the rear motor pushes the front up making it easier to spin up . I ran a twin bike engined car for a while and tbh it was a pain in the rear to live with . Many years back I did a track day and followed a twin engined golf around donnington which was chaotic to say the least and cooked its braked after a few laps . Sort of works in a straight line but two motors without electronic management linking the two is pretty much a fairground ride

But there's no denying it would be silly fast and a massive laugh no?

The twinny Mini always gets blamed of being an undriveable car.
And the John Cooper crash ( which did almost kill him ) is always the proof.

It was a balljoint that failed.

As far as I know, the car being twin engined had nothing to do with it.



Seems like these things can take on a life of their own.

Same with John Parry-Thomas' crash of Babs.

People have been avoiding chain drives, because the story goes he was partially decapitated by one of chains on Babs.

It has been dispelled, but the story wont die...



Volkswagen built a couple of Twinny Golfs (for Pikes Peak I believe ), but I don't know how successful they were.








I'd love to build a twinny.
A modern Cooper would be a natural choice, because of the Twinny Mini's of the past.
But a Modern Fiat 500 Abarth would be too, because if it is going to be called a 500 there should at least be an engine in the back.

I wouldn't expect it to be easy to iron out the kinks, but I bet it would be a lot of fun...

Things I'd worry about ( besides the obvious ones, like throttle and shifting linkages ) would be getting the rollcenters right ( I bet sticking a second FWD unit complete with struts in the back wouldn't get them where you'd want them), and springrates front & rear, as well as shock valving.

I bet those things would make a big difference...

I've seen a Twinny Moke in a museum once, and the way the shifing linkages were coupled was really simple.
I'd worry about the accuracy of that too.
I think I wouldn't run separate linkages from the front and rear engines to a central shifter, but link the gearboxes with a linkage ( so you can accurately control the movement, even when the engine torque and braking moves and rotates them. And the adjustabillity), and run a 2nd linkage off that to the actual shifter.

Accurate smooth synched throttle linkages would be crucial too.
If one lags behind, you have instant difference in front rear torque...

If after sorting all of that out it's still unruly, I 'd see if it would be possible to maybe adapt a aftermarket traction control unit ( or two ) to keep the RPM's within a certain percentage of eachother...

Was a popular thing to do in AutoX a while back. All were vauxhall I think. Easy to bring gear linkage forward from them was the reason. One mod they did was make the rear engine run a couple of hundred revs faster so that it was “boss”. Might not be so good on hard surface?
Sounds like a good project though. Cant see how you would get away with not testing it as the shell will need a fair bit of cutting.

what about 2 paddle shift autos, you could easily mechanically link the paddles, leave the 2 gear selectors which would allow you to run one in N the other in  D then switch to manual and use both.

Most are also drive by wire so for the throttles use 2 potentiometers with a bias linkage which allows you to change the front / rear balance like you would brakes.

Daz VRBANANA built a twin 20vt corrado, using a 6 point cage and 2 subframes, loads of work and expensive. in reality you can get more than enough welly from a turbo VR engine. Alternatively people have fitted full S4 running gear of TTv6 and V8 permutations.