Hello all! I've been poking around and looking for my next daily driver for a couple years hoping to find something perfect for my needs and I think the solution is: Microvan The problem: I often end up highway driving on the 401 (in Canada) where the speed limit is 100 km\h (naturally most drivers ignore this and often get up to 150 km\h). I don't want to be able to go any faster than 130 km\h realistically but these vehicles can only manage up to 95km\h I've found. The solution: I'm looking to engine swap but still have reverse (no motorcycle engines) or modify the existing gear ratios so that a higher top speed is possible (don't know if this is even possible) Help needed: All I keep finding online is the engine CCs for these vehicles but I need to find out the actual space in the engine bay? OR Is there already a microvan that can hit those speeds with the original 660cc engine? OR Are there mods to assist with boosting the top end speed without sacrificing a great deal of the torque? Any assistance is appreciated! I only picked Microvans over Minitrucks because I'm 6'2 and may need the option to recline the front seat
I am just over 6 feet and fit in my hijet fine a d have run it up to over 110 on flat ground but you really end up reving the engine out. They did sell hijets in the UK with 900 ish cc engine similar to the 660 and also a 1.3 maybe.
The Hijet was built with a euro version of the 3-cylinder that was at 993-cc, There were also 1100 and 1300-cc 4-cylinders. The 993 was built on the same block as the 660, and would be an easy swap, if you could get one.
Which engine is your Hijet running and as for seating room I'm happy to hear that the Hijet won't make height an issue. Any chance you can post a pic of your engine compartment/bay so I can guesstimate the available space?
I'll look into this as well, thank you! Any chance you heard of changing the rear diff in these vehicles for higher speed? (in case importing a Euro engine can't happen)
You would be better off with tall tires, it would be far easier than getting a different differential ratio.
I'll do what I can to look into all the suggestions you both have brought up and hopefully move forward, one last thing I've been looking to learn is the dimensions and configuration of the engines these vehicles run. Can either of you help with this? I've looked around and rarely if ever show the engine and when they do it's nowhere near close enough for me to get an idea of it's size. The one picture I found looked like the engines were like those of Subaru with horizontally opposed cylinders
I'm about to upsize my tires, figured since first gear is so low I can afford to go a bit bigger for more top end.
I’ve got taller tires on my truck to increase clearance. But the taller tires actually hurt the top end speed, because the engine doesn’t make enough torque to overcome the air drag.. With the stock tires and wheels I could run 70-mph in 5th gear. With the tall tires I can barely run 60, and it doesn’t like 5th at all, unless I’m on a downgrade.
Think I had a thread on using tire size calculator. I ended up getting slightly taller and it's fine but long hills I drop back to 80-90 kph indicated
