Here's a grab bag of idears.

1) Fast(er) and frugal - A VW TDi swap (Acme Adapters and a 2WD Toyota pickup manual trans). Gobs of torque, 120-ish HP stock (certain years). Vaguely similar HP levels but twice the MPG. And you can tweak the TDi's up to 150 - 170 - 190 hp . Then it would be fast and still get 45 mpg. And have a cool diesel clatter at idle. A TDi pulls like a bull in a heavy modern Jetta, I'd imagine it would actually be a lot of fun in a 2200 lb PV.

2) Funky - People keep yanking rotaries out of old RX-7's to stick LSX motors in them, how about sticking one of those in the PV? Turbo rotary. Open the hood and it will look like the engine is missing, until you see the little beer keg hiding out down on the crossmember. Lack of torque would be mitigated by the lack of heft in the PV. Rev, rev, rev. Boost goes in, apex seals come out. It would make the PV even lighter than it already is. Get out a Ouija board and ask Colin Chapman how hard it is to add lightness to a car.

3) Fast-n-furious - The Honda S2000 drivetrain. A whole generation of FWD raised Honda fanbois bought these, then discovered RWD oversteer when a telephone pole approached the side of their car at high speed. Suffice it to say there are a decent number of donor drivetrains floating about. It really is quite a motor. In the porky S2K it seems a little torqueless, but it's 150 ft lbs, more than a B20. And work the 6 speed manual trans and rev the thing up to 9000 glorious RPM, it makes 240 hp from 2 liters of normally aspirated motor. It's really a super high quality race motor.

4) Volvo whiteblock - Motor swaps are fine and all, but there's just a slight bit of added cool factor when the engine still has the correct manufacturer on the valve cover. That's probably just personal opinion on my part, but a Volvo motor would still be neat. A 16V redblock would be nice, but you might as well go for the gusto with a 5 cylinder whiteblock, since you'll be making mounts and chopping stuff to make it fit anyhow. And 20V > 16V, easier to make HP. M90 manual from Europe stuck behind it. Oh. Yeah.

5) In any discussion of motor swaps, you just have to toss in the obligatory LS swap. The aluminum blocked Chevy V8 is just the darling of the swap crowd. People stick them in *EVERYTHING*. Old Land Cruisers. Miatas. 914 Porsches. Old Fairmont wagons. And in 99.7% of the cases (assuming it's done with at least a modest level of skill) it does indeed make a nice car even nicer. Why? Because it's a modern engineering marvel. It's light, it's compact (srsly, it fits in a Miata), it has 400 lazy, torquey HP's. And by lazy I mean understressed in stock form, and easy to improve on. Shake a Summit Racing or Jag's catalog at one and you'll pick up 50 hp. Stick a couple of turbos on one and you'll *really* be making take-out-extra-life-insurance levels of HP (cue the video of Dug Strickler's turbo LS1 Volvo 740 wagon going 190+ mph). Stick an awesome T56 6 speed manual behind it. Only minor issue with this is - you're out of the 'minor leagues' now - it's serious business...

6) Last, but not least, and dear to my heart - keep it pushrod redblock. Not the B16 - too old, too weak, not much support anywhere for performance parts. I'm sure it's a lovely engine in stock form, but that's where it should stay. Under someone else's hood. But a B20 has a fair amount of aftermarket support. Build a 180 - 200 hp normally aspirated B20 and it will be quite fun in the PV. if that's not enough, start with a low compression F head and add some boost. Sure, you'll have to adjust valves every 5K miles, but it will still look authentic under the hood.


Pretty much whatever you do will result in you chopping out the trans tunnel, so get resigned to that early on. The only thing that fits in there is a non-OD M4 or M40, the tunnel just pinches in behind the short trans for the narrow driveshaft section. Bear in mind that the PV has a lot less structure under there (why it weighs several hundred pounds less than a 122/1800) - and the trans tunnel is a more significant structural component here than it is in most unibody cars. So make sure whatever you replace it with is pretty sturdy and solidly fastened in place.
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'63 PV544 rat rod, '93 Classic #1141 245 (now w/16V turbo)