Bored By Chevy LS Swaps? How About These Alternatives?

Poet Robert Frost once wrote, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." In other words, you could do an LS swap, but there are so many more interesting engine possibilities. And that's almost certainly what Frost was talking about. Right? 

There's no judgment here. LS swaps are common because Chevrolet happened to create a wonderfully durable, reliable, light, compact, easy-to-work-on, powerful V8. There are kits for stuffing them into Mazda Miatas, 996 Porsche 911s, and even Ferrari P4s. But some of us aren't content with the bog-standard LS swap. We want something that will stop traffic at a Cars and Coffee, leaving onlookers agape, engineers flabbergasted, enthusiasts dumbfounded, and at least one purist questioning his sanity. The following swaps are not mere fantasies, but actual projects seen through to completion by passionate builders. That brings us to the ground rules for a swap to make this list: One, the swap must be operational. Two, it can't make a lateral move to an engine with the same number of cylinders, so no "V8 to a different V8" swaps. Three, there has to be video evidence of the successful swap.

If you're the kind of person who watched Sarah -n- Tuned's Tundra-sourced 2UZ V8 Celica swap, or Build It Yourself's DOHC 6.8-liter V10 Lincoln Continental swap and enjoyed the originality in either, these swaps are for you. Oh, and if you know about a similarly insane swap not listed here or have a dream swap of your own, feel free to mention it in the comments.

Jordan Easter and Michael Tung are trained engineers, yet are also demonstrably children on the inside. Putting a 6.0-liter V12 from an early-'90s Mercedes S-class in place of a Datsun 2.8-liter inline-six takes a combination of grit, determination, skill, and kid-like "what if" energy. Getting this German/Japanese casserole out of the oven fully cooked took some hyper-brained thinking: Coil packs come from a Honda Odyssey, engine mounts had to be flipped around to even hold the V12 in place, and the bespoke flywheel was commissioned from a custom crafter in Sweden. 

But this isn't just a big engine in a little car; it's an enthusiast build through and through. The transmission blessed with the honor of transmitting the V12's might is a Tremec T56 six-speed manual, a choice that should nominate Easter and Tung for automotive sainthood. Even in a Datsun, a Mercedes V12/stick shift combo is Pagani-adjacent. Despite the hurdles, the 280Zonda not only runs and drives, it sounds absolutely brilliant.

With 400 hp, it probably moves with serious haste. To make sure it stops properly (and is safe if it stops improperly and ends up on its roof), Easter replaced the rear drum brakes with discs and installed a half cage in preparation for the Empire Hill Climb. The best part is, Easter has daily-driven it, which probably raised eyebrows as she pulled into her day job as an Advanced Powertrain Systems engineer.

Ford F-150 SVT Lightnings built between 1999 through 2003 aren't exactly wanting for horsepower. The second-generation Lightning arrived in 1999 and had obviously been to the gym. Gone was the 240-hp naturally-aspirated 351 Windsor from the first-generation model, and in its place was a supercharged 5.4-liter SOHC Triton with 360 hp (upped to 380 in 2001). Despite weighing 4,700 pounds, second-gen Lightnings easily ripped to 60 mph in under six seconds. 

Instead of using the 5.4-liter Modular motor, Hoonigan scooped up a second-gen Lightning, removed the engine, and swapped in a Toyota Supra 2JZ inline-six. The resulting Toyot-ord Supra-150 creation was dubbed "Lord Frightening." Thanks to a Garrett G30-900 turbocharger, the 2JZ put out 514 hp and 472 pound-feet of torque, a respectable rise in horsepower despite the loss of two cylinders.

As sacrilegious as this swap is for Lightning lovers, Hoonigan did install a Tremec T56 six-speed manual, so forgiveness can be extended. Lord Frightening served as Hoonigan's workshop truck, and if that sounds like a familiar use for a Lightning, that's because it was built as an homage to the SVT Lightning shop truck from "The Fast and the Furious." You know, the movie where they build a "10-second" Mark-4 Supra that struggles to outrun a stock 13-second Ferrari F355. The truck popped up for sale on Bring a Trailer after the build was complete, but bids only reached $32,350, and the sale didn't happen. C'mon. Where's your sense of adventure, people?

Ooh, speaking of Ferraris: What if you could have the glorious fury of a Ferrari flat-plane crank V8 without the attention generated by Ferrari looks? Well, just take the 562-hp 4.5-liter V8 from a Ferrari 458 Italia and put it into a Toyota GT86. Of course, doing the mental math on how to make this happen is enough to drive automotive engineers to develop thousand-yard stares and go prematurely gray. Plus, people would stare at the "Ferrari" script on the intake, anyway, so maybe that defeats the purpose, but it's still awesome.

Not only is the Ferrari's engine much bigger than the one that originally powered the GT86, it's also the wrong way around. 458s are mid-engined, while 86s are not. To get the engine to even remotely fit, the V8 in this scenario had to be turned backward. As a result, the exhaust is backwards too, so it had to come out ahead of the front wheels. Then there are the myriad electrical connections, ECU tuning, and fabrication requirements for fitting the Italia's V8 in the Toyota's engine bay. The final product does not have a hood, or at least, there's no picture I can find of one. It's probably better this way, though, as the 4.5 V8 sticking up many, many inches above where a hood would be is much more pleasing to the eye.

This fever dream of an engine swap is the work of Huddy Motorsports, and it belongs to Formula Drift driver Ryan Tuerck. It's a good thing Ryan knows how to handle traction loss, because he drifts this thing in the rain. Here's the terrifying/exhilarating proof:

I tried but failed to find a legitimate video of a not-CGI-rendered, Ford Barra-swapped Plymouth 'Cuda. Why did I go on such a search? Because the name "Barra 'Cuda" is a pun that should delight anyone who's not dead inside. Please accept this Mercedes 300TD wagon powered by a turbocharged 4.0-liter Barra six-cylinder engine as the next-best thing. 

Valtonen Motorsport's 300TD brought on some serious nostalgia for me, as it immediately harkened back to the red five-cylinder Mercedes 300D, which I grew up riding in and eventually driving. Obviously, this wagon is quite a bit faster. Originally, Valtonen Motorsport tried the old Charles Atlas bulking-up routine on the car's turbocharged diesel inline-five, before kicking it out in favor of a Barra-swap. In Australia, Ford Barra inline-sixes are as ubiquitous for swaps, much in the same way Chevy small blocks are used in America, or Rover V8s are in Britain. The Barra engines are basically Aussie 2JZs, what with their Andre-the-Giant-strength rotating assemblies and blocks that can routinely handle over 500 hp.

Routed through a tough, durable ZF 8HP70 eight-speed automatic, the turbo Barra puts down serious power. If Valtonen's claims on their YouTube channel (where comments are disabled) are to be believed, this green breadbox with a stock W123 chassis pulled a 200 mph standing-mile at the Halli Airport in Kuorevesi, Jämsä, Finland.

There are plenty of "V8 in a small car" swaps. There are several LS V8s in Miatas, Rover V8s transplanted in Austin Minis, and even manufacturer-built swaps like the one-off Aston Martin V8 Cygnet. There are even people who think it's acceptable in a polite society to LS-swap Honda S2000s, which gets rid of the car's sweet inline-four with its 9,000-rpm redline. That said, the LS is a fairly compact engine and should make for a (relatively) painless swap. Length isn't a huge issue since the engine is still placing the same number of cylinders in a line. But what if you added one more cylinder to each bank?

Well, someone thought of that. And somehow, the Viper V10-swapped S2000 exists. Heck, a Viper V10 engine seems about the size of an entire S2000 nose to tail, so it might be just as accurate to say that the Viper V10 got S2000-swapped. Incredibly, this SRT2000 is a product of spite as much as passion. When it was featured on the YouTube channel Autopia LA, the owner and builder, Rich, shared that he had seen plenty of forum posts complaining about S2000s and V10s being "idiotic." Rich thought this was a "message from God," and he got to work marrying a V10 out of an '06 Viper with a gutted S2000. It's a stunning build with its aggressive flared fenders, massive wing, and L88 Corvette-style hood. His divine inspiration took 10 years to realize, but it resulted in a 510-hp S2000 that weighs 3,200 pounds and has a 47:53 weight distribution.