Hi from  Brantford Ontario Canada. I just bought a basket case 69 Lotus Europa and am investigating engine/transmission transplant possibilities. The Europa had a north/south Renault engine in a mid engine location. I owned a Subaru sedan in the early 80s with a boxer engine and loved it. Any advice is appreciated.   

Cool project. Always wanted one. My friend has a 67 Elan.

 

I have no idea how you are going to make this work but I sincerely hope you do.

 

My guess , if the boxer can work , would be that you're wanting to keep it rear wheel drive. Yes?

I am at the investigation stage, but it would be desirable to use Subaru engine and trans and definitely rear wheel drive.

I've worked on the Elan. It's tight with the straight four in it. Does the Europa share the same drivetrain? Forgive my lack of investigating.

 

I've seen that "frame" the Elan sits on and if the Europa is the same you have a real challenge.

As much as I am a fan of stuffing a Subaru power plant into most things I think geometry is against you here. The frame on the Europa would prevent the engine from being placed as low as possible in the chassis, and even with the engine high enough to clear the frame rails (to include the headers), which would really have it up in the air, I would be concerned about your driveline angles. And even then the engine width of any Subaru engine that would be equal to or better than the original inline 4 is likely to be wider than the bay, but a few quick measurements should resolve that. If I was building one, I would take a serious look at the engine from the Lancer Evo, 290Hp before tuning and they can make allot more than that! And should fit as well as the original.

does anybody know the distances from the transaxles to the front of the engine and from the transaxles to the tail of the transmission? What is the shortest version of this layout... that is which Subaru model would be shortest?

(should this topic be in another forum now?) 

My thought was to mount the engine/transmission as a rear engine. This has been done on many VWs and buggies. Any suggestions for web sites where I might get information?