Thread: Engine cradle

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I've been doing some serious measuring under my hood, and I am pretty sure I could put any engine I wanted in there, but the problem I keep coming to is how to mount it. I really don't want to build supports from the frame because they wouldn't look right to me no matter how I did them. What I was planning was to build an engine cradle which could mount to the original stock mounts.

Looking at the engine compartment


You can see that there is no place on the sides to mount it to.

My question is has anybody has tried an engine cradle in that vein. The problem I can think of is that it might not handle the added torque.
edited to fix image

Your picture didn't make it. How are you trying to post it? Are you using the "Attach" function and attaching a jpeg or gif from your hard drive?

There its working now. Damn prohosting site
Anybody got a good free web host(I'd rather spend the money on the hot rod).

Okay, I'm a little confused here. Those upper control arms look to be connected to an existing fron crossmember of some kind, and that engine isn't hanging in mid air. Why can't you use that? Further, this is a unibody car if I remember correctly, and there should be box sections that that front member attaches to that probably run back at least under the firewall/floor boards. Couldn't you build a tubular crossmember that would span those, perhaps with some reinforcement to eliminate the chance of twist?

Good idea Uncle Bob. But I think I might be able to expand a bit further. What If he took the existing mount, ran out a few bars to the Frame- rails, sunk it down, and created a sunken valley? Then extended it back to bolt into his current tranny crossmember? If you can follow my Ramblings. That way, there would be 4 support contacts at the front and 2 at the crossmember.

I think the best thing would be to fab up a steel pan like drg84 suggested. Plus if I do, I could paint it to match the body. It'll be tough, but if it were easy it wouldn't be a hot rod.