Gullwing Doors

hahahaha, damn, you should save these posts for april 1st.

yeah, you could totally gut the entire interior/exterior and replace all the electronics (cabin and ecu since they all talk) and engine(both ice and hybrid system) with a diesel. it would probably be cheaper and easier to build a shell that looks like a prius then to go the other way around.

 

Putting a diesel engine in a Prius is like putting liver pate on ice cream.

 

If a guy was able to put a supercharged hellcat engine in a Prius, Gullwing doors is not that bad as a project.
Good luck.

 

If you want electric gullwing doors and room for s traditional engine, see if you can find one of these.



Bricklin SV-1 - Wikipedia

 

Gull wing doors leak, they always let in water and often snow. I checked to make sure you are not in AZ or NM and you are not, treat it as a dry weather show toy.

Gull-wing door - Wikipedia
(this link should also serve as a source for doors, lower down)

You will want to replace the entire transaxle and big battery with a front drive diesel drivetrain. Many FWD diesels are made.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/finder/automobiles/?filter=drivetrain_front-wheel-drive_class_diesel-cars

 

Regarding the engine, that's an easy one. Rip out everything under the hood bolt in a diesel engine and transmission and voila. A FWD diesel car. You will need to use a European style micro-diesel because of the limited space. The bladder may even support diesel, so it is just a matter of hacking away at the front of the car.

Then for the doors, you're going to have to custom make them. Making doors that swing up versus out is incredibly difficult and puts tremendous forces on the roof. The Prius will crumple like aluminum foil, it's not made for that. So you will need to beef up the structure of the roof dramatically as well as change all the latches around.You'd have to get the springs, torsion bars, and struts to all fit in the roof void, so you will most likely have either a raised bump on the roof (like a higher profile) or a bump down the center of the car inside blocking your view outside and headroom.

I own one of the few cars with gullwing doors and it is awesome. But to retrofit, nearly impossible. You'd be much better off spending a couple grand on a "lambo kit", where the doors pivot and open like the oldschool Lamborghini's.

 

I've never had that problem. There is a channel that runs all around the door frame and all the sitting snow or melt goes around it and to the ground. If the rain/snow/sleet is not falling vertically down, then yes it will enter but is usually much better than a "normal" car since the door provides an umbrella like fashion.

I've had to replace the door struts twice but that's it. Not easy to balance a hundred pounds of metal above you as you try to align a strut and pin with a torsion bar right there...

 

will you be using one of the vdub cheater engines, or something more refined like a dodge 6.7 liter cummins?
this is a complete guess, but i'd have to say at least a grand to put on gull wings.

 

It sounds better with one of these, I suspect.


Hellcat-Powered Toyota PriuSRT8 Is a Rolling Middle Finger | News | Car and Driver | Car and Driver Blog

 

oh, much better without a muffler, what was i thinking?

 

Gullwing doors are not a common conversion for any car as they aren’t really user friendly in normal use. But if you want them you have install hinges at the top, move the latch to button and add gas strut(s) and strengthen all the locations. All of that is fabrication work requiring skills or money.

Installing a lambo style door hinges would be a lot easier.

Easiest way to install a diesel engine into gen 2 Prius would probably be using a Gen 1 or 2 Toyota Yaris (also called Vitz) and take 1nd-tv engine and a (manual) gearbox and lots of other components from that into a Prius. They do share some components and design and Yaris/Vitz is also available with 1nz-fe engine that has the same block as 1nz-fxe in a Prius. Of course while doing that you would ditch the hybrid system entirely and basically install the most of electrical system of Yaris/Vitz into a Prius.

Just remove the muffler entirely as you also get weight saving when doing that.

 

If you want gullwing doors, just go out and buy a DeLorean. Will end up being cheaper and those cars are engineered specifically for the torque and forces of such doors. For reference, I read elsewhere that someone had a Prius professionally turned into a convertible. That cost $14k. Gullwing doors will be ever bit as complicated a conversion.

 

are you taking the weekend off? big job, no time for relaxation.

 

True for most people, but for some people that IS relaxation.