While walking around SEMA last year, I stumbled upon something I had somehow never seen before: a thriving market for fake engines. Yes, fake. They are not meant to run, some are made of plastic, and others are basically just little sheetmetal “frames” that weigh 20 pounds. Here’s what these fake engines are for.
I realize that, when it comes to pop culture, I’ve definitely been living under a rock. But when it come to things involving cars — especially wrenching — I consider my ear firmly planted to the ground. But then yesterday, while browsing cars on Facebook Marketplace, I saw an ad for what looked like a Chevy LS1 engine, but made out of sheetmetal. And this wasn’t a piece of art for some hipster’s “man cave” — I’d seen it before at SEMA, and I recall being amazed that I had gone so long not knowing of its existence.
I’m talking about “mockup engines,” which are literally fake engines, though I think “stand-in engines” might be a better description. Or maybe an “engine buck,” or “engine packaging tool” or something. I think “mockup” works fine, because that’s really what these engines are for: They help you mockup whatever project you have going on without having to lift a 700 engine/transmission combo into your engine bay so you can take measurements, then out so you can fabricate, then back in to check your work, then back out to tweak, then back in, etc. Lifting and moving that weight involves working with lots of potential energy, and like a coil spring squeezed by a cheap spring compressor, you’d rather avoid being around that if you can. For safety sake.
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And so blossomed an industry of fake, mockup engines. The ones that I saw, called “SoloSwap” engines by Speedway Motors, are sheetmetal, and fold up into a flat, small, lightweight box that can be shipped to your doorstep.
Not only do they accurately represent the size and shape of various engines like the Coyote 5.0 and Chevy LS1, but they also feature holes that allow you to actually bolt these things up to a transmission. What’s more, you can even add bolt-on accessories!
SoloSwap breaks down why one would buy this mockup Cummins built out of 12-gauge mild steel sheets:
- Patent pending SoloSwap® is compatible with all 1989-2002 Cummins 6BT 12-valve bolt-ons such as intake plates, turbo manifold, and oil pan to provide accurate engine mock up in your chassis
- Weighing in at 31 pounds for the short block or 46 pounds for the long block, this Cummins 6BT 12V mock up engine can be lifted in and out of the vehicle easily without the need for an engine hoist
- Replicates all versions of the Cummins 6BT 12V engine found in the 1st and 2nd generation Dodge Ram pickup and medium to heavy duty trucks and buses
- SoloSwap® long block version comes with bolt on fabricated steel mock up 12V head | Short block version accepts all factory and aftermarket 12V and 24V heads
Yep, as that last bullet point points out, you can buy a $299 “short block” (i.e. just the block with no cylinder head), as well. The long block costs $399.
There are actually quite a few mockups to choose from. Above you see a smallblock Chevy.
And as I mentioned before, it’s not just engines.
What’s wild is that these sheetmetal contraptions aren’t the only “fake” motors out there. One of the more famous brands that makes mockup motors is P-Ayr. Their motors are actually made of plastic, and feature threaded inserts so you can literally thread bolts right up to them.
And I could go on and on. You can even buy plastic accessories like bell housings, water pumps, intake manifolds, harmonic balancers, etc.:
They’re quite fascinating facsimiles of the real thing, and as YouTube AC Designs Garage points out in the video below, they’re actually useful!
Just watch a plastic Chevy V8 in action in a future-engine-swapped Chevy V10:
Again, I’m amazed I didn’t know these existed! Whether it’s worth the $300 to $600 for one of these fake motors depends on your project/budget, but if you could buy one and sell it for even half what you bought it for, I’d guess it’s probably worth avoiding the headache of having to install and extract a motor/transmission a million times. You could use CAD to solve some of these issues, but when it comes to an amateur project done in your garage, there’s often no replacement for physical hardware.
Having done several engine swaps in the past, something like this would be a Godsend. Lifting the engine in and out and in and out as you modify obstacles and fabricate things is incredibly tiresome.
I frikkin love it.
There are a fair amount of 3d scanned engine models out there on the interwebs free for download so someone with a home 3d printer with a lot time and filament can crank out a model if needed.
A friend is swapping a Tesla small drive into an MG and I printed a life size 3d model of the motor assembly that I found online. Sure beats trying to push the real assembly around for test fits. Took about 5kg of filament and a lot of printing time for poor little Ender3 but it turned out well.
V-twin: I’m not sure which brand, my guess VMW
Doesn’t have any turn signals, so it checks out.
Cool, makes sense. Plastic accessories? I mean, a lot of cars are made of a lot of plastic junk already ha ha
It makes a lot of sense. Mechanics will spend thousands on fake engines for the same reason medical schools will drop 6 figures on a fake patient. You can’t do your early learning and trial by error practice on the real deal, whether for financial or legal/ethical reasons.
Part of it is to sell your stuff.
Much easier to sell headers if that’s the only real thing presented to customers.
Am I correct in thinking the dimensions of a long block engine aren’t protected by patent? Seems like it wouldn’t take much for someone to buy one of these kits, reverse engineer it, and then open source it to anyone who has a CNC plasma table, which I suspect any decent fab shop would have.
Dimensions of the engines are protected by copyright, if you’re making engines. If these are copyright protected then you would have to modify the design sufficient to not be counterfeiting.
Hardest part about knocking off a super niche product, is selling enough product to cover the cost of designing the knockoff. Much easier for the original manufacturer since they’re well known enough that you found out.
Okay, sure… but this is just bolted together pieces of flat metal that are sometimes folded. I would think that it would only take a day or two for a competent engineer to unbox the kit, measure all the pieces, and recreate them in CAD, then share the CAD files online. Not for profit, but folks do this sort of thing all the time “for the community”.
Engineer and NX driver here, an engine’s worth of flat pack panels will take way longer to measure, draft, program, cut prototype, adjust tolerances, finalize than a day or two. Sure someone might make one and post it online, but that doesn’t mean it is accurate. Not to mention you’re still on the hook for burning a sheet of steel to try it out. Summit Racing has a lot more trust and reputation than Eggsalad or RallyMech on thingverse, and you pay for it.
The V-twin’s a Harley Evo
Sure, but do they have the single greatest transmission ever built, the –
Ha! Admit it. You finished that sentence in your head, didn’t you? You know the one I’m talking about.
Nissan CVT ?
😉
I won’t crowd in on their thing anymore, this was just too good a setup to resist
ZF 8Spd? T18 four-speed stick?
Not sure if srs but it’s a reference to our resident Jatco Xtronic CVT enthusiast, Jatco Xtronic CVT.
Okay but actually, I would love for transmissions to make it into the Mercedes’ deep dives. I’ve learned about all kinds of weird engines, let’s learn how that power makes it to the wheels and what makes them special!
Starting with the Jatco Xtronic CVT?
Here is a conspiracy theory for you. I think Jatco Xtronic CVT is no joke account. It’s a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign aimed at an impressionable and vulnerable audience. This is a website sympathetic to the weird and unwanted of the car world. Where better to start?
If I were putting an engine where it wasn’t ever designed to go, this is “shut up and take my money” territory. It would absolutely be worth it to me, just to save on the time/frustration/danger of manuvering a whole ass engine around just to find it doesn’t quite fit yet and having to do it all over again.
I have always been fascinated by engine swaps. My regular work comes to a screeching halt if a bracket bends, or the loaded weight of a component going back in means it doesn’t go back in as easy as it came out. I learned a lot ruining my Sentra’s engine, but this dark magick still mystifies me. What do you mount to? What do you do with all the dozens of wiring harnesses for the sensors? I’ve done my fair share of fabrication hacks but it’s hard, to me, just to get an engine out in the first place. To swap it for a different unit blows my mind.
Wish you could check these out of a library or rent them.
like renting out a tool!
I could rent out my brother in law? He’s certainly a tool…
My exact thought as well. There must be a business.
Is this the same Speedway Motors that bought out Camelot Motors’ inventory, and kept selling Shay Model A replica kits into the ’90s?
Mannequin engine. Mannegine! I smell movie.
With the right template those skeletonized models look like something one could make at home from a couple of sheets of plywood and a cutting table.
Have you priced plywood recently?
Cardboard or styrofoam then.
Try shaped plastic balloons, deflated you could carry them in your pocket!
For all your engine mock up needs on the go
Definitely a good idea, especially when the engine is going places it’s never meant to go. Splash the cash on this to keep frustration to a manageable level. Plus when something goes wrong, the engine itself isn’t damaged.
he was dumbfounded to discover that his brand new rubber mock up Harley V Twin was somehow leaking oil?
I noticed nobody is selling these made from delicious aged white cheddar. Business opportunity.
Do you have anything in a nice Gouda?
Sorry folks, all we have left is aged Limburger.
What the hell, I’ll take it, still tasty and guarantees privacy for awhile
For the sheetmetal ones they should sell form-fitting plastic wrappers that you could rub Prussian Blue on to mark anything that is intruding into the space.
Genius!
At PRI I could not stop looking at these. They are so cool and so well made…
I’m planning an engine swap and desperately want one of these. I’ve heard them called “foam blocks”. If I can find a used one on EBay, I’ll buy it and then put it up for sale when I’m done.