The Crittenden Automotive Library

Velostar Needs More Power

Topics: Hyundai Veloster

Velostar Needs More Power

Bill Crittenden
DriveWrite
September 13, 2013

The ‘special relationship’ still exists between trans-Atlantic car fans. While DriveWrite is away trying out some JLR products, our friend Bill Crittenden writes from America about what he would like to do to the unusual asymmetrically-doored Hyundai Veloster; not a car that’s caught on here although it is good-looking and comes in three flavours. Bill reckons it could do with some real power, though. Please note that Bill spells the American way but what can you do?

A few of my Dream Cars take an idea from another outrageous automotive idea and twist it just a little to fit my own tastes. One of my old favorites was putting a Mitsubishi 3000GT V6 into the back of a Hyundai Accent, since I had one at the time at the end of the 1990's, Mitsubishi and Hyundai had some technical relationships, and I wanted to make the world's fastest Hyundai. Of course the idea came from the Renault Clio Sport, the mid-engine V6-powered version of their normally front-engine FWD 4-cylinder hatchback.

Practically, the car was just to prove a point, the Accent being heavy and narrow and tall for its class, it wouldn't have made a great sports car no matter how much horsepower it had in whichever end you stuck it in.

However, Hyundai now has the Veloster. From nose to center-exhaust tail, that thing looks like it should have way more power than a turbocharged 1.5L can provide. A 2010's version of the Tiburon in the way that the style is far more sporting than the hardware underneath. Oh, but the low and wide Veloster would make a great new platform for a mid-engine homemade supercar. Here's how it happens...

Basically, step one is to take a lime green Veloster and strip out the interior, engine compartment, everything down to the bare body & chassis. Color doesn't really matter, but this is MY dream car here.

Step two is to take a transverse-mount drivetrain from the front of a front-wheel drive car and stick it where the back seats used to be. Since there's more room, and being a performance car you can flare the wheel wells a little like Renault did, you can fit a much bigger engine back there. It's not a bolt-in job, you've basically got to cut out part of the floor and create a sub-frame to hold the drivetrain and attach it all so that it doesn't come flying apart at high speed. Then you'll need a firewall at the front seat backs, and to replace the fuel tank elsewhere in the car. At this point it's more of a custom race car wearing a Veloster suit than an original Veloster.

You'll need to run hoses and lines to the front of the car for the radiator and intercooler. The bonus here is that without the engine you can install bigger cooling units and net them out of a hole cut in the hood for maximum efficiency to handle the extra-high powered engine you just installed at the back. Yeah, you're not going to go through all this effort just to install a V6 straight out of an XG300, right? Now, with the leaps and bounds Hyundai has taken from using Mitsubishi drivetrains to making top-shelf high technology engines of their own, building the car all-Hyundai is not only a possibility, but preferable. When you tell someone your Hyundai is faster than their car, you don't want any asterisks next to the record.

I'm not too well-versed any more in Hyundai engine name codes and transmission options, but basically take the best V6 front drive engine/manual transmission combination available from Hyundai as a starting point and build from there. Heck, Oldsmobile turned the engine from the Aurora into something that powered IndyCars, making that little Veloster hustle like a stabbed rat should not be too difficult.

Aside from a 5-point harness seat, roll cage (as long as the welder's out, why not?), and a few extra gauges, I'd try to keep the interior looking a little more normal than a stripped-out race car. Yes, that may be extra weight, but it should have a decent stereo, air conditioning, and enough of a dashboard left over as possible from the original. That is, I think, the kind of car people have in mind when they first see the Veloster, before they're told of the 1.5L engine in the front.