This always happens when somebody mentions 4 wheel drive or all wheel drive for an HHR, everybody goes off on a monster truck tangent.


What about thinking along the lines of an Audi Quattro, or similar, and tearing up some road courses? That would be cool!

 

I agree! ^^^^^ That would be epic. Or dominating rice rockets on the streets!

 

An AWD HHR SS would have been awesome. However the market would have been very small and I doubt many people would have shelled out the extra $$$ for it. As for the monster truck tangent - Mini Grave Digghhr Rules!!!

 

As for the AWD road course setup, it is possible, but cost of fabrication and installation would be crazy. I've been looking at AWD RB26 swaps ( nissan Skyline ) , you can find just about anything on eBay for a few grand. HHRs have been converted to rear wheel drive ( Year One ), so that base is covered. You just have to chop out the rear floor, relocate the fuel cell, and build a rear axle suspension setup.

 

Go in a different direction....if your going to cut one up why not go front AND rear eng,,wouldnt be hard to adapt a front cradle to the rear..would have to do some creative thinking when it comes to the electronics though but with available programming it shouldnt be that difficult. Would even employ a real ind rear suspension and add LSD to both ends........lota work....but was there ever an easy one?

 

I've had this AWD thought many times, I have to leave the car setting all winter because it doesn't get the best traction, albiet it doesn't fair well in water either. Then again...it might just be me. And as said many times already, I imagine fitting solely the body on a 4x4 frame of some sort would be easily accomplished, I think if you have the $ flow I would build a frame myself and set up a mid/rear engine and convert my hood to a trunk. Now for the AWD type, if you took the time to find like a GSX eclipse or a Talon TSI, somethin already AWD with a horizantly mounted engine. Oh if I had money I'll tell ya what I'd do.........

 

I've thought about this many times and in my opinion, the best candidate for an AWD power train swap would be a 2000-2005 AWD Chevy Astro or GMC Safari. It's another Chevy which may help with parts compability. It's unibody construction means you could swap the entire front cradle, engine, trans, suspension and all. It would just be a matter of adapting the Astro cradle to the HHR. If ya used the Astros rear end and suspension it's solves more compatibility problems. The Astro already has a larger, more powerful engine, and you may be able to swap the entire wiring harness. I tell ya, if I had more room in my garage, I would give this a shot.

 

You have no idea how difficult this concept is. This would make my Ls1/RWD build look simple.

You couldn't swap ANYTHING. There are no similarities. The HHR engine cradle supports the A arms for the front suspension. That wouldn't work. The wiring harness would not work without extensive re-wiring. You might as well start over. The rear end would require moving the fuel tank. Once you do that, all sorts of problems arise. And you haven't addressed the structural aspects of cutting up a unibody car. Once you cut it, it looses a lot of it's strength.....it's a beer can.

In short, this idea would be an astronical amount of engineering, dedication and money. And then, what would you really have? There are easier/better ways to go. Just my 2 cents......

 

I would love to use an ATS AWD drivetrain in an HHR, I just have to many other projects on the go. I haven't researched them much but the use the turbo charged 4 cylinder.