Ulez compliant engine for cappo

[Matthew van Dyckhoff]

Hello all. Looks like ulez will cover my area soon and I was thinking of going electric for the cappo but that’s just too awkward, so my though was to fit a new ulez compliant engine. The question is - what engine would fit and does anyone know anyone who could do the job in the south east of england? Thanks all. I. Look forward to the interesting responses

[Ian Linden]

Hi Matthew,

I have followed two electric Cappo builds online. Both removed the clutch and gearbox and tucked the motor into the tunnel. The first was a very narrow motor, and it actually fitted entirely into the tunnel, whereas the second was a greater diameter, and only tucked in the rear end. The first sacrificed his rear window stowage for battery space, which I thought a poor idea - what's the point of a Cappo if you can't tuck the rear window away? The second sacrificed the boot and the passenger seat for battery stowage - I didn't like that either.

Sad to say, both threads came to an end at the stage when the car was ready to start moving, owing to problems with the inverter control systems. The authors did not declare abandonment of the projects, but one assumes that was the case

A great pity, as I would like to do the same, but I would like the confidence given by a successful trail-blazer first

As for paying someone to do a change to a ULEZ compliant engine - it might be cheaper to pay the charge! Otherwise, store it until it's 40th birthday, when I think it will be exempt (under present rules).

Going back to electric drive, you might be able to graft the entire Citroen Ami drive into the Cappo without sacrificing space, and thereby retain a developed control system. Unfortunately, performance and range would be very limited.

[Murray Betts]

The Capp might actually meet the NOx limit in reality, unfortunately there's no practical way to demonstrate that.
Japanese emission specs at the time were based on a completely different test method (10-15 Mode), the UK standards when the Capp was certified here would have been Euro1 where HC+NOx was specified but NOx alone was not recorded. ULEZ only takes NOx into account. Although the homologation would have included a value for HC+NOx, it is not included on the V5 and would be of no use anyway.

There is the possibility to get motorcycles tested and exempted individually, and with sufficient examples I believe a group exemption can be recorded for future owners to claim.
As far as I'm aware there is no similar scheme recognised for cars. Fitting a different engine would, I imagine, just drop you in the same predicament of how to get a recognised emission test carried out and approved. If it can be done it would be worth testing the Capp standard engine anyway, it might just meet the limits, you never know. It has EGR (which is for lowering NOx) so it's a good start anyway. You could retard the ignition a few degrees which would also help if it was a marginal issue.