The Car Hobby: Engines

Showing posts with label Engines. Show all posts

September 22, 2012

Engines - Alfa Romeo 8C 2300

Since we have been on an Alfa theme lately here is another stunning engine from my photo collection. This time from the renowned 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 "Rimoldi".

A couple more photos of the car are available in a previous post...

September 19, 2012

Engines - Alfa Romeo 2600

1960's Alfa Romeo 2,584 cc straight "six" (145 bhp / 108 kW). A thing of beauty.

July 14, 2012

Ferrari's Dino 246 GT. A 65 degree 2.4 liter (2418 cc) V6 sporting dual-overhead-camshaft, 9.0:1 compression ratio, iron block and alloy heads. Originally rated at 175 HP. A beautiful example I saw earlier today.

July 3, 2012

Engines - Porsche 914-6

This must be the cleanest 914-6 I have seen in a long while. Stunning!

The rest of the car was just a nice as that stunning engine compartment.

February 21, 2012

Cool Engines - Volvo B21

Definitively the cleanest Volvo B21 engine bay I have ever seen. I hope that next year we will get to see the rest of the car catch up to this level of quality.

January 15, 2012

Cool Engines - McCulloch Supercharged Ford Flathead V8

What a sweet-looking setup! As far as I can tell it looks like a 1930's vintage McCulloch centrifugal supercharger setup for the "flathead" Ford V8. These kits produced between 1937 and 1940 generated a measly 4 p.s.i. so they are not exactly a great performance boost. With a retail price between $85 - $125 USD back then, these don't seem like a great performance part but they certainly look cool!

November 8, 2011

Engines - Panhard PL 17

This little French jewel is an 848cc twin-cylinder boxer engine making around 50hp. Probably the coolest feature for me is the fact that the valve train does not use coil springs. Instead, it uses a torsion bar housed on the two small vertical cylinders that you can see on each side of the engine. I spotted this one at a local car show over a year ago. A real treat to see one in person!

November 6, 2011

Engines - Citroen DS Series

The Citroën DS demonstrated many innovations in styling, materials, and hydraulics. Originally conceived to be powered by an air-cooled flat "six", cash flow problems at Citroën resulted in the cancellation of that program leaving the DS to soldiered on till the 1970's powered by an ancient design that dated to the 1930's. Originally displacing 1,911cc (75hp), it continued to be developed with changes in displacement, different carburetors, an Aluminum cylinder head, and eventually even Bosch D-Jetronic fuel injection (2,347cc). The advantage? It is pretty sturdy making it a pretty reliable engine that is relatively easy to maintain.

Cutaway drawing showing engine internals (source).

Engines - Volkswagen EA827

In the early 70's Volkswagen was working hard developing a replacement for the ubiquitous air-cooled flat four. The result was the EA827. Powering the Dasher, Golf, Scirocco, Audi 80 and many others, this engine became the workhorse that carried VW into the 1990's. One of special significance to me as it was also the first engine I did major work on. A carburated 1,471cc version in fact (as seen at the bottom of the post). Lot's of memories with good friends. Good times!

Valve train and pistons clearly visible in this cutaway display.

Engines - 1938 Citroen Traction Avant 11CV B Legere

That is a 1991 cc four cylinder, wet liner engine with single downdraught carburetor. Three speed transmission sitting ahead of the engine as this is a front-drive car. Just check the two rods connecting the shift lever all the way from the firewall Amazing.

Great looking restoration...

October 10, 2011

Engines - Citroen SM C114-1

In the late 60's Citroen was designing it's one and only entry into the GT arena, the SM. It is hard to understand how a company like Citroen could build such complex cars like the DS but could not develop advanced power plants that matched the rest of these advanced automobiles. The SM was going to need a sophisticated engine in order to compete in the market. Their solution? Get their newly acquired subsidiary (Maserati) to build them an engine that would complement the SM platform. The task of designing this engine went to Giulio Alfieri and by the spring of 1968 it was ready for testing.

Front View

Engines - Citroen GS Birotor

We are all familiar with the well know Mazda Wankel engines but did you know about the Citroen GS (GZ) Birotor? Between 1971 - 75 Citroen built 873 GS equipped with a twin rotor Wankel engine. The setup produced 107 hp and pushed the little GS to 108 mph. Rotary technology was in its infancy back then and in the end high fuel consumption, high oil consumption and low reliability killed it. It was a brave effort on the part of Citroen to give it try. A C+ for Citroen for putting it into limited production... :-)

There is more information about this jewel at the Citroennet site...

The Evolution of BMW M5 Engines

I was looking at some of the photos captured earlier this year and came across this three showing the evolution of the M5 power plants. My personal favorite? I like the I6 on the E34 although I would prefer an E28.

S38B36 3.6 liter developing 310 hp / 266 lb·ft powered on the E34 version.

Engines - Volkswagen W8

You know of the W12 in the Bentley and big Audis, and the W16 in the Bugatti Veyron but what about their smaller cousin on the Passat W8? According to some, "the most expensive engine ever put on a Volkswagen passenger car". A block with staggered cylinders connected to a flat-plane crankshaft, all of it shoehorned into an engine bay that was never meant to receive it.

The four piece aluminum manifold is a beautiful thing in this age and age where most are made of plastic. It is really the only thing you can appreciate from the top side. Getting to the spark plugs is easy. Replacing the Oxygen sensors and working on auxiliaries - "a challenge" to say the least. Still, it really elevates the Passat platform to a whole other level (when everything is working well).