How to choose your engine for any vehicle

[Petrol Pete]

Take a look at I Do Cars teardowns to see why

I often watch his content , as a type of therapy . He is just taking them apart for our entertainment while recovering parts for his business. His content also reminds people to change their engine oil regularly .

 

[Petrol Pete]

I did big miles with a straight 6 turbo and currently drive a N/A V8 .

Both must be experienced if all you normally drive is a 4 pot.

Note . Please do not post pictures of a 4 cyl 'C63' or a 3 cylinder GR Yaris in response. You know what I mean.

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Summary of number of cylinders acceptability:
1 pre 1959 motorbikes only
2 motorbikes only, or v small Italian car
3 inferior but characterful; any small vehicle
4 small soulless efficient diesels. Or, small to mid size zingy and fun Italian petrols (none Italian not acceptable unless a motorbike)
V4 no, unless Italian car or motorbike
Flat 4 good natural balance and character, maybe perfect combination of efficiency and character?
5 inferior to a straight 6 but tuneful
6 straight 6; perfection. Turbine smooth perfect balance and soulful characterful. King of the ice.
V6 as 3 cylinder above but for larger cars; characterful but inferior to the straight 6
(NB V6 has to be 60 degree banks or it is a cheap design of chopped down v8; ie 90 degree with balance shafts is a crude accounting job)
7 no
8 (vee) In cross plane form very characterful and smooth but inferior to a straight 6. In flat plane form it's just two straight 4 cylinder engines sharing a crank, hence see '4' above
9 just no
10 (vee) See straight 5 above; double the tunefulness
11 no no no
12 (vee) See straight 6 above and double the luxury (in a saloon) or character (in a supercar).
W5 An abomination, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly
W6 Cheap, compact, inferior to straight or 60 degree vee 6, but has character so forgivable
W8 as w6
W16 Engineering marvel but still inferior to a v12

Opinions welcome...

You missed the straight 8 - Alfa made a beautiful one with twin superchargers, was rather successful:

Alfa Romeo 8C - Wikipedia

Jim Stokes will manufacture you a brand new one if you have enough cash (Was around £185k plus vat from memory). Incidentally when i was there last year on a tour they had another interesting engined vehicle, so one for the list. The BRM H16.

 

[philnewmerc]

Edit: more very acceptable engine configurations below

Flat 12 - loverrrrly sound but somewhat compromised by Ferrari's insistence on mounting it above the gearbox, thereby destroying the natural advantage of low CoG
Straight 8 - same advantages as a straight 6 (as far as I know) but not suitable for large displacements or over square cylinders due to the necessity of an already long crankshaft and hence torsional weakness... straight 6 still king imho
My own flight of fancy is a straight 6 BMW motorbike engine in a Caterham - I wish someone would spend their life savings and 10000 hours building one then get fed up and put it on eBay as a 95% finished project

Interesting reading all the comments, cheers

 

[philnewmerc]

W@nkel?

How dare you, I was only trying to be engaging !
Yes I'd say that's a good one but somehow not as satisfying as pistons?

 

[philnewmerc]

Summary of number of cylinders acceptability:
1 pre 1959 motorbikes only
2 motorbikes only, or v small Italian car
3 inferior but characterful; any small vehicle
4 small soulless efficient diesels. Or, small to mid size zingy and fun Italian petrols (none Italian not acceptable unless a motorbike)
V4 no, unless Italian car or motorbike
Flat 4 good natural balance and character, maybe perfect combination of efficiency and character?
5 inferior to a straight 6 but tuneful
6 straight 6; perfection. Turbine smooth perfect balance and soulful characterful. King of the ice.
V6 as 3 cylinder above but for larger cars; characterful but inferior to the straight 6
(NB V6 has to be 60 degree banks or it is a cheap design of chopped down v8; ie 90 degree with balance shafts is a crude accounting job)
7 no
8 (vee) In cross plane form very characterful and smooth but inferior to a straight 6. In flat plane form it's just two straight 4 cylinder engines sharing a crank, hence see '4' above
9 just no
10 (vee) See straight 5 above; double the tunefulness
11 no no no
12 (vee) See straight 6 above and double the luxury (in a saloon) or character (in a supercar).
W5 An abomination, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly
W6 Cheap, compact, inferior to straight or 60 degree vee 6, but has character so forgivable
W8 as w6
W16 Engineering marvel but still inferior to a v12

Opinions welcome...

4: I meant non-Italian not acceptable btw, i.e. Italian 4s are, somehow, very acceptable

 

[st13phil]

My own flight of fancy is a straight 6 BMW motorbike engine in a Caterham - I wish someone would spend their life savings and 10000 hours building one then get fed up and put it on eBay as a 95% finished project

Not sure if this guy ever finished his project (the last post was in mid-2020), but it sounds like a variant on your dream:

K1600 B Powered Lightweight single seat sports car

www.k1600forum.com

 

[BTB 500]

Or, we could count the pistons. Why have only one piston per cylinder when we could have two?

Can't beat a Deltic!

 

[Bellow]

Straight 8 - same advantages as a straight 6 (as far as I know) but not suitable for large displacements or over square cylinders due to the necessity of an already long crankshaft and hence torsional weakness... straight 6 still king imho

Extract the drive from the middle of the crankshaft - problem solved.

 

[ALFAitalia]

I owned one of these for about six months.....bought to rebuild and flip....made good money......so heavy (260kg)......but SO smooth. Its a Honda CBX 1000 for the non bikers here.



Kawasaki outgunned it a bit later on with the 6 pot liquid cooled Z1300.....even heavier and even more leg straining at 314kg......still easy to wheelie though.



This guy uses the old fork bouncing technique that I use to wheelie a bike today.....less strain on the gearbox/clutch.

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[SmartAmg]

I owned one of these for about six months.....bought to rebuild and flip....made good money......so heavy (260kg)......but SO smooth.Its a Honda CBX 1000 for the non bikers here.

View attachment 151960

Nice! That pipe work reminds me of, old Alfa V6s. (Well to me anyway)

 

[ALFAitalia]

Just to add to the list VW used a V5 with 2.3 l and about 170hp for a while in the Gold and Passat when I was selling them. A very narrow angle V5 with one head.....basically a VR6 with a cylinder lopped off. Nice sound.

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Nice! That pipe work reminds me of, old Alfa V6s. (Well to me anyway)

Like this? (Sorry, any excuse to post a picture of my Busso V6!)

 

[ALFAitalia]

Got no pics of mine from my 156.....it looked like that but was just the cooking 2.5 version.....great to rev though.

 

[SmartAmg]

Like this? (Sorry, any excuse to post a picture of my Busso V6!)

View attachment 151965

Yep, that's the one.
And no excuse needed to post a pic of that engine!

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Got no pics of mine from my 156.....it looked like that but was just the cooking 2.5 version.....great to rev though.

I’ve got a GTA flywheel and clutch in mine now, makes a big difference losing the weight of the DMF they used in the GTV - revs very nicely.

 

[Bellow]

Large capacity V8 - cracking heater!

 

[Bellow]

Or, we could count the pistons. Why have only one piston per cylinder when we could have two?

Yeah, twin pistons per cylinder - and bin the crankshaft!



See it move here >> Free-piston engine - Wikipedia

 

[BTB 500]

Just to add to the list VW used a V5 with 2.3 l and about 170hp for a while in the Gold and Passat when I was selling them. A very narrow angle V5 with one head.....basically a VR6 with a cylinder lopped off. Nice sound.

Yep my dad had a Passat VR5 estate which had a really nice warble! Always thought it a little strange that engine got developed given that VW/Audi already had straight 5s.

 

[st13phil]

This guy uses the old fork bouncing technique that I use to wheelie a bike today

On the subject of wheelies and throwing around a heavy (330kg+) 6-pot bike, here's the late Christian Pfeiffer doing that on the then newly introduced K1600GT back in 2012:

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