What's your favourite engine?

[Drago]

My Dad had a V12 XJSmin the late 70s. He was forever being stopped by the police who only ever wanted him to show them the engine.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Another engine I find interesting is the Clerget 9b rotary engines used in Sopwith Camels and other allied aircraft. The first interesting think was that the propellor was connected to the engine, which span around the crankshaft. I used to think the propellor would be fixed to the crankshaft, which was turned by the engine, but no. I am not sure about the Clerget, but a lot of these rotary engines had blip switches. If you wanted to slow down you'd switch the blip switch and some of the cylinders would stop firing. So you would have three power outputs depending on what position the blip switch was in. Another interesting thing was the lubrication system. The engine used castor oil, which leaked out during flight. The pilot could ingest a lot of castor oil, which could give him the runs.

 

[oxoman]

Family friend long dead now used to be with what was the motorway police and they used them and granada 3ltrs and Senators and all breathed on first.

 

[presta]

Cornish engines like the ones at Kew Bridge.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

I went round the Anson engine museum in Poynton near Stockport a few years ago. Very interesting stuff - e.g. they had a six stroke engine which was developed in the late 1800s I think which was to get around the patent that Diesel had at the time. Complete waste of time as for two of the strokes nothing actually happened (and so a big decrease in power) and then the Diesel patent lapsed only shortly afterwards. Still, it shows the ingenuity of engineers, which is how they probably approached the problem.

They Also had just taken delivery of a WW1 tank engine of the type which powered the first tanks and were hopeful of getting it going again. I should go again to find out as it was a fascinating place.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Getting back to the thread. One of my favourites is the 5HP Briggs and Stratton as fitted to many mowers in the 1960's. Absolutely bombproof. So much so, I have only ever taken one apart and I've bought and sold many of them.

 

[mistyoptic]

The Olympus and Le Clerget engines have gone so I’ll go for the engine in Shuttleworth’s Bristol Fighter because it’s the oldest airworthy Rolls Royce engine in the world

 

[Jenkins]

The Alfa Romeo Busso V6

 

[biggs682]

I will always have a soft spot for the original 1600 cc honda v-tec .
It would rev and pull all the way around the rev counter all day long and sounded great , whilst all ford could provide was the cvh!!!
The rotary units fitted to Mazda and Nsu's were clever and again sound fantastic.

 

[figbat]

Don’t make me choose!

Engines of note:

Honda’s original VTEC engine; that system was both innovative and utterly reliable (plus giggle-out-loud fun!).

BMW naturally aspirated straight-6. A real peach.

Any large, marine, two-stroke crosshead diesel. Immense things that are incredibly efficient and a wonder to behold.

 

[BrumJim]

BRM 1500cc (& a V16!)
Supercharged

Do yourself a favour & find one on YouTube!

EDIT @ 16:30


View: https://youtu.be/A4w22LJrLeU?si=N1Yz2XsFplylDHuI

My answer.

Back to the silly days of motorsport, but also a sensible solution to getting more power out by having an engine with cylinders so small that it could achieve such high revs, even in those days.

 

[BrumJim]

Anything emitting enough clag to give Ed Miliband a nervous breakdown


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_gu0v33e7A

Nope. Anything that kicks out that amount of unburnt fuel is simply bad. Bad for polution, bad for maintenance, bad as an engineering result. Bad.

 

[MichaelW2]

Difference.

 

[Yellow Fang]

The Olympus and Le Clerget engines have gone so I’ll go for the engine in Shuttleworth’s Bristol Fighter because it’s the oldest airworthy Rolls Royce engine in the world

That is a good shout. A Rolls Royce Falcon III, according to Wikipedia. 275 HP was good going for back then. The Bristol Fighter F2 had a pretty good top speed for an aircraft its size.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Anything emitting enough clag to give Ed Miliband a nervous breakdown


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_gu0v33e7A

A ‘Tractor’!!

My answer.

Back to the silly days of motorsport, but also a sensible solution to getting more power out by having an engine with cylinders so small that it could achieve such high revs,

15,000 RPM ‘back in the day’, l think?