What would you propose and why?


11 Months, 3000 pictures and a lot of coffee. - YouTube (http://youtu.be/daVDrGsaDME)

The Porsche flat 6 turbo.


If it doesn't get your stuff moving then your stuff isn't working.

Coventry Climax 1500, Ford Cosworth DFV, Napier Sabre late models, Pratt & Whitney R-4360... the list goes on

The 3.2 straight six in my E320 is the best part of the whole car.
The little 3 cyl VW 1.4 TDI seems OK.
RB211-524 - Never had one fail. Shut one down once because the man who can had left a borescope plug out :*

Easy, Rolls Royce Merlin,

and it has been put in a car
http://www.builtathome.com/4332324129_4e35c00db8_o.jpg

(I like the straight six BMW too, but that's quite a different story)

Me too, makes one of my favourite noises. My wife once said to me whilst trying to find some music: "Which radio channel do you listen to in this car?" (320i Coupe).

"I don't listen to the radio, I listen to the engine!" said I.

"EH? Sad git!" came the friendly reply.

On that 'note', a Harley V twin.

A vote for the Mazda R26B (http://www.rx7.net.nz/r26b.html), as used in their 787B car which won the 24hr Le Mans race in 1991. 4-rotor Wankel, 2.6 l. The sound it made needs to be heard to be believed:

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The Rotary engine was banned from Le Mans in 1992. :hmm:

This one's not too shabby either

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Fuel economy not too good though:70 litres/100 kilometres :eek:

I like the sound almost better than the vsuals

The visuals only work for me if the sound ends with pieces of the pistons and flywheel coming out.

Wasn't there a kid who minmicked the sound of an F1 racer ?

I do that every now and then while driving my 1995 van down the road to pick up beer at the 7-11

Emotionally, the Deltic in any of its variants

Rationally, it has to be the Wärtsilä RT-flex96C / RTA96C
Wärtsilä RT-Flex96C / RTA96C (http://wartsila.com/en/engines/low-speed-engines/RT-flex96C)

You can't beat that beast


You may also like to consider some of the oddballs listed here
Unusual Internal-Combustion Engines (http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/unusualICeng/unusualICeng.htm)

BMW E60 M5.

507bhp V10.

That a full size 5 seater with a huge boot can move so fast and sound so good is beyond comprehension.

I can't describe it. Its an animal.

pity about the f*ckwit gearbox... :suspect:

Not internal combustion, but worth a look just the same.

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In that case, back when oil was cheap, there was this. :D:D

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It seems, we retain 20% of the soot we inhale . . . forever.



I followed an Ford GT40 through the West End c 1964. It grumbled a lot.


My neighbor here went for a ride in another neighbor's GT40 replica. They walked home. Ford were flown in. Much shaking of heads, and he bought a new one.

Best ever exhaust. An Aston DB5 or maybe 4. 1960s film. Smart people zoom away from quayside, accompanied by the most exquisite note in automotive history. That's it!!!!!!! thinks I.

I got some way to that not with a pair of Bainbridge straight through boxes on an E-Type. Super silencers, strong as they come, but not quite the Aston.

There is a French telephone engineer who built a V-12 for a Ferrari scale model he was building. Probably bigger than the one above. Looked and sounded superb. Must be findable on Y-Tube. Here it is!

5 Gears and reverse.

Has to be seen to be believed. 20,000. 3 years for drawings. 15 years for car.

All it will take is a very small person. c'mon Clarson. just what you need.

Ferrari 312 PB replica scale model. Must Watch!!! - YouTube


Edit to spell quayside properly.

:suspect: Go on. Say it then.

If sound is the criterion:

I nominate the Caterpillar C-7 turbodiesel in my motorhome. There's no more satisfying rumble as we pull away!

my 1972 triumph t150 trident makes me grin

gs

Volvo Penta MD1 (single cylinder marine diesel)


Though for sound quality, the Merlin is the best, but only when hooked up to an aeroplane;

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Merlin may well have been put in a car, but not that one. John Dodd was outed as a con-trickster, the engine was admittedly a (heavily derated) Merlin derivative and iirc was built by Rover for some tank or other. It most certainly wasn't a Merlin. It also apparently had a cracked block so was of very doubtful usefulness, and as the tyres were rated to "only" 130mph or so his claims of 200mph were somewhat ambitious.

My greatest engine is the Paxman Deltic. 18 cylinders, 3 crankshafts and 36 pistons. Now that's an engine!

And for pure whimsy, the Pyreolophore, the very first internal combustion engine in 1807!
Pyréolophore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyréolophore)

Honda super cub 4 stroke 1 cyl.

60 million sales and counting settles the matter.

Mr Chapman's mods to a rather boring Ford engine must be on the list. Sticking a DOHC top and a pair of Weber 40s and a simple flow exhaust did miracles that Ford hadn't contemplated.

And putting it in a Lotus Elan was pure genius.

Wageslave has a point about the Deltic. Hears (sic) the sound

Deltic engine start at Barrow Hill - YouTube

I seem to remember that this engine arrangement gives the least amount of unwanted harmonic vibration, hence a very 'clean' sound with far less harmonics.

My old VW Beetle only had a 1600 cc engine but it was quite quick,
and lasted for years.
Never needed any anti-freeze either.
I wish I'd never got rid of it.

Mr shy.

Yup, there was the odd little problem. Water pumps, sealants made from ceramics, Hillman Imp rubber connectors for the drive shafts. But this thread is about the engine.....

Hate all of them. An ancient, mad technology designed to fail constantly. Greasy, smelly, noisy, expensive and unreliable.

Can't wait for electric motors to relegate the reciprocating to its grave.

fox 3 is that a wall of death train?

adam, dream on batman they will be around for a while yet.

ED BEE MK I Series 2 Diesel Engine - YouTube

When I was a lad this really did it for me :O

vee-tail-1

How nice to see your Bee !

Only this very morning I was running my November 1954 example - a nice steady 7,200 on an old Kiel-Kraft 8 x 4 nylon..

Not as nice as a good Oliver, though.

So what makes the distinctive sound, the engine or the prop?

The Deltic loco's, Rolls Royce Merlin, Detroit Diesel 2 Stroke, any Mazda rotary, my Moto Guzzi LeMans with megaphones.
Not necessarily in that order....

Greatest ever engine - Rover ex Buick V8

AKA Rover V8, first fitted to the Rover P5, then renamed Rover P5B (B = Buick). This engine fitted to many, many cars. I have one, a 1973 P5B, superb engine, superb car. Just passed her MOT & back on the road. Awaiting the mortgage for a tankfull of petrol !!

Rover V8 engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_V8_engine)

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/uploads/cars/rover/1019643.jpg


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2079/2465755715_94fe85a007.jpg

Lid

I still have two of these, third down model, converted them to reed valve when I was 13...............

http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/tn_eds_23.jpg (http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/eds_23.jpg)
http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/tn_eds_24.jpg (http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/eds_24.jpg)
In March 1951 the range was further augmented by the appearance of the famous E.D. 2.46cc Racer which replaced the relatively unsuccessful FRV Mk III 2.49 cc model. The Racer was an RRV masterpiece which featured radial porting and a twin ball-race crankshaft. It was the first E.D. model to be openly associated with the name of Basil Miles as its designer, and may in fact have been the first E.D. design for which Miles was solely responsible. It proved to be a strong and steady seller for many years, passing through a number of variations as time went by. The Racer was always sold as a diesel, but both glow-plug and spark ignition conversion kits were made available. The engine even appeared in small numbers in an unadvertised green-headed reed valve version.
http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/tn_eds_25.jpg (http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/eds_25.jpg)
http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/tn_eds_26.jpg (http://modelenginenews.org/cardfile/images/eds_26.jpg)


Also an AM 10 and Eta 29. Two strokes are magic.

This surely deserves an honourable mention ;

Honda Worldwide | MotoGP History | RC166 (http://world.honda.com/MotoGP/history/RC166/)

1966 Honda RC166 Exhaust Engine Sound - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=eaRop_ZMwo0)

And JPX in France built engines for a run of 6 replicas !

TZ 350 you just beat me to it :) Also "blipping" the throttle on a Manx Norton or an unsilenced Thruxton Velocette :ok:

Mind you my neighbours were very polite when I did that :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSEg61NnQKM]

Wageslave
Paxman may later have been the unit within GEC responsible for supporting the the Deltic, but it was a NAPIER product, not Paxman, and not English Electric.
Paxman only got a lookin after GEC set forth upon one of its rounds of asset stripping (sorry I mean rationalisation)

Still an incredible engine - but arguably the first internal combustion engine designed to be serviced through major component exchange (ie lift the entire engine and replace it with another rather than mess around with it in situ)

For sound alone, the Top Fuel Harley is high up on my list. Video plays don't do it justice though.
Piston aircraft engines have the prop noise to solidify their sound, so it is not just the engine you hear.

Still gives me the shivers

Yeah, me too. The moment I heard the sound on the first clip.

My mother holding me up to the window and saying, "Look at the cigar shaped lights in the sky. They're Doodlebugs."


We paid 3d, and got in to see one that hadn't exploded. Twas on Colchester bus park while the war was still on.



That Norton. Went to look at a 600cc single when I was about 17. Bloke drove it past, one bang per lamp post.

a hawker sea fury put on a show worth seeing many years ago at the biggin hill air fair
quite an unusual sort of sound

gs

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1.Rover V-8
2.GM 2-stroke diesel
3.Bevel drive Ducati

The Deltic engine

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Napier_deltic_animation_large.gif/220px-Napier_deltic_animation_large.gif

http://www.petealbrecht.com/blog/deltic2.jpg

http://atomictoasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Deltic1.jpg

The Locomotive. Built by English Electric, Vulcan Foundry, Earlestown, Lancashire. (Engines built by Napier)

Each loco has two deltic engines, each engine has 6 delta banks, so 6 x 6 x 2 = 72 pistons, 3300 HP, cruising speed 100 mph whilst hauling 8-12 35 ton coach trains. London-Leeds-Newcastle-Edinburgh East Coast main line. 1 prototype and 22 production machines replaced over 100 pacific type steam locos. All production locos received names either of Doncaster racecourse winners (Pinza, Meld, Nimbus, Crepello etc) or army regiments (The Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry etc).

Six production machines and the prototype are preserved, a couple in main line working condition - the old buggers can still haul 12 coach trains at 100mph screaming that unmistakeable exhaust note.


http://www.nvrpics.org.uk/Deltic/deltic06.JPG

Cabride on Deltic D9000 centre road Doncaster - YouTube

Nearly as good as a Rover V8.

Lid

R-4360 (http://www.enginehistory.org/r-4360.shtml)

The Napier Sabre (http://www.aviation-history.com/engines/sabre.htm)

When you have looked at a cutaway engine.................and think when they were designed, and manufactured in quantity, veryimpressive.

Rail:
Napier "Deltic" 18-25
Maybach MD655

Aero:
R-R Merlin

Road:
Leyland 0680
AEC 590/ 690 family

http://www.emma-maersk.com/gallery/photo/engine_2.jpg

Wartsila Sulzer RTA96-C - Engine (http://www.emma-maersk.com/engine/Wartsila_Sulzer_RTA96-C.htm)

Call me what you want to.

Had a 3.OL Toyota Cressida auto. Superb.

Now have a 28 yr old Mazda 323 hatch in perfect nick.

So?

Everyone keeps making offers, even at the roadworthy, 5 years ago.

G-CPTN
glad to see someone agrees with me (see post 13)
I think they've dropped the Sulzer name now though - it seems to be marketed as simply a Wartsila
108920BHP for the 14-cylinder version
see http://wartsila.com/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Type&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadername3=site&blobheadername4=Pragma&blobheadername5=Cache-Control&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobheadervalue2=attachment%3B+filename%3DWartsila-O-E-RT-flex96C-RTA96C-TR.pdf&blobheadervalue3=Wartsila&blobheadervalue4=public&blobheadervalue5=max-age%3D0&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1278589719061&ssbinary=true

When I did my engineering apprenticeship with Vickers Armstrong on Scotswood Road back in the 1960s, they were building Sulzer engines (as well as main battle tanks for the Army).
The cylinders of the Sulzers were large enough for a fully-grown man to climb inside.
I don't recall what model of engine these were (and they certainly weren't as large as the one in the Emma Maersk).

I believe that the very large engines are assembled 'on site' where the ship is being built rather than being transported fully built.

Edited to add:- The Sulzer LDA (prefixed by the number of cylinders, and with a suffix related to the cylinder bore) engine was widely used by British Rail. Many were built under licence by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow as six-, eight- and twelve-cylinder form. The twelve-cylinder engine was used in the British Rail Class 47 and several others. The 12LDA28 engine was a double bank engine having, in effect, two six-cylinder engines side by side, rather than a V-type as favoured by many other manufacturers. Sulzer V-type engines for rail use bore the type number LVA (with a 50-degree angle between the banks).
From:- Sulzer (manufacturer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulzer_%28manufacturer%29)

The cylinders of the Sulzers were large enough for a fully-grown man to climb inside.


Yeah, they used to send men inside gun barrels to clean them.

When they lost one particularly skinny man, the boss said, "Oh no! Where are we going to find another man of that caliber?"

As an ex-merchant navy chief engineer I have had the pleasure of handling some great engines, Sulzer, B&W, Gotaverken, MAK and others, but I will never forget the sound of the engine of the fishing vessel "Ninni" who I joined at the age of 15.
A single cylinder Wickman two-stroke semi-diesel of 50 hp.
Manouvering with a Wichmann (Rubb) 40 hp semi-diesel - YouTube
My next vessel was a trawler with a triple compund steam engine, not much noise from that one.
Per

PS Note that for most of the maneuver he did not touch the wheel, letting the propeller torque do the job.

The VW aircooled flat-4 has to be in there somewhere.


Not the one in the car, the 16-cylinder version exhausting through straight pipes...........

http://i50.tinypic.com/2z9a0qe.jpg

the greatest ever internal combustion engine ?

that's a really hard one to quantify as what is the qualifier?

CXummins have produced some engines that have ticked on and on, from what I understand though i am no bus anorak is that the routemaster buses not only a good design for the purpose they served but also had a reliable engine..

meanwhile, the IGSO540 a cracking engine saw the most squeezed out of the block possible and yep was right on the limits but was a tad fragile if not treated right.

an engine as a stand alone unit is only as good as the application it is implimented in, but to look at and engine that has the right platform, with the right noise, gentlemen, i give you the Porsche 997 GT3 engine...

The engine of the GT3 sets it apart from most of the other 996 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_996) models although it shares the same basic 3.6 litre displacement of the standard 996 type so-called "integrated dry-sump" flat-six engine. Along with those of the GT2 and Turbo, it is based on the original air-cooled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-cooled) 911's versatile, true dry-sump crankcase, with an external oil tank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tank). The original version of the GT3 had 360 PS (265 kW; 355 hp), compared to the 300 PS (221 kW; 296 hp) of the regular 996.

In GT3 configuration, this so-called "split" crankcase (meaning the parting line of crankcase is on the crankshaft centerline) uses, instead of a fan and finned cylinders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_(engine)), separate water jackets added onto each side of the crankcase to cool banks of three cylinders with water pumped though a radiator. Thus, the GT3 engine is very similar to the completely water-cooled 962 racing car's engine, which is based on the same crankcase. The 962 differs, however, by using six individual cylinder heads while the GT1/GT3, like the air- and water-cooled Porsche 959 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_959), uses two cylinder heads, each covering a bank of three cylinders. The GT3 engine could thus also be thought of as similar to a 959 engine, but with water-cooled cylinders.

Up to early model year 2004 GT3 production, the basic casting used for the crankcase of the GT3 was the same as the air-cooled engine. The "964" casting number was visible on the bottom of the crankcase, and on areas normally machined in air-cooled applications, but not in water-cooled ones. The crankcase casting was changed in mid-2004 to a "996" casting number crankcase to eliminate these external air-cooled remnants, but internally it was the same.

Because the 911 air-cooled crankcase uses the Porsche 356 engine to transmission mounting flange configuration, the GT3 uses a manual gearbox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_gearbox) also of air-cooled 911 heritage. This gearbox has interchangeable gear ratios and is more durable making it more suitable for racing than the standard 911 type 996 gearbox.
At 500 hp (373 kW),[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_911_GT3#cite_note-0) the 4.0 litre flat-six engine in the 997 GT3 RS 4.0 is the most powerful six-cylinder naturally aspirated engine in any production car with a 125 hp (93 kW) per liter output.
It is a thing of beauty that quickens the pulse and sets the hairs standing on end, just begging for the throttle to be massaged..

Sights and Sounds: 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 - YouTube
Porsche 997.2 GT3 - Ride Rev Accelerations Flybys and Pulls - YouTube

http://www.sharkwerks.com/forum_photos/2007_Porsche_997GT3_SharkWerks39_Engine_HRE_C21_Wheels_RSS_Suspension/sharkwerks_3-9_engine_builds_for_porsche_997_gt3_08.JPG

A mate of mine has a Centurian tank with a Meteor engine. The meteor is the landgoing version of the Merlin designed for tanks. Starting that thing is the most impressive piston engine I've ever had my hands on, so I have to give it my vote.



He still won't let me drive the tank though!

Ancient Mariner's boat got me thinking
A friend has a small 1962-built sea-going tug, still in regular use, with the original diesel engine, from the National Gas & Oil Engine Co (part of Brush by then).
Not a spectacular engine in terms of performance or technology, but certainly something special to be capable of regular use its in its original setting after 50 years. The tug is still regulary used for towing drilling rigs / barges and suchlike