What he said was:
That four cylinder engines developed a lot more torque and horsepower, and the V8 engine was designed from the beginning to be a SMOOTHER running engine - with the torque peaks damped out.

What he suggested in one of our late night talks was that if a V8 engine could be made that FIRED TWO CYLINDERS at the same time - it would result in a shaft torque peak far greater than a common V8 engine...

And I have wondered about that ever since.

It would be like two four cylinder engines bolted together, in a way. But the crank would have to be seriously massive, or it would destroy itself.

Some of the things that would be called for are rod journals at 90 degrees and a cylinder arrangement of 90 degrees. The firing order I have no idea of just now (even today, after thinking about it for years) but the normal firing order of an I4 is 1-3-4-2

If you had two cylinders firing at the same time, 90 degrees away from each other, what kind of a firing order would you have?

(All of this predicates a four bolt main cap)

The cam for it would be no problem, have a billet cam milled to whatever spec was required.

The ignition package is a different study - in the old days you would have to figure out how to do it a lot different than we do today - when coil packs and lost spark is common. The computer could be programmed just for that...


I think that today the prospects of my Poppas imagining (a DOUBLE BANG ENGINE!) is possible, but I still wonder if it has already been thought of...

In a way, it is "RETRO THINKING" the V8 engine

Is there any word on that?
* You wouldn't want a thing like that for a passenger car


* I'm releasing this into the wild, because my Poppa would want someone to explore it some day. I have a plaque mounted on the wall of my hallway that states that George Arthur Jacobs was a 25 year member of the Society of Automotive Engineers - and he got that long before he passed away


~If anyone out there can take this idea and run with it - please do

PEACE! Honor my father if this idea intrigues you. We talked about very strange ideas late at night



*I'm thinking a "351M" block and crank, because it is heavier and might withstand the force, but the crankshaft harmonics were the whole deal. It might permit a much higher level of torque, but at high RPM's - 8 to 10 grand

 

Many designs have come and gone. This is a cylinder on demand engine. .... found this at The Old Motor. #ad

 

I don't see how a flat plane could work - you need one journal at 90 degrees to another firing at the same time.

Ergo - TDC has to be at the same place on two pistons. You just can't get that in a flat crank design.

CROSS PLANE would do it.


Now - if you had a "Porsche type pancake engine", you could use a flat plane idea, and maybe they did

I don't even want to think about that just yet

~Someone once told me a Porsche was a Volkswagen designed by a nuclear physicist...

Maybe that was the reason

 

I could see that idea working. But as Ken said, harmonics would, and are an issue. I think it would be easier to cut the number of cylinders in half, and double the size of the existing ones.

Ride on a 2 cylinder John Deere, then ride on a Farmall of similar size, and tell me which one you'd choose if you were going to use it all day in the field.

 

Is the Flat Plane like a boxer engine with 4 extra cylinders?

 

What's the layout?

Is it horizontal or V?

If it's a "pancake" engine - that is a radical change

You CANNOT have both a "FLAT PLANE" and "V" engine, those are two different terms

By definition a "FLAT PLANE" engine has cylinders 180 degrees apart, a "V" engine has cylinders inclined to the crank -

So which is it?

FLAT PLANE V8 is an OXYMORON
~ It cannot be both

 

I understand now, thanks Ken! I guess a boxer motor would have a flat plane, wouldn't it? I could see that setup causing less stress on the main bearings, rod bearings, and really, everything!

 

Another real strange one is the offset inline sixes that are the basis of the "W" engine, see this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR6_engine

It is a space saving, and lighter engine with a smaller block.
The cylinders are inclined at 15 degrees, instead of 45 or 90

A CROSS-PLANE would be needed for what my Pop was thinking, with cylinders arranged at 90 degrees.

 

VW used a vr six engine for years.

 

Air cooled VW, Porche, Lycoming light aircraft engines, and also Continental were all arranged as horizontally opposed flat planes. The forces on the main bearings tended to balance out. I also once heard of a Porche engine that had roller bearing main bearings, but it was said to have a very high idle in order to maintain oiling OF those bearings.

But the screwiest engines I ever heard of were Radials:
They have what is called a "MASTER ROD" that the rest of the rods in the engine are connected to, and a honking great big rod journal for the master rod. Later versions were arranged in two banks, one behind the other, with as many as nine cylinders per bank.

The Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine is a prime example.



Now - you might think that with all those cylinders, it should be pretty easy to light one of those engines off. One or more jugs have to fire, right? But watch this video of a fully restored F-4U



Now that we know everything that's spinning around inside of there, it's pretty amazing

* First aircraft featured in this video is a Douglas SKYRAIDER, and it was the reason why the US NAVY developed a "Hearing Conservation Program". The crews inside were going DEAF!

As it passes behind the Corsair, you catch a quick glimpse of a round side window on the fuselage.

But yeah - you want to warm one of those up gently if you expect it to last. That's a lot of horsepower...

(ENERGY)



THIS video is for Ken: