8 Rare And Most Complicated Car Engines Ever Made 

Exhaust leak

Its not a radial: its a rotary and there is a big difference.

Imagnie the vibrations needed to compromise...

this is not a "radial" but a rotary engine like Gnome: was very common on WW1 aircrafts (Wankels ARE NOT rotary engines, only rotary PISTON engines).Rotary engines looks complicated but are very simple...

leneanderthalien wankels dont have pistons

You should perhaps learn what you are talking about before making an ass of yourself.

mj ee who are talking about

MikeVonDoom. Seen that, nothing coming out of the oil drain.

MikeVonDoom seriously

The funny thing there are at least one concept engine that pretty much adaopts this principle yet the engine block doesn´t spin exposed under the hood, rather does feature the block for the cylinders inside of an outer block and it´s called "circle engine" in one video at least.

the original (french origin) name from this engine type was "moteur rotatif"= rotary engine (for info:a wankel IS NOT a rotary engine, but only a rotary PISTON engine: "rotary" was the name give by Mazda who find this more "sexy" as Wankel"...)

lol... that thing is a piece of shit

@ Lawrence Farwell - In aircraft applications during WWI, the rotary engines typically had not throttle. They were wide open all the time! To slow, the ignition was switched off! The rotating cylinders acted like a large flywheel allowing the engine to slowly wind down. During landing a pilot would blip the ignition on and off. The downside of the large rotating mass was it acted as a gyroscope and in aircraft like the Camel, could cause tricky, often fatal results for the novice pilot. But for the ace, this was an outstanding fighter aircraft.

It looks as though the rotation of the engine acted as a distributor as a spark is clearly visible between the engine and a HT feed. If you pause the video at2.30 just before the engine starts you can see the plugs and a ht lead which picks up the spark from the dark red item at the top. Fascinating engine.

I'm sorry to hear that. Can't imagine how frightening that must have been :(

Those engines were pure junk, my dad had one the crankshaft broke!

I had a 400 lean burn. I think my first computer was sort of fragged. The second junkyard computer made it run better. The first one had 2 running modes, bog down or launch. Honda got cylinder deactivation working, but I think it's only used on vans.

back in about 1970-71...a friend of mine had one on these1962 Jet-Fires...ran pretty good...until his garage burned down with the car in it.....

Yes, it was quite a sick engine.

Istoeumapemba best comment ever.. haha

The one used in 1966-1967 was a 3 litre, but there was also a supercharged V16, used in previous era F1.

The right name from this engines was "moteur rotatif (rotary engine)..the first rotary 5cyl radial engine was installed in the rear wheel from a motorcycle, the 1893 Felix Millet.The rotary engines , most based on Gnome technology (most known was the french Gnome,Le Rhone,Cleget...) was very common on aircrafts up to end WW1 because was light and had a good cooling even at ground, but over 200hp was the gyroscopic effect to high and make the aircrafts uncontrolable.The improving from classic engines like the excellent 300hp 1916 Renault Fe V12 ,vater cooled, installed in the Breguet XIV sign the end from the rotary...

Well, they started with a V16 4.4 litre in the Type A in 1934, increased to 5 litres for Type B in 1935, and finally increased to 6 litres for Type C in 1936-37. But sure, none of that is 3 litres (the V12 Type D was), and the one in the video is a 6 litre Type C.

I belive 3 liters is the size of the supercharger

I believe the moon is made of cheese

Børre Børresen he says that...

BRM made a H16 and a V16; the text made that clear. In his autobiography, Wally Hassan describes designing the H16; two flat-8s joined by a gear; it had a quill shaft taking the drive to the gearbox from the gear mid-way along the two crankshafts. It was abandoned by BRM when the rules changed allowing bigger engines to be built. The V16 was a 1.5 litre engine - tiny cylinders, very short stroke, very high revving. The H16 was a 3 litre engine.

Yes. Here, given the orientation of the engine, if the engine is heavy enough to make a difference, the car will turn better on one side than the other, and pitch/roll movements will trigger gyroscopic precession. Fun.

To: flashpeter625 Thanks for responding. i can just imagine it, the driver would always need to suss out his turn before even arriving at it. here's anther thought, what if the engine were mounted vertically instead of horizontally. that might counter the odd steering issue, but perhaps raise new ones... like maybe making it hard to steer at all... :-D

At this horizontal orientation, the driver could actually theoretically help the car into a corner by revving up or down, and by that using the engine as a flywheel to transfer a moment, rotating the vehicle in the desired direction. If mounted vertically, you would get the effects known from airplanes. Very weird yaw motion due to gyroscopic effects, which could be really odd in a car indeed; you try to turn and the car wants to move in a perpedicular direction instead... And the engine would act as a flywheel for roll motion, so it would like to lean to one side more than the other, also depending on the immediate change in revs. That already happens to a small extent in cars with longitudinally mounted engines, where the various rotating masses in the engine act as a flywheel and gyroscope. When revved up, the car rolls a bit. It was actually recently a topic in racing car engineering. With hybrids cars, almost everybody now uses electrical systems to store energy, but in the beginning, several racing cars used a high-rpm flywheel instead. They were genuinly thinking through the inertial and gyroscopic effects to prevent it screwing up the car's handling. The orientation of that spinning mass was the main concern, I think Porsche used two vertically mounted flywheels spinning in the opposite directions in a hybrid 911.

I remember reading something a while back that norton had handling problems in there early prototype bikes in that they wouldn't lean over easily due to the gyroscopics created by running a wankel engine. They then mounted them at 90 degrees to counter this. I believe it wa notron but could be wrong

Rufo Rufo no offense but who does that

Russ G it's a trade off to improve engine response and increase max rpm. Increased cylinders with lower individual reciprocating mass loads per cylinder allows it to survive much higher RPMs. The problem with this type of motor is the have no grunt in the bottom end.

Germán Silva bllllprter mrrrrrrr blp

Yup, 15 hours labour plue the rest at your local VW franchise is going to hurt

Nice. Ran better the more carboned up it got. I want to include the early '50s Trojan light truck engine, but it's too complicated to describe fully here. V6 type, with staggered 4 on one side with alloy head, and 2 air pump cyls on the other side with iron head. 2 stroke s/charged. The most gutless vehicle I've owned.

No, the carburetor was attached to the turbo as was the Corvair's.

@@timhammett2302 Carter YL? Maybe the same carb? It was really a glorious effort, tho the BOP 215 had some weaknesses. It took the Rover guys in UK to get it right. Also the only US production BASED engine to race in F1. Did it win a race? (Aussie Repco V8)

Yeah that was something. Only made one I think. Two at most.

Though VW, Audi and Bentley call them 'W' engines you are quite correct.

You're right Tom, a W8 is the Napier Lion aero engine of WW1. Anyway, the Narrow V engine was first used by Lancia in the 1920's from V4 to V12's.

@Tom Christman, interestingly, in french "W" is literally "double-V". So if VW was French, it would be literally correct. But they aren't. So you're still right.

only realized it wasnt when i read your comment