Best production engine designs?

[Koncretekid]

After viewing the "Bad engine designs", it occurred to me that there have to be some good engine designs as well.  I know that there are oodles of GP designs out there, but I would like to see what people think are the best production engine designs.

I can't add much, as most of my experience has been with rebuilding rusty relics into rideable wrecks!  But I can say that the Bridgestone 350 that I was given was very interesting.  Rotary valve two-stroke, 6 speed transmission with all the gears running on needle bearing, and a dry clutch.  I built it into a road racer, but broke the crankshaft on it's maiden voyage.  I got it rebuild with the follow advice -- "Don't race it! It will break again and spit you off!" But the design is certainly good, going by BSA standards, anyway.

[McRat]

-------  advertisement  --------

The General Motors LS1 V8 family (1997-current)

  "Oh come on now.  A pushrod, 2-valve V8?  Not only is this obsolete, it's very low tech!" 

Not so fast.  Regardless of design, proof is in the pudding:

Our 2002 Z06 Corvette in OEM factory trim ran 11.95 @ 114 mph at 3360lb raceweight, AND GOT 29 mpg average for the round trip to the dragstrip and back!  On pump gas.

Rated as a Super Low Emission Vehicle, it pulls solid from 600 rpm to 6600 rpm at all altitudes and weather conditions.  No gas guzzler tax.

Sodium filled exh valves, high lift roller cam, 6-bolt mains, all aluminum engine, it's just a level of refinement to the classic V8 that makes it the best of the best.  The engine in the Vette is badged at 405HP, but it's brother in our Cadillac is badged at a whopping 556HP.

The fastest Camaro, Corvette, and Cadillac are not COPO cars from the Musclecar Era, they are sitting at your local GM dealer today.  Thanks mostly to the LS1 engine.  Low emissions, excellent economy, and tire-shredding horsepower in a lightweight, inexpensive, small, and simple design.  You can have your cake and eat it too.

-------  advertisement  --------

[octane]

The first Gold Wing's, the Honda GL1000, from 1974 comes to mind.

Most people associate "Gold Wing" with Winnebago sized behemoths with tons of crap
but they started out as naked bikes ( 1974 -1980 ), that more or less looked like a "normal" bike
if just a bit ...er...bigger

This is the 1974-77 model:



A bold complete re-definition of what a motorcycle engine could be.
Brilliant innovative engineering, absolutely bullet proof, no rattles or shakes, completely oil tight
and capable of problem-free sustained tree digit hi-speed riding.....and this was back 37 years.



The water-cooled, OHV  , toothed-belt driven OHC boxer engine  has a host of funky details
like the alternator that has an heavy fly-wheel and runs at 'over-crank'-speed in the opposite
direction so as to counter the dreaded torque reaction known from the BMW's.

and it was fast too....VERY fast compared to anything else at the time:

Motorcycle Monthly August 1976: "..a prestige machine and a winner...nimble for it's weight, as smooth as good Scotch
and as quiet as time passing.."
..standing quarter mile: 13.52 sec. / terminal speed 97.61 mph
..top speed 114 mph

Cycle, April 1975: "..we knew that the bike was fast but a trip to the drag strip astonished everyone.
Bringing the revs up to 8000 and dumping the clutch produced a tire-howling smoke-thrower that lasted a good 150 feet..."
..standing quarter mile : 12.92 sec. / terminal speed 104.52 mph

It's an absolute pleasure to work on this engine.
Here's one of mine: in my eyes it's a work of art






Tweak it a 'bit'....and like I did: putting a 60 cu.inch Magnacharger blower and a Weber carb on it
and you have a low-budget seriously fun asphalt wrinkling street rod:





.

[joea]

the ERC sticker looks SOOO good on there..

makes it a real hotrod..!

Joe

[octane]

the ERC sticker looks SOOO good on there..

makes it a real hotrod..

Naaaaaaa, but the blower does: VIDEO

Accelerating up to 145km/h ( 90 mph ) in first and second gear.

.

[Rex Schimmer]

I have to nominate the Suzuki GSXR 750, 1000 and Hyabusa 4 cylinder engines. They hold many records in both the motorcycle classes and car classes both stock and modified. They make exceptional horse power in stock form, I know of one J class car record that is held by an absolutely stock GSXR 750 engine, straight from the junk yard, plus they are anvil  reliable and can make very impressive horse power when modified. Look at some of Rick Yacucci's engines and the new "V-8" that he is now building.

Rex

[Anvil*]

On the Bridgestone 350 you should hunt down an article on the mods done for Don Vesco's land speed efforts. I have to say though I have a bias for the Bridgstone 175 and 200. 

One engine I have to stare at and think what if you designed performance parts for that it wold be the Ford GAA. Yep it's 40's vintage so it needs modern parts but it's an aluminum V-8 DOHC 32-valve engine at 1,100 cu in (18-litre). Started out life as a V-12 aircraft engine but the Navy stuck with radials so it lost two cylinders and found a home in the Sherman tank. What's not to love.

525 Hp @ 2,800 rpm one wonders what it might do tuned for 5,000 rpm

[bak189]

Back in the mid 1970's Tony Murphy, who at that time was working as a editor for Peterson Publications,
build a 350c.c. Bridgestone and mounted it in a one-off roadracing frame build by Ray Hensly of Trackmaster fame.....Tony roadraced the bike with some success.....took it to Bonneville....it ran 149mph
.....not bad for a 350c.c. bike at that time.......the complete bike was sold and landed up in Canada....
we are in the process of getting it back ....hopefully.................................................................

In my mind when of the best production engines ever build was the Kawa. Z-1.....it won a lot of sidecar roadraces for us, and several LSR records that still stand todate............a super strong engine..........
stock lower end would hold up under 30 to 35 pound of boost for LSR...........................................

[hotrod]

If you don't limit yourself to motorcycle designs, I think you would have to include the classic Chrysler Hemi, the first U.S. production 300 hp v-8 (Chrysler 300). It was a land mark engine when it came out and its progeny are still getting the job done.

The four valve pent roof hemi designs were in existence in the 40's in high performance aircraft, and prior to that in high performance engines for Indy, and similar hemispherical designs existed in Europe, but the Chrysler was the first to come up with a cost effective, assembly line production capable, V-8 hemi design that could be produced in large numbers with the technology of the day. Even in its later versions (426) etc. other high performance OHV designs of the period were hard pressed to meet or exceed its power potential, and it was reliable (truck engine).

Perhaps you should also list the Duntov heads but with an asterisk for never being put into long running mass production like the Chrysler was.

Larry

[Koncretekid]

Hey BAK,

I read an article about the Bridgestone at Bonneville, too, but I thought the rider was Bob Barker. I also heard that Don Vesco started with the Bridgestones but changed over to the reed valve Yamahas, because of crank and rod failures with the Bridgestone.  In any case, I found my Bridgestone in a barn in Canada, of all places.  Maybe it's the missing record breaker?  When I give up on the BSA, I guess I should bring the Bridgestone out for another stab.  At least if the crank breaks again, I'll be going in a straight line!
Tom

[fastman614]

I knew several people who had 350 Bridgestones.... As I recall, every one of them broke the crank. In street trim, they were faster than a Yamaha 350.... and the one that I recollect that got raced, as often as not, It would beat the Kawasaki 500s which were such foul handling bikes (IAM NOT PAASING JUDGEMENT ON THE KAWI MOTORS HERE) that the Kawi riders had to get out of the throttle to regain control of their bikes - and you don't win drag races that way. The thing that I recollect about the Bridgestone motorcycle as a whole, they had a longer wheelbase than either the Yamaha 350s or the Kawasaki 500s... thus a little less prone to planting the rider on his butt somewhere behind a wildly out of control riderless bike crashing and (sometimes) burning seconds later. 

[McRat]

A well-tuned H1 surprised many a Z1 rider in their day.

IIRC, an H1A (or B?) was the first stock production bike to post a 12 second ET off the showroom floor. 

RD's were wheelie prone, but the H1 was managable.  Just floats the front a couple inches in the first 2 gears if you abuse the clutch.

The first models actually had distributors (A & B?).  But by the D model, it was magnetically triggered with 3 coils.  No points.

Early models also used NGK "surface fire" gapless spark plugs.  HUBX? or something.

[Cajun Kid]

I agree the H1's and H2's  with the right rider could kick azz back then. But a "handfull" is an understatement.

Charles

[McRat]

The only time an H1 scared the #$@% out me, was at OCIR dragstrip when I was 17. 
I decided to change countershaft sprockets in the pits. 
But silly me got in a rush, and didn't tighten the rear axle.
It launched OK, and ran through the gears, but when I chopped the throttle after the traps, it instantly went into a violent tankslapper. 
I actually dented the steel tank with my knee, and perhaps with my nuts too.  It was whipping me around like a rag doll. 
I finally got my foot on the rear brake to get it to straighten up.
Didn't crash, but called it a day.  It hurt to walk, and I had to ride it home with a passenger, balancing the toolbag on the tank.  It was a LONG ride.

[salt27]

A set of struts fixed the handling on my H1.
Properly tuned they could hold their own in the 8th mile.

Don