Talk:V8 engine/Archive 1

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Guzzi

The Moto-Guzzi 500 cc racing motorcycle engine of circa 1956 was also a V-8 Icharvat (talk) 21:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

V8 Diesels

As far as I remember, I think Perkins worked with Land Rover back in the 1980's, to produce the Rover V8D. They reckoned the problem with it was that the pressure was lifting the heads, so the project was abandoned due to the cost of sorting it out. -Ross

Land Rover have a V8 diesel in their current line-up!!!!


Who knows about the Rolls-Royce V8 ? Much more British than the Rover IMO ?

Yes. American-influenced, certainly, but it's a native RR design, and a much more refined V8 than American practise. I have a few articles on it at home; see what I can do to write about it. —Morven 00:23, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

'32 valve engine' is correct; '32 valves engine' is not. —Morven 10:12, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Page

This page seems to be entirely about gasoline engines. Both two and four stroke diesel V8s also exist. Andrewa 18:50, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Reflecting the knowledge of the contributors, I imagine. I myself don't know too much about diesel V8s. I know that there are V8 truck engines (both light truck and heavy truck) and there have been V8s in locomotive engines, but not much aside that. If you have any material to get it going, please add. —Morven 20:09, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
Yes, point taken, will do. There seems to be a lot of oversimplification in the engine articles, and I've added a bit myself and then needed to correct it. We all know a little! Lots of complex editing decisions to correct such things, but long term this is what a Wiki does best. Andrewa 21:07, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I edited the wording from "Rover were in need" to "Rover was in need". This is a common grammatical mistake. When talking about the actions of a company as a whole, it is a singular noun. It implies "Rover (as a company) was in need of a new engine". If you were referring to individuals within the company, it would then be a plural noun. An example of that would be, "Rover (as a group of board members) were in agreement on their choice of CEO" - Marshall

That is only a hard distinction in American English. In British English either 'were' or 'is' is correct usage for collective nouns including collective proper nouns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_differences#Formal_and_notional_agreementMeio 13:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Uniquely Australian?

Unlike the Rover V8, the British Leyland V8 was a uniquely Australian design, with a 60 degree bank and a capacity of 4.4L.

Between 59 and 61 degrees? Bewdy mate! Andjam 12:45, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

From the article: 'Unlike the Rover V8, the British Leyland V8 had a 60 degree bank and a capacity of 4.4L. The motor was originally designed and fitted to the Leyland P76 sedan, although due to its light weight and narrow bank, has been used by some street machiners in vehicles that would normally be powered by I4 powerplants.'

I think this is incorrect. The British Leyland V8 is an enlarged, 4.4-litre version of the 3.5-litre Rover V8, both have a 90 degree bank, single camshaft with pushrods and a cross-plane crankshaft. BL Australia did experiment with a Buick V6, but this also had a 90 degree bank, and did not reach P76 production. Deconstruction 22:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The 4.4 V8 is unique to Leyland Australia, not British Leyland. It was a development of the Rover V8 but all castings were indigenous. Leyland experimented with a V6 derived from their own V8, not the Buick per se. However they are related since they share a common heritage in the 215 V8 engine, although the Leyland V8 is of course all alloy.

Moved back to V8

I have reverted the move of this page to V8 engine.

There are only two acceptable ways to deal with an ambiguous name, such as V8.

  1. Disambiguation page at primary title, all meanings disambiguated. This is suitable where no meaning predominates.
  2. Primary topic disambiguation. Where one meaning overwhelms the others in usage, it is placed at the primary name and a pointer to a (disambiguation) page is placed at the top. This is what was formerly done at V8, and what I have reverted to.

If a topic is important enough to be the primary topic, it should be at the primary name. We do not make the primary name a redirect.

The only time where the primary topic becomes a redirect is if, while it is the dominant meaning of the term, the most common name of the thing is something else. This is not the case here. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 11:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The first V-8 engine of record was not A De Dion-Bouton but was the Antoinette V-8 of 1903 Antoinette had a 180 degrees crankshaft did all others until Wright, who was making the Hispano-Suiza of 718 cu. In. and 1124 cu. in. in about 1918 or a later wanted to put the 90 degree crankshaft into the 1124” engine but the Navy and the Army Air Corp wanted air cooled Radials so this left it up to Cadillac to do it in 1923. This is recorded in Manuel Lage’s book about Hispano-Suiza page 66, Line 10. http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/dec2.htm That design came from a Frenchman with a background in art, Léon-Marie-Joseph-Clement Levavasseur (1863-1922). He started work on his new engine in about 1900. His engine had eight cylinders, but instead of putting them in a straight line, Levavasseur arranged them in the shape of a "V." It was a powerful and compact design, and when he received a French patent on December 2, 1902, Levavasseur became the first person to patent what we now call a V-8 engine.


http://www.hubertlathamwindkiller.com/Monoplane.htm

The Antoinette engine was designed and built in France by Léon Levavasseur. Named after the designer's daughter, it was Europe's most widely used engine until 1909-1910. The first Antoinette engine dated from about 1901 and was used in a speedboat. By 1905, Levavasseur had produced a water-cooled engine with eight-cylinders arranged in a 90-degree "V" and with direct fuel injection. It was safe, strong, and fairly powerful, generating 50 horsepower (37 kilowatts) and weighing about 110 pounds (50 kilograms). Its power-to-weight ratio was not surpassed for 25 years

Antoinette VII. Designed by Léon Levavasseur, who was an artist as well as a gifted engineer, the Antoinette range possessed an almost art nouveau sense of elegance. The engine, also named 'Antoinette', came first, being designed by Levavasseur in 1903 to power motor boats. Both Santos-Dumont and the Voisins used this engine to power their early machines. The motor was of advanced design, utilizing direct fuel injection and evaporative steam cooling - which took place in long tubes fixed along the sides of the fuselage. 

  M. L. Anderson

Big Big Blocks

The article states "The larger engines, known as big-block V8s, were used in the full-size cars. Big-blocks generally had displacements in excess of 6 L (360 in³), but in stock form are often not all that efficient. Big-block displacement reached its zenith with the 1970 Cadillac Eldorado's 8.2 L (500 in³) 500..."

The big block zenith has yet to be reached. Even the major car manufacturers have pushed past 500 cubic inches. For example, Ford Racing Performance Parts offers a 514 cubic inch version of the 385 engine series http://www.fordracingparts.com/parts/part_details.asp?PartKeyField=9287, Mopar (Chrysler) has a 540 cubic inch hemi http://www.mopar.com/m_perf_subcatCheck.jsp?SubSubGrpID=5&dummy3=1163607048488, and GM Performance Parts offers their 572 crate engine http://www.gmgoodwrench.com/GMPerformanceParts/EngineShowcase/index.jsp?engId=ZZ572720&engine=ZZ%20572/720R&sku=12498827&engCat=bb .

In the aftermarket, engine builders push past those limits. For example Scat http://www.scatcrankshafts.com/ offers a cranshaft that pushes the Ford 385 series to 546 cubic inches. There are plenty of other examples.--72.85.10.218 16:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

You are absolutely right, but this article and that statement refer to V8s fitted by the factory in regular production cars. In that case, the Cad 500 still holds the title, followed closely by the Vortec 8100 496. As far as aftermarket goes, the largest I have seen is a 904CI DOHC drag engine. 99.240.243.25 (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Firing Order

I dont see anything in this wiki about the firing order of V8's.

There's a fair bit of info about this over at Firing order already (including V8 info). I'm not sure if the V8 article needs detailed info about this, it might be better off just directing people to the Firing order page instead. Opinions please? -- Rpvdk 21:50, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
The firing order of V8s is quite complicated and variable. Manufacturers number their cylinders differently (Chevrolet alternates left-to-right, Ford from front-to-back), manufacturers use different firing orders in different engine lines and change it from time to time, some manufacturers time the engine from cylinder #8 rather than cylinder #1, customizers sometimes alter the firing order of engines, and of course flat-plane V8s of necessity have a completely different firing order from cross-plane engines. I don't know if anybody wants to get into all of this complication in this article. RockyMtnGuy 01:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a link in this article now which seems to have gone to the trouble of breaking down V8 firing orders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.240.243.25 (talk) 18:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Honda/Audi connection

I removed the following bit from the Honda section:

"and the Audi 4.2 Litre engines are based off the Honda design and not Audi's own corporate past 4 litre V8, which means the Audi S4/RS4/R8 V8 engines technically would be Honda's first road car V8."

There was no source for this bit of info, none to be found via Google and common sense tells me it's false. The S4 used a version of the A8 4.2 engine (5-valve, with the cam drive moved to the firewall side). Since the bore, stroke, bore spacing and head design is the same as previous Audi 4.2's and other VAG engines (predating any involvement with Honda concerning race engines), I don't see how it could possibly be based on a Mugen race engine. The RS4 and R8 use 4-valve heads because room was needed for the direct injection. 77.130.19.241 (talk) 03:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Origin of Rover V8

Many years ago I read an article that said the 'discovery' of the Buick V8 from which this engine was developed was a happy accident arising from a visit by one of the Rover staff to the Kiekhaefer Mercury outboard motor company where they had been looking at this lightweight V8 with a view to use with their Mercruiser inboard/outboard units. Unfortunately I cannot remember where the article appeared. Can anyone confirm this and perhaps add it to the article? Colin Mill (talk) 11:08, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

According to Jeff Daniel's book, Driving Force (p. 140), on a trip to the US in the 1960's the chairman of Rover, Spencer Wilks, happened to stumble over a discarded alloy V8 in a boathouse belonging to a GM executive, decided it was exactly what Rover needed, and bought the manufacturing rights to the engine. Other accounts credit Rover Managing Director, William Martin-Hurst. GM only produced the alloy V8 for three years, but Rover used it for about another 40 - although GM built more engines in 3 years than Rover did in 40. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Here's a link to a more definitive article http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/Rover-Autocar-Article.htm Apparently, William Martin-Hurst saw the engine in a Mercury Marine Company experimental shop in Wisconsin while on a trip to sell them Rover engines. He found the 3500 cc V8 was only 12 pounds heavier and 1 inch longer than the existing 2000 cc Rover engine. So he had it crated up and shipped off to England to be tested in a Rover sedan. It worked so well that Rover bought the manufacturing rights, and GM kindly loaned them Buick's chief engine designer, who was just about to retire, to help with the technical details. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:13, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion the following quote is grossly inaccurate and misleading: "It appeared in production in 1961 on some of that year's Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac models, but because of reliability problems was soon dropped in favor of more conventional iron-blocked units." The statement about reliability in particular is too strong to be included with reference to back it up and furthermore the word "soon" is ambiguous. The Buick 215cid V8 engine was mass-produced for three full years before being replaced (for the 1964 model year) by a 90-degree iron-block V6 which was simply cheaper to produce. (It's short length would also become an advantage later.) The design of the iron-block V6 is so similar to the aluminum V8 that many items such as oil pump, timing cover, water pump, and most of the valvetrain are interchangeable. The iron-block/aluminum-head 1964 Buick 300 was also introduced to take up some of the void left by the Buick 215, but objective historians will note that a "horsepower war" had started and the extra 85 cubic inches were probably a big factor in that decision. The 1964 Buick 300 is so similar to the Buick 215 that preceded it, that its crankshaft and cylinder heads can easily be installed in a 215 block to create a stroker.Halvdan (talk) 05:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Quote: "As the aluminium block made this engine one of the lightest stock V8s built there were some attempts to use it in racing at Indianapolis." Unless edited, this statement obviously understates the truth. Without question the Buick 215 aluminum V8 engine was raced in the 1962 Indianapolis 500. Specifically, a Buick 215 powered racecar was entered by the Mickey Thompson team. Dan Gurney drove the car, and won the "Rookie of the Year" award. The car was competitive, but suffered a transmission failure that forced it to withdraw from the race. Other wikipedia articles reference this fact already, including this example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Gurney

Suitable link Re. Rolls Royce V8 development?

I have noticed that the rumour that the 1959 RR V8 was a US design is still widely circulating on the net. I have found the following link to a letter from the designer, Jack Phillips, that confirms that it was a RR design with a degree of novelty to satisfy the design requirements-

http://www.rroc.org.au/library/rr_v8.html

If all are agreed I will add this link to the page (if I can work out how) Colin Mill (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Crankshaft Design

For Cross-plane, Each crank pin (of four) is at a 90° angle from the previous.

Surely this is wrong for most production V8s and I'm not aware of any such design. It should read: "the first and last of the four crank pins are at 180° with respect to each other as are the second and third, with each pair at 90° to the other." I haven't changed it yet, waiting on confirmation, but the main article it points has the same mistake.Scunnerous (talk) 08:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it's probably more accurately worded that way. It's certainly that way on the small block. Rpvdk (talk) 20:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Honda/DTM connection

Can someone please cite the claim that Honda developed DTM powerplants? I've followed DTM for years and this allegation is news to me; similarly, I haven't found any supporting evidence for this. I'm deleting the claim for now; if someone can find supporting documentation for this, feel free to add that allegation back into the page. 75.164.173.103 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC).

V-angles

There's a reference to an engine (Lancia V4) as being "almost completely square". It would be useful if that term were defined; i.e. either with parenthetical note "(i.e. equal bore and stroke dimensions)" or footnote to avoid confusion by people unfamiliar with the term. NefariousWheel (talk) 00:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I amended it to indicate that the Lancia V4 was "square" in length and width, not bore and stroke. The early ones were actually rather long-stroke, narrow-bore engines.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Conversion Units

I can't recall a time since the early to mid-80's in which american V8's were still being machined and/or marketed in cubic inches. Nowadays, all V8 engines made by american automakers are done metric and this should be reflected in the article. 24.138.19.131 (talk) 20:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

You can refer to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles/Conventions#Conventions for the standards to be used in articles. In particular: "We express the metric displacement before the cubic inch displacement, except when discussing engines originally engineered, designated, and marketed in cubic inches, such as pre-1980s American and pre-1974 Australian engines. For engines originally engineered and designated in cubic inches but later given metric designations, use {{Auto Lrev}}." I hope this helps! CZmarlin (talk) 04:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC

122.151.109.74 (talk) 16:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)Diesel locomotives in 90% of U.S. locomotives and derivitives made under license are of a Vee configuration. Often modular in design; viz V6, V8, V12, V16 and V20. Both GM EMD and Alco use this approach. The inline 6 whilst common in trucks is not as common in diesel locomotives. The same reason the Vee configuration engine is popular in cars (compact for power output) also applies to locomotives.

Angles

Modifed the lead picture caption from , although modern automotive versions use a 90-degree block angle. Oversimplified and misleading at least and arguably inaccurate... Ferrari and GM have both used some really odd angles, and several makers have used both 60 degree and 180 degree V8s. Andrewa (talk) 21:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Railroad usage

from the article:

"...railroad locomotives tend to use the straight-6 configuration..."

With the exception of small industrial or switching (shunting) units, locomotives typically are powered by Vee designs, generally in 8, 12, 16 or (more rarely) 20 cylinders. Some early EMD switchers were powered by a V-6 design. ALCO did use some inline-sixes, but these units are mostly of historical interest now.

Bigdumbdinosaur (talk) 00:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've removed it. Although straight-6 and V8 locomotive engines aren't unknown, they're both too unusual to be mentioned in passing like this. Even for small (200 bhp) engines, these layouts are rare in locomotive use. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Country Engine Sounds

Wich other engines from other countrys sounds like the american v8? Saludacymbals (talk) 8 April 2012

The American V8 has a distinctive sound because of its unbalanced firing order (LRLLRLRR) emphasises first one bank and then the other, giving a burble sound. This is only true of the V8's with cross plane cranks but most American V8's are of this type because they make less second order vibrations, giving more thump-thump, less buzz. Race V8's often use flat plane cranks which sound and feel more like two 4-cylinder engines but make more power due to less first order vibrations (which kill bearings), giving less thump-thump and more buzz. Australian (eg Holden 308) and Japanese passenger V8's (eg Lexus 1UZ-FE) sound like American V8's for the same reason.  Stepho  talk  20:30, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Mercury Racing - significant in-house engine

http://www.mercuryracing.com/sterndrives/hp1350.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by Toneron2 (talk • contribs) 23:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

British V8's.

In the section on British V8's, the writer forgot to include the two V8's launched by Riley in 1935. The smaller one was essentially two 1100cc Riley Nine engines on a common crank, complete with four rocker boxes and a 2.2 litre displacement. The larger, more ambitious, version was based on two 1500c.c. '12/4' engines, had triple camshafts and 2.8 litres.

The smaller engine powered the Riley Eight-90 or Golden Flash, also sometimes known as the 8/90. This consisted of the V8 engine and pre-selector gearbox in the longer six-cylinder chassis to start with, the wider Two-and-a-Half-Litre chassis later on. Bodywork was, theoretically, any of the larger Riley styles of the time, but in practice almost all were the formal Adelphi saloon, except for two fastback Kestrels, one of which was built for a member of the Riley family. The Eight-90 was not a success. Though fast in a straight line the engine was too heavy and even with a longer wheelbase the effort required to steer and brake was unacceptably great. The destruction of Riley's chassis records during the big air-raid of December 1940 makes it difficult to be certain about production numbers. But, if memory serves, the Riley Register reckons there to have been around twenty in total.

The bigger engine formed the heart of an extraordinary gamble on the part of the Riley brothers: they decided, in the depths of the Great Depression, to lauch an entirely new ultra-luxury brand into a market which was already saturated. What was more, they developed an entirely new engine and chassis, established the new company entirely seperately, with it's own factory and chauffeur training school, and even headhunted Daimler's chief designer to design the car. The new marque was called Autovia, it's badge and radiator were magnificent, it's target was Rolls-Royce and it was utterly doomed from the start. Three body styles were offered, a D-back Limousine, a slightly more rakish Touring Limousine and a handsome 4-light Close-Coupled Saloon, all built by Mulliners of Birmingham. But, whether examples of all three styles were actually completed has been the subject of debate, as has the total number of cars completed before the project collapsed along with the parent company in 1937.

These projects undoubtedly contributed to Riley's financial collapse and slow absorbtion by Morris and B.M.C. However, it's worth pointing out that since the 1905 Rolls-Royce V8 and the slightly later Darracq were only made in tiny numbers, and since Riley got their V8 on sale before Standard, the Riley engines have a strong claim to being Britain's first ever production V8's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.29.36.25 (talk) 02:02, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

That was a fascinating read. Please feel free to add a shortened form of it to the article (say, one or two paragraphs) but back it up with suitable references. Much of it could also be added to the Riley Motor article - again, with suitable references.  Stepho  talk  05:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

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This article is / is not

This article is "V8 engine". This article is not "List of V8 engines". I propose to remove the exhaustive lists of countries, manufacturers and engines from the article and get it back to what it should be. --Biker Biker (talk) 20:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

There is also a post about a V-4 motorcycle engine at the tail end. Appreciate that it is supposedly an equivalent efficiency to a V-8, but it still isn't a V-8. 32.212.104.223 (talk) 19:37, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

SI units only

I advocate the use in all Wikipedia articles of ONLY SI units. I think it's time to let go Imperial units (lb, in, ft, hp and so on). Power is kW, temperature is Celsius, weight is kg (kilogram), torque is Nm (Newton-meter) and so on. I'm an engineer and had to learn these absurd Imperial units when I was a student. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiago65 (talk • contribs) 17:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Such a change to policy would need to be discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), but on a global site with many variants of English and variants of dating I would be surprised if we were to make such a change. ϢereSpielChequers 17:13, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
As an engineer, please review the information brochure about the Metric system in the United States (link here) published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Your proposal, to eliminate “old” units within Wikipedia is unlikely to happen. For example, the displacement measurements of automobile engines, such as in this article. Wikipedia is not an engineering manual, but a general encyclopedia for readers that are seeking information. Moreover, historic V8 engine nomenclature - such as the Chevy 396, Hemi 426, Ford 289, or AMC 360 - will remain. Many of these are also associated with car names such as the ‘’390 Go package’’ cars, and it is impossible to describe one as being a “6.4 L Go Pac” Javelin, for example. Thanks - CZmarlin (talk) 18:23, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
I can summarise why this proposal will fail in one word: Americans. The average American does not, will not and (in many cases) cannot think in metric units. Americans make up a significant percentage of our readers and also a significant percent of our editors. To drop imperial/customary units and make articles unreadable for about a third of our readers is unthinkable, even if their system of measurement is laughable.  Stepho  talk  01:27, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
Being one of Stepho's aforementioned Americans, I agree with him, to a point. I am not opposed to having the metric version of information on it, but include both. For example English measurement (metric equivalent), or Metric measurement (English equivalent) sort of thing would have both, and keep all parties happier, hopefully. 32.212.104.223 (talk) 19:39, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

idle sounds

Why sounds the idle different then the running engine on higher rpms on old v8s? and why does the hemi and other old v8 and even racing v8s the polyrythmic rumble while the new engines have lost that wonderfull idle and sounding now straight like all other v8s?what is the point?

Not an engineer, but I believe the different sounds have mostly to do with how the exhaust flow is directed out of the engine, possibly coupled with what cylinders are firing as the exhaust from 1 specific cylinder is being expelled. That being said, the cylinder heads themselves start the process, and the shape and length of the individual pipes leading to a collector, if there is one, and when the individual cylinders' exhausts get to that point. This is based on my personal thoughts, and has little to no basis in engine/exhaust system design or knowledge. 32.212.104.223 (talk) 19:45, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

"refimprove" tag

I see this article has been tagged for ten years. There are 67 references now and I don't quite see "citation needed" inline tags, so I 'd remove the "refimprove" tag if nobody objects. --Arny (talk) 11:31, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Agreed.  Stepho  talk  12:16, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Done. If someone has objections, please say. --Arny (talk) 14:29, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

V8 harder to crank than less number of cylinders

DigbyDalton@ has recently made the assertion that more cylinders makes an engine harder to crank. I'm not sure if it is right or wrong but it does need more proof. Digby reasons that more compression events make it harder to crank. This might be true but if both engines have the same total capacity then the V8 will have smaller cylinders, which means each compression event will be smaller. I'm not sure whether more events or smaller events prevails and hence would like some further evidence. However, I do agree that capacity larger engines are definitely harder to crank than smaller engines.  Stepho  talk  10:26, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I do agree that capacity larger engines are definitely harder to crank than smaller engines.
Even that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The ease of cranking for an engine depends on a number of factors, including compression ratio and valve timing. It's impossible to make blanket statements like this without either identifying particular engines, or at least their age or other specific attributes. In the 1920 car period, a 'large' engine often meant an old engine, with the low compression that implies.
For engines without large flywheels, "ease of turning over" is more about the peak torque needed to get over a compression hump – which will reduce with more cylinders, both from shrinking the individual cylinder size, also by their greater evenness of torque.
Then there's the scarcity of V8s needing to be hand-cranked anyway. They're a later engine, from high-end vehicles, so well into the electric-start era. Although I've hand-started Land Rovers before now (hard work) the last V8 I needed to hand-start as a matter of course was a wartime Ford Pilot engine in a welding set, which was designed for Pool petrol and so quite easy to turn over (getting it to actually fire was another question).
Having seen a few of Digby Dalton's edits now (claiming the origin of the overhead valve engine and the rocker arm from steam engines being just one), I don't think any credence should be placed in them. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:23, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
I suppose the simple response to Digby is "Can you source that?" Chaheel Riens (talk) 12:32, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
I was notified by Stepho-wrs to enter this talk page discussion. What would you like to know? Hand cranking of an antique automobile engine requires turning the crank until the compression of a cylinder is found, then removing the crank and moving the handle to the bottom, and then pulling quickly and forcefully in an upward direction with the left hand through that compression stroke and stopping when the crank gets to the top. If it doesn't start, try again from the bottom in the same way. You do NOT push down on the right side, and you certainly do NOT stand there cranking around and around, you will injure or kill yourself that way. This is because pulling through the stroke, the engine might fire before the piston has reached top dead center, in which case, the engine will fire in the wrong direction (backfire). If you crank the way I described, and the engine backfires, the crank handle drops safely to the ground. If you continue to the right side and it backfires, the handle will rise up and break your arm or hit you, many people have died that way. The point is to pull through one compression as quickly as you can, so it fires AFTER the piston has reached the top, and being careful NOT to enter the beginning of the compression of the next cylinder, because of the chance of the first cylinder not catching and the second one backfiring. I believe that what I have told you has made it extremely obvious why V-8 engines, although invented quite early, never could have been mass-marketed during the hand-crank era, and had to wait for Cadillac to invent the starter motor and immediately thereafter market a popular V-8. You have 180 degrees of cranking to start a 4 cylinder engine, you can put your whole body into it, have 180 degrees to accelerate the flywheel, and you can start the car safely; you only have 90 degrees for a V-8, which is not enough time to get the engine up to speed, and trying to pull through 2 compression strokes in 180 degrees would be very difficult and your are unlikely to get safely through the second stroke unless you are built like Arnold. I have read Andy Dingley's comment and find that it contains at least a dozen errors, and if I have the time I might address them. DigbyDalton (talk) 03:57, 3 November 2018 (UTC)


  • Errors in Andy Dingley's comment, answered:

The ease of cranking for an engine depends on a number of factors, including compression ratio and valve timing. Valve timing? Both valves are closed during the compression stroke. Valve timing is not relevant. And compression ratios in those days were around 4 or 5 to one for all cars, from the earliest days up to around 1935, from model T to Packard, so compression ratio is not a factor.

In the 1920 car period, a 'large' engine often meant an old engine, with the low compression Of course they had low compression, that's the only reason it was possible to hand-crank them. Yet it was still difficult, and nearly impossible for women.

a compression hump – which will reduce with more cylinders, both from shrinking the individual cylinder size, also by their greater evenness of torque. What makes you think they will reduce the individual cylinder size? Why would they do that? The whole point of a V-8 is to make a bigger engine. Making a V-8 with the same displacement as a 4 would cost more money to build and be no better, it would make no sense. Why would anybody do that? To make a smoother but noisier engine with twice as many cylinders firing for no reason? Evenness of torque when the engine is running, sure, but that has nothing to do with hand-cranking, since you are hopefully only pulling one compression stroke, unless you envision somebody standing there cranking it around and around like a fisherman, something nobody ever did unless they wanted to die.

Then there's the scarcity of V8s needing to be hand-cranked anyway. They're a later engine, from high-end vehicles, so well into the electric-start era. The scarcity is because they were hard to crank! And Cadillac type 51 was mass produced in 1914, two years into the electric start era, because, and only because, of the electric start.

: Having seen a few of Digby Dalton's edits now (claiming the origin of the overhead valve engine and the rocker arm from steam engines being just one), I don't think any credence should be placed in them. I said push rod and rocker arm, not OHV and rocker arm. You typed this after I uploaded the illustration of the steam engine with the rocker arm and push rod from an 1887 encyclopedia that referenced an 1868 source? I guess you didn't see it. Take another look. Go to wiki commons and see that I am the one who uploaded that graphic. Besides, the OVH internal combustion engine was patented by Eugene Richard for Buick but credit was usually claimed by Walter Marr of Buick. Richard has been quoted as saying "He didn't invent push rods and rocker arms, they were common in steam engines in the 1800s," which is clearly true. Your argument that push rods and rocker arms were not used in steam engines because poppet valves were not common yet.....I never said anything about poppet valves.DigbyDalton (talk) 05:12, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

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