Looks like something from ‘Captain Scarlet’.
Yes, it does have that 1960ies-Gerry-Anderson-production touch.
Not a bad thing. Loved their aircraft.
That wasn’t European influence; the motor was taken from the Dodge Ram.
… If there was any Euro influence on the basic spec, I’d wager it would’ve been smaller than ten litres.
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May I ask what is your daily driver? As an auto technician, we’ve been hearing that solenoid actuated valvetrains are coming but I didn’t know there was one in production.
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Here’s another, with rego. 3000kg, 3000hp.
Yep - R8 and the Gallardo come to mind.
I’d take the former, personally. Not a big fan of Lamborghini…
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The Fiat multiair engines do this- I think they are in some Chrysler products as well.
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If you like those, you might like this 28-litre Fiat from 1911, even though it only has 4 cylinders:
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And this one:
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The late-model Ford Triton V10s worked out the problems with the spark plugs and cylinder heads. My dad has an E450-based motor home with the V10, and he’s been quite happy with it, in spite of generally not being a Ford fan.
That model’s a work of art, as are the other working miniature engines I’ve seen. The Deltic, though, that’s downright insane (in a good way).
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why not?
The pleasure of constructing a complicated machine, from start to finish?
I mean, if you don’t enjoy making small parts on a lathe, this kind of thing isn’t for you. But if you do, there’s a certain joy in combining them into a perfectly balanced machine.
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Check this out if you haven’t; a 1/5th scale Rolls-Royce Eagle 22. Sleeve-valve H24 aero engine with contra-rotating props:
http://www.modelenginenews.org/gallery/croft/eagle/index.html
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Err, nope. Merlin was 12 cylinders. Or at least it was when my great-uncle Arthur designed it. And indeed when I worked on one whilst at RR in the late '70s - where I met some older guys who had been his apprentices back then.
And for a better looking Merlin powered car you might like Jay Leno's 1930 Bentley GJ 400 is a 27-liter monster - Autoblog
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Holy s**t! Do you have to wear ear protection to ride in that thing? I love the picture with the propeller from the engine sitting in front of the car.
IIRC, he had to wear breathing equipment because of the exhaust.
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I wasn’t aware that camless engines had reached Europe, and I thought this unlikely too but am no expert on US engines. The FIAT advanced engine I’m aware of still has cams, but it uses solenoids to control the spill of hydraulic fluid, thus providing variable valve lift in a different way from the DOHC Valvematic engine from Toyota - I have one of these and, though complex, it seems to work very well.
The Wartsila-Sulzer two stroke engine has the exhaust valve hydraulically actuated but it still has a cam, the hydraulic drive is to eliminate the rather large pushrods or chains that would be needed as the engine is nearly 2000 litres per cylinder. (the crank case has steps down between cylinders to help with bearing inspection).
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When I worked for Wellworthy there were still some old guys in R&D who had been involved - in their early 20s - in the development of the Merlin’s Al-Fin pistons and the testing of engine modifications. I’m sure your great uncle laid it out - but there were many people involved in the details design and development. It seems it takes the pressure of a war against a relentless, evil enemy to get people to co-operate on things like that in a hurry.
No argument from me there; RR had a huge design dept and development engineering and manufacturing design and setup and on and on. But there’s always a chief that gets the credit or blame, or at least ought to get the blame where appropriate.
In a nice little bit of symmetry I even got to design a couple of tiny bits of RB211 in my time at RR.
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