Surprised at no mentions of either pre-Wankel rotaries (look like a radial, but the crankcase moves around a stationary crankshaft) or the Commer TS3 "Knocker," a road-going opposed-piston Diesel with one crankshaft.
No mention of the Ford Corsair or Lancia V4s, Trojan opposed 2 cylinder 4 piston or the Commer 3 cylinder of the 60's canceled when bought by Chrysler,
I was an engine machinist for 45 years and worked on hundreds of engine types. I think nothing had more potential than the super simple two stroke Turbo Diesel Engine. Light weight, simple and powerful and could go 600,000 miles before needing to be rebuilt. The power to weight ratio could not be beaten since it fired the piston on every stoke giving a V8 the same power as a V12 had so they could be built smaller too! With modern materials and engineering I hope it makes a come back. This engine was mainly used in older buses and trucks and was made illegal since people hated that massive puff of black-smoke they made during take-off. That could have been easily fixed today by leaning out the fuel-air ratio during idling, using an electric power turbo charger made of all plastic parts with a computer which they did not have back in the 1970's when they were slated to be phased out. Very Sad Death of a fabulous and forgotten engine technology just waiting to be rediscovered and fixed in this modern age.
No Fooling!! It takes REAL TALENT to be an Engine Mech!! 03:00 How 'bout that Turbine, eh? The thing about Turbines...they sound exactly like Vacuum Cleaners!!!😉
I think there is a very solid reason why the 2-stroke Diesel has been phased out. You can't pump high-pressure air into a cylinder when both intake and exhaust ports are open. Because of this, the 4-stroke Diesel has been able to catch up in power. Nowadays a Turbo-Diesel 4-stroke can approach 100hp per liter of displacement, which I don't see in older 2-stroke Diesels.
2 stroke diesels were supercharged- only way they were able to start. Turbos pump no pressure at cranking speed. Opposed piston Commer Knockers had superchargers as they were 2 strokes also. All those gm v8 2 stroke semi engines had superchargers.
@@rossbrumby1957 Let's not confuse supercharging with forced scavenging. They both use a supercharger, but the function is different - in one case, to pump high-pressure air into the cylinder to allow for more fuel to be burned, and in the other, to evacuate burned gas from the cylinder and replace it with a fresh charge of air, to allow the engine to function.
@@lucianene7741With 2 stroke diesels, even with a blower they were considered naturally aspirated, as you mentioned beforehand about the scavenging of air.
In 1964 I saw a Chrysler Turbine car in La Mesa, California and another one in Anoka, Minnesota. I was 12 and quite fascinated by what I had seen. Jay Leno has a Chrysler Turbine Car and actually had an engine failure a few years ago. A turbine engine company, with the help of volunteers, built a new engine for Jay and the car runs again. A sixty year lifespan on a turbine engine? That’s impressive.
4:23: "....sharing a common crankshaft..." Ummm.....I count TWO; one on the top and 1 on the bottom. Do you even bother to look at the graphics you add?????
If you are referring to the Commer Opposed Piston Diesel. The Commer used one crankshaft underneath the cylinders with connecting rods that linked to rocker arms that then linked to the pistons. Space saving for an opposed piston engine while not really reducing parts count. Plus it requires a supercharger.
Should have listed the Australian Starich Orbital engine, 7 chambers 250 hp , was put in ford Cortinas in the 1970s , its not a rotary , the middle seven sided orbitor well orbits the crank shaft , vanes slide in amd out creating chambers of vareing size and had direct fuel injection , the whole 250 hp motor was 20 cm thick and 60 cm in diameter and weighed 120 kg, ot was small, fit any engine compartment , the company sold the rites to Ford US and it was never seen again , then Ralph Starich built a direct injection two stroke that had better emissions that a four stroke , Ford US had a 3 cylinder 2 Stroke ready to go in early 1990s but again disapared . The Starich direct injection system is found on all modern Two Stroke motors , and is the reason Two Strokes are comming back in 2025/26 , Forumla 1 is going Two Stroke and many manafactures are going back now the emissions are solved , Kawasaki is bringing back a two stroke KX550T. And Suzuki has a RM520T ready for 2026 and Kawasaki has anounced a H3 900cc V4 direct injection two stroke model with 267 hp ( its nick name is " widow maker")
It was the SARICH Orbital Engine. Ralph Sarich was born in Australia to Croatian immigrants. From 1972, development work on the engine became a bottomless money pit for investors and Federal Government grants. Its problems persisted so long that it finally vanished. In the meantime, efficiency of conventional piston engines was greatly enhanced by emerging technologies; fuel injection, multiple valves per cylinder, overhead camshafts, electronic ignition and turbocharging.
@@rocketeerPM2500 that's an opinion , as stated , all new two stroke direct injection is based on the OEC Orbital engine companies design developed for the Orbital engine. Today with modern matching the orbital engine would be fine .
Any notion of the radial engine as a car powerplant is utter rubbish. The radial's circular cross-section was designed to enable air-cooling in aircraft, from late WW1 through to 1960's, when jet engines would dominate the heavy aircraft market. For obvious reasons (such as its bulk & cooling issues) the radial never saw automotive service.
8:05 Given how many RX-7 ALONE were produced, how can you call a Wankle "wierd" in a car? Whoever put this list together had ZERO CLUE what they were talking about, for the most part.
By the numbers of wankels vs piston engine cars they were very much weird and uncommon. I'm 56, have messed around with many cars over the years, repairing, wrecking, and modifying and still have yet to see a wankel rotary in an engine bay. I know when one cruises past, as they sound like a 3 cylinder 2 stroke outboard motor at idle.
@@rossbrumby1957 Millions of them sold. NOT WIERD. Uncommon PERHAPS, but nowhere near wierd. They were also used in some outboards, but those were VERY uncommon.
That Mazda engine used at Le Mans was the only engine you could hear around the entire course whereever you stood. Up close, it nearly made your ears bleed. Awesome.
Air cooled radial engines were a great choice for WW1 and "WW2 aircraft because the high frontal area allows for good cooling by the propeller, and there is no liquid cooling system (which could take damage in combat.) At the start of WW2 the American Sherman M4 tank was available with whatever engine was available (either an adapted aircraft radial, or an emergency design by Chrysler made of five inline 6 blocks bolted together.) These went to the Allies in Europe. By the time the USA entered the war itself a large displacement V8 had been developed and most Shermans used by American troops had this engine. The engine was behind the driver to avoid visibility issues but the Sherman still had a rather tall body to accomodate the engine, which is less than ideal for a tank.
When the first VW prototypes were being developed in Germany in the 1930s, one of the engines which was tried was a 5-cylinder radial, but it was rejected because it vibrated too much. They also tried a flat twin and at least 2 flat-4s before they settled on the flat-4 that made it into production. Porsche built a few flat-8 prototypes back around 1970, so flat-8s are among the rarest engines ever used in cars. That is a shame. Imagine a low-profile road hugger with the power of a V8 muscle car, then you realize how the flat-8 was one of the motoring world's biggest missed opportunities.
Porsche used a "flat" 12 in the 917, but ist was a 180° V12, Like the testarossa. There seem to be good reasons to not go beyond 6cyl with the Boxer crankshaft layout. Subaru/motori moderni tried it for the F1, too, but cancelled the Project without results.
@@svennoren9047 Quite a few ended up in torpedo boats. To my knowlage, NONE ended up in a car outside of a possible VERY CUSTOM installation on one specific case.
@@bricefleckenstein9666 It is to large to reasonably fit in a car. A truck _maybe,_ but as you say it would have to be a custom build. Worked fine in locomotives!
A few Years ago, This Arab Dude I ran into at a Shopping Center showed me the V10 in his BMW! It was awesome!! It had 2 Batteries and he said that it needed 12 Quarts of Oil!!
1- The Ferrari V12 is nothing new, it's basically same idea as VW used since the 1930's: flat engine. 2. The VR5 is basically same idea as Lancia had already 1922 in Lambda, narrow angle V-engine but with one cylinder head. 3. The V4 did not have "limited success", it was used from 1962-1991 in german Fords (and Saab who bought it from Ford) and english Fords from 1965-1977 (English version who was not related to the german). The V4's was also base for Fords V6's. 4. Chrysler was not first with turbine engine in a car, Rover did that 1950. 5 to 3 was never in road cars. 2. The Bugatti W16 is not of same type as earlier V16, is is more like two narrow-angeled V8's (compare to Lancia V4 above). 1. It was Felix Wankel who invented the rotary engine 1953, and it was used in several NSU-cars, but also in some Citroen and M-B, long before Mazda bought the concept.
Don't you mean ferrari flat 12? Thats the one pictured and talked about in the video. Its not like the VW engine at all- the VW is a boxer engine same as subaru use. The flat 12 ferrari has the same type crank as a normal V12- opposite pistons share a crank journal same as the Jaguar V12. The crank journals are aligned at 120 degrees apart- same as an inline 6, giving perfect primary and secondary balance. Coincidentally a boxer 6 or 12 has equally good balance- the boxer 4 not so much, but better than inline 4's.
A four-stroke V-16 has one cylinder firing every 45° of crankshaft rotation - NOT "as there's a power stroke occurring at almost every crankshaft rotation". WTF does that even mean? I wish idiots on youtube would actually bother to LEARN the subject matter before shooting off their mouths as if they are any kind of authority.
I have thought about this. If someone built a V16 engine with a four-plane crankshaft, it could have a power stroke every 22.5 degrees. It would hardly need a flywheel like that....
@christopherdean1326 do the math again. 8 cylinders fire with each rotation. 360° ÷ 8 = 45°. You're right about one thing - flywheels for multicylinder engines are comparatively lighter.
@@TheSilverShadow17 but in a four stroke engine, each cylinder fires every 2nd rotation of the crankshaft. Recheck your math again. I know whereof I speak. And the original narrator of the video does not.
@@richardkryston2990 That's why I said that your calculation was right on the money. 22.5 degrees, 45 degrees, same difference. Just different approaches.
The Ferrari Flat 12 is literally a 180° V-12. A true flat 12 wouldbe an entirely different beast. For each set of opposed cylinders there would be two crank pins 180° offset from each other.
@rellotsscrewdriver8996 Yes the layout is flat. But for all intense and purposes the Ferrari Flat 12 can be treated as a 180° V-12. The difference is between a Vee Type crankshaft with crank 6 throws and that of a Boxer type engine with two sets of six crank throws with one set 180° offset from the other. Boxer engines also tend to have a greater bore spread between cylinders for bores of equal diameter to accommodate the extra material needed in the crankshaft structure. This leads to a longer engine.
There wes a Toyota Ute that when i was younger we used to go shooting in that had a v4 motor , there seemed to be quiet a few of them k8cking arounf the Australian country, or should I say, outback.
If you have a 16 cylinder engine and it's a four-stroke engine that means you have four not less than one but four power strokes per revolution you have a power stroke every quarter turn of the crank get your numbers right dude
Surprised at no mentions of either pre-Wankel rotaries (look like a radial, but the crankcase moves around a stationary crankshaft) or the Commer TS3 "Knocker," a road-going opposed-piston Diesel with one crankshaft.
No mention of the Ford Corsair or Lancia V4s, Trojan opposed 2 cylinder 4 piston or the Commer 3 cylinder of the 60's canceled when bought by Chrysler,
I was an engine machinist for 45 years and worked on hundreds of engine types. I think nothing had more potential than the super simple two stroke Turbo Diesel Engine. Light weight, simple and powerful and could go 600,000 miles before needing to be rebuilt. The power to weight ratio could not be beaten since it fired the piston on every stoke giving a V8 the same power as a V12 had so they could be built smaller too! With modern materials and engineering I hope it makes a come back. This engine was mainly used in older buses and trucks and was made illegal since people hated that massive puff of black-smoke they made during take-off. That could have been easily fixed today by leaning out the fuel-air ratio during idling, using an electric power turbo charger made of all plastic parts with a computer which they did not have back in the 1970's when they were slated to be phased out. Very Sad Death of a fabulous and forgotten engine technology just waiting to be rediscovered and fixed in this modern age.
No Fooling!! It takes REAL TALENT to be an Engine Mech!! 03:00 How 'bout that Turbine, eh?
The thing about Turbines...they sound exactly like Vacuum Cleaners!!!😉
I think there is a very solid reason why the 2-stroke Diesel has been phased out. You can't pump high-pressure air into a cylinder when both intake and exhaust ports are open. Because of this, the 4-stroke Diesel has been able to catch up in power. Nowadays a Turbo-Diesel 4-stroke can approach 100hp per liter of displacement, which I don't see in older 2-stroke Diesels.
2 stroke diesels were supercharged- only way they were able to start. Turbos pump no pressure at cranking speed. Opposed piston Commer Knockers had superchargers as they were 2 strokes also. All those gm v8 2 stroke semi engines had superchargers.
@@rossbrumby1957
Let's not confuse supercharging with forced scavenging. They both use a supercharger, but the function is different - in one case, to pump high-pressure air into the cylinder to allow for more fuel to be burned, and in the other, to evacuate burned gas from the cylinder and replace it with a fresh charge of air, to allow the engine to function.
@@lucianene7741With 2 stroke diesels, even with a blower they were considered naturally aspirated, as you mentioned beforehand about the scavenging of air.
Excellent content! Keep it coming!
Cool video 👍🏻
In 1964 I saw a Chrysler Turbine car in La Mesa, California and another one in Anoka, Minnesota.
I was 12 and quite fascinated by what I had seen. Jay Leno has a Chrysler Turbine Car and actually had an engine failure a few years ago. A turbine engine company, with the help of volunteers, built a new engine for Jay and the car runs again. A sixty year lifespan on a turbine engine? That’s impressive.
4:23: "....sharing a common crankshaft..." Ummm.....I count TWO; one on the top and 1 on the bottom. Do you even bother to look at the graphics you add?????
If you are referring to the Commer Opposed Piston Diesel. The Commer used one crankshaft underneath the cylinders with connecting rods that linked to rocker arms that then linked to the pistons. Space saving for an opposed piston engine while not really reducing parts count. Plus it requires a supercharger.
Should have listed the Australian Starich Orbital engine, 7 chambers 250 hp , was put in ford Cortinas in the 1970s , its not a rotary , the middle seven sided orbitor well orbits the crank shaft , vanes slide in amd out creating chambers of vareing size and had direct fuel injection , the whole 250 hp motor was 20 cm thick and 60 cm in diameter and weighed 120 kg, ot was small, fit any engine compartment , the company sold the rites to Ford US and it was never seen again , then Ralph Starich built a direct injection two stroke that had better emissions that a four stroke , Ford US had a 3 cylinder 2 Stroke ready to go in early 1990s but again disapared . The Starich direct injection system is found on all modern Two Stroke motors , and is the reason Two Strokes are comming back in 2025/26 , Forumla 1 is going Two Stroke and many manafactures are going back now the emissions are solved , Kawasaki is bringing back a two stroke KX550T. And Suzuki has a RM520T ready for 2026 and Kawasaki has anounced a H3 900cc V4 direct injection two stroke model with 267 hp ( its nick name is " widow maker")
It was the SARICH Orbital Engine. Ralph Sarich was born in Australia to Croatian immigrants. From 1972, development work on the engine became a bottomless money pit for investors and Federal Government grants. Its problems persisted so long that it finally vanished. In the meantime, efficiency of conventional piston engines was greatly enhanced by emerging technologies; fuel injection, multiple valves per cylinder, overhead camshafts, electronic ignition and turbocharging.
@@rocketeerPM2500 that's an opinion , as stated , all new two stroke direct injection is based on the OEC Orbital engine companies design developed for the Orbital engine. Today with modern matching the orbital engine would be fine .
Any notion of the radial engine as a car powerplant is utter rubbish. The radial's circular cross-section was designed to enable air-cooling in aircraft, from late WW1 through to 1960's, when jet engines would dominate the heavy aircraft market. For obvious reasons (such as its bulk & cooling issues) the radial never saw automotive service.
Apparently there were some small ones put into motorcycle front wheels. Not a great idea.
It worked in some WW2 Tanks!!
They were used in American Sherman's with great success in WW2. Not rubbish just not very practical for cars.
You-know-who wanted the VW Beetle to have a 5 cylinder radial.
So the racing car pictured wasn't real?
V16 engines were fairly widespread in the 1920s and 1930s in luxury brand cars.
NOT AT ALL wierd, and don't belong on this list.
8:05
Given how many RX-7 ALONE were produced, how can you call a Wankle "wierd" in a car?
Whoever put this list together had ZERO CLUE what they were talking about, for the most part.
By the numbers of wankels vs piston engine cars they were very much weird and uncommon. I'm 56, have messed around with many cars over the years, repairing, wrecking, and modifying and still have yet to see a wankel rotary in an engine bay. I know when one cruises past, as they sound like a 3 cylinder 2 stroke outboard motor at idle.
@@rossbrumby1957 Millions of them sold. NOT WIERD.
Uncommon PERHAPS, but nowhere near wierd.
They were also used in some outboards, but those were VERY uncommon.
@@bricefleckenstein9666
Plus Mazda used to put them in other models than the RX-7/8. NSU was the first company to offer the engine type in a road car.
@@bricefleckenstein9666 Didn't Yamaha build a Wankel engined motorcycle. Someone did for sure.
@@johnchandler1687 I want to say BMW, but I don't remember the maker for sure.
Engines are usually about performance, reliability, and efficiency-but sometimes automakers and engineers have taken wild, creative risks.
That Mazda engine used at Le Mans was the only engine you could hear around the entire course whereever you stood. Up close, it nearly made your ears bleed. Awesome.
Great video 👍 Lancia used to swear by V4's, in fact the first company to offer them in a series production vehicle 😁🇮🇹
Plus Lancia was the first company to build V type engines with one cylinder head to my knowledge. In a variety of V angles.
Air cooled radial engines were a great choice for WW1 and "WW2 aircraft because the high frontal area allows for good cooling by the propeller, and there is no liquid cooling system (which could take damage in combat.) At the start of WW2 the American Sherman M4 tank was available with whatever engine was available (either an adapted aircraft radial, or an emergency design by Chrysler made of five inline 6 blocks bolted together.) These went to the Allies in Europe. By the time the USA entered the war itself a large displacement V8 had been developed and most Shermans used by American troops had this engine. The engine was behind the driver to avoid visibility issues but the Sherman still had a rather tall body to accomodate the engine, which is less than ideal for a tank.
When the first VW prototypes were being developed in Germany in the 1930s, one of the engines which was tried was a 5-cylinder radial, but it was rejected because it vibrated too much. They also tried a flat twin and at least 2 flat-4s before they settled on the flat-4 that made it into production. Porsche built a few flat-8 prototypes back around 1970, so flat-8s are among the rarest engines ever used in cars. That is a shame. Imagine a low-profile road hugger with the power of a V8 muscle car, then you realize how the flat-8 was one of the motoring world's biggest missed opportunities.
Porsche used a "flat" 12 in the 917, but ist was a 180° V12, Like the testarossa. There seem to be good reasons to not go beyond 6cyl with the Boxer crankshaft layout. Subaru/motori moderni tried it for the F1, too, but cancelled the Project without results.
I lost track of the number of mistakes in this video. Absolutely riddled with errors.
5:02
The Napier was mostly a LOCOMOTIVE engine, not a car engine.
SHOULD NOT EVEN HAVE A SNIFF OF THIS LIST.
Initially designed for torpedo boats, but that use waned after the war.
@@svennoren9047 Quite a few ended up in torpedo boats.
To my knowlage, NONE ended up in a car outside of a possible VERY CUSTOM installation on one specific case.
@@bricefleckenstein9666 It is to large to reasonably fit in a car. A truck _maybe,_ but as you say it would have to be a custom build. Worked fine in locomotives!
@@svennoren9047 And in small ships like PT boats, as someone else mentioned.
The Deltac shouldn't even be on this list.
V4s are awesome in Bikes!
All old vintage Ferrari race cars were built around the engine most importantly the headers
A few Years ago, This Arab Dude I ran into at a Shopping Center showed me the V10 in his BMW!
It was awesome!! It had 2 Batteries and he said that it needed 12 Quarts of Oil!!
Good video but there is a lot of misinformation. Still pretty spot one
1- The Ferrari V12 is nothing new, it's basically same idea as VW used since the 1930's: flat engine.
2. The VR5 is basically same idea as Lancia had already 1922 in Lambda, narrow angle V-engine but with one cylinder head.
3. The V4 did not have "limited success", it was used from 1962-1991 in german Fords (and Saab who bought it from Ford) and english Fords from 1965-1977 (English version who was not related to the german). The V4's was also base for Fords V6's.
4. Chrysler was not first with turbine engine in a car, Rover did that 1950.
5 to 3 was never in road cars.
2. The Bugatti W16 is not of same type as earlier V16, is is more like two narrow-angeled V8's (compare to Lancia V4 above).
1. It was Felix Wankel who invented the rotary engine 1953, and it was used in several NSU-cars, but also in some Citroen and M-B, long before Mazda bought the concept.
Don't you mean ferrari flat 12? Thats the one pictured and talked about in the video. Its not like the VW engine at all- the VW is a boxer engine same as subaru use. The flat 12 ferrari has the same type crank as a normal V12- opposite pistons share a crank journal same as the Jaguar V12. The crank journals are aligned at 120 degrees apart- same as an inline 6, giving perfect primary and secondary balance. Coincidentally a boxer 6 or 12 has equally good balance- the boxer 4 not so much, but better than inline 4's.
@@rossbrumby1957 You are correct, I mean flat12. Thanks for correcting my comment.
2. I believe the point here wasn't that it was a narrow-angle motor, but that it was a V motor with an odd piston count in the first place.
I think you mean flat 12 Ferrari.
A four-stroke V-16 has one cylinder firing every 45° of crankshaft rotation - NOT "as there's a power stroke occurring at almost every crankshaft rotation".
WTF does that even mean?
I wish idiots on youtube would actually bother to LEARN the subject matter before shooting off their mouths as if they are any kind of authority.
I have thought about this. If someone built a V16 engine with a four-plane crankshaft, it could have a power stroke every 22.5 degrees. It would hardly need a flywheel like that....
@christopherdean1326 do the math again. 8 cylinders fire with each rotation. 360° ÷ 8 = 45°.
You're right about one thing - flywheels for multicylinder engines are comparatively lighter.
@@richardkryston2990 360 divided by 16 is 22.5. So you're practically spot on.
@@TheSilverShadow17 but in a four stroke engine, each cylinder fires every 2nd rotation of the crankshaft.
Recheck your math again. I know whereof I speak.
And the original narrator of the video does not.
@@richardkryston2990 That's why I said that your calculation was right on the money. 22.5 degrees, 45 degrees, same difference. Just different approaches.
The Ferrari Flat 12 is literally a 180° V-12. A true flat 12 wouldbe an entirely different beast. For each set of opposed cylinders there would be two crank pins 180° offset from each other.
bruh, 180° V12 is literally called a flat engine.
@rellotsscrewdriver8996
Yes the layout is flat. But for all intense and purposes the Ferrari Flat 12 can be treated as a 180° V-12. The difference is between a Vee Type crankshaft with crank 6 throws and that of a Boxer type engine with two sets of six crank throws with one set 180° offset from the other. Boxer engines also tend to have a greater bore spread between cylinders for bores of equal diameter to accommodate the extra material needed in the crankshaft structure. This leads to a longer engine.
What about two propellers. Turn. Different ways
There wes a Toyota Ute that when i was younger we used to go shooting in that had a v4 motor , there seemed to be quiet a few of them k8cking arounf the Australian country, or should I say, outback.
If you have a 16 cylinder engine and it's a four-stroke engine that means you have four not less than one but four power strokes per revolution you have a power stroke every quarter turn of the crank get your numbers right dude
It sounds as though suv zone is narrated by Kevin Sorbo
5:59
Radial engines were NOT used in production-quantity cars.
Tanks on rare occasion, COMMON in aircraft.
SHOULD NOT BE ON THIS LIST.
Strictly speaking, Harley Davidson "Big Twins" are two cylinder radial engines...
@@christopherdean1326 Not really, though they borrowed some ideas perhaps.
6:46: Panhard; pronounced "puh-NARD", not "PAN-hard"!
Your government ordered the turbine engine to be destroyed it was going to cut of profits from oil industries
er, re flat 12 in bb and testi, they were on top of the trans so no so much low cg. street cars.
😅
I do love a wankle
This is a load of misinformation.