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Think how much better it would have been with fuel injection instead of a carburetor! And maybe with electronic ignition instead of a magneto and distributor. Yes, I know the electronic ignition would be decades away, but they could have done fuel injection.
Greg P
As you mention fork and blade to keep case short as possible. That is what the VW design does. I think 16 cylinders packed into a v8 size engine is great.
Aero engine companys disagree? For them to engineer and get FAA aproval, the cost is prohibitive, they will keep the old design forever at that rate.
The VW W8 and W12 and W16 design would have been a very desired design back in the day they were trying to increase cylinder density and keep size and weight down. That is why I think its nice. Fork and blade is not a good rod design, its heavy and difficult to manufacture. It increases complexity. The good old side by side works just great, in high performance engines of all sorts. Oh its not a Bugatti engine, it was designed and manufactured by VW.
W16 engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia