Top 10's....

[Lucky13]

Which are greatest/best car engines ever made?
Which are greatest/best motorcycles ever made?

Just bored and a tad unwell, thought that this could be interesting...and fun! 8)

 

[tomo pauk]

That 10 cyl monster that powered Dodge Viper...

 

[T Bolt]

Chevy 409
I had a collage roommate that had a 62' Impala with one in it. Scary!!!

 

[Lucky13]

Just as iconic as the Hemi.....love the 348 and 409! I know.....Chevy!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

426 Hemi

 

[T Bolt]

Just as iconic as the Hemi.....love the 348 and 409! I know.....Chevy!

I had a buddy of mine identify a 409 in the dark one time. It amazed the he*l out of me. I had just finished collage and had my first real job and was looking for some classic to spent that money on. we were going to see a Chevy that was advertised as having a 409 in it. It was dark when we got there and my buddy stopped me at the car telling me he was going to check and see if it really had a 409 in it. He opened the hood and felt the valve covers and confirmed it was a 409. The only engine with those strange shaped valve covers. The only problem was the gaping rust holes all over the body. I took a pass on the car and ended up with my 50' Chevy pickup with its little 216. Had it longer than my Wife now!

 

[ToughOmbre]

Not the biggest, but a classic small block....

Chevy 283

Motorcycles? There's only one.....

Harley Davidson

TO

 

[Lucky13]

Didn't the '348 have the same covers?

 

[T Bolt]

Just did a quick search and your absolutely right Jan I guess my friend didn't know as much as he lead me to believe!
I'm not familiar with the 348. Was it a 409 with a smaller bore?
I just know that 409 my roommate had went like He*l....or maybe it was a 348....... Just ignore me...

 

[Lucky13]

Who said that?

 

[T Bolt]

That will teach me to stick to something I really know about!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I had an old boss who came from a very wealthy family and they bought him a 409 Impala that he used to race at various places in SoCal in the early 1960s. he told me at first chevy had it locked down with their 327s and 409s until Chrysler came along with the 413 and later 426. He said after that it was a matter of the owner/ driver to really work on his car to keep it competitive.

He said he had nigthmares of the 413 Wedge...

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Great site!

The Chrysler Hemi page

 

[Colin1]

Alot of great Yank iron getting discussed here and it's easy to see why, I'd give my eye-teeth for some of it.

My favourite engine isn't quite as famous

The 2.0 16v C20 X E (redtop)
Most of the volume car manufacturers were hotting their hatches up with breathed-on 8v units. The head of GM Europe summoned his engineering senior staff and told them to come up with something that would blow the competition away. They did.

They created a 16v head and replaced the bottom end crank train with Mahler parts. Engine management was the aggressive Bosch Motronic 2.8. It was a track engine disguised as a road engine, but only just. Peak torque was 145lbf@4600rpm and the horses were 150bhp@6000rpm. The fun was there but you had to be driving pretty damn fast to be getting the best out of it. Bore and stroke were 86mm and compression ratio 10.5:1, which stopped short of all-out race engine.

The 8v hot hatches were totally blown away by this comparative monster.

It was and still is very tuneable, alot of companies still producing aftermarket enhancements for an engine that ceased production in 1994. Will still make a more modern performer work hard for it.

Not a refined engine, a healthy unit will sound quite raspy to the uninitiated. New EEC directives on emissions eventually sealed its demise. A great engine, for me; still has a big fanbase of followers.

--------------------------

Mine's on the bench down to nuts'n'bolts, all the reusable bits mostly chemically cleaned up by now, rebuild should start in the next few weeks. Looking at fast road cams and a lighter flywheel as add-ons. Remap once it's road-going.

Edit: Almost forgot, only had one motorcycle and that was a Harley-Davidson 1340cc FXSTC. Fantastic fun for plodding around on. Didn't handle, you had to get off and push it round corners in the rain.
That would be my fave motorcycle engine, loved the agricultural long-stroke beat of the motor but the vibration through the frame at speeds over 80mph would probably render you sterile. If you stopped for a coffee after a high-speed run, it was impossible to talk to anyone unless they were vibrating at the same frequency as you.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I think I'd have to pick the 427cid Side Oiler with the downdraft Inglese carbs that powered the GT 40 to over 230 miles per hour at Le Mans.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I had a friend who owned one of these... Brit and Yank Iron!

 

[GrauGeist]

The 348 and the 409 were the same block, just a different bore stroke.

There were two 409 engine options, the L-31 and the L-33...the L-31 was the 400 horse and the L-33 was the 340 horse version.

I had the L-33 in my '54 Ford Customliner (the 409 came from a 1963 Impala)

I know alot of you will raise your eyebrows at my favorite engine, but it's the Chevy L-6, specifically the 250 (4.1 liter) engine. With a little work, it's a force to recon with at the drags...I ran 'em successfully for years in my 1962 Chevy Nova 400...

 

[Colin1]

I had a friend who owned one of these... Brit and Yank Iron!

8)

Good examples swap hands for mucho money now

Jensen : One of only 88 RHD Interceptor Convertibles

 

[Messy1]

The 409 has a X cast into the front of the block on the drivers side, right above the water pump, I have been told by some that is a definite mark of a 409, and by others that it does not mean anything, so I guess it depends on who you talk too. I guess after doing some more reading, there are some accounts that it means the block was a 348 truck block.

My personal favorites-I am a little biased towards Mopars just to warn everyone!
1-426 Hemi
2-440 6 Pack (very close second!)
3-Any Flathead Ford
4-340 6 Pack
5-Jaguar XKE inline 6 engines. Always though they looked cool.

 

[tomo pauk]

Alot of great Yank iron getting discussed here and it's easy to see why, I'd give my eye-teeth for some of it.

Same here

My favourite engine isn't quite as famous

The 2.0 16v C20 X E (redtop)
Most of the volume car manufacturers were hotting their hatches up with breathed-on 8v units. The head of GM Europe summoned his engineering senior staff and told them to come up with something that would blow the competition away. They did.

....

Great engine, found in many Kaddets, Calibras Vectras. The Kadett GSi 16V is a rather notorious for it's powerful engine and not-so-good handling - two friends of a friend of mine got killed while negotiating harmless curve