Any Good Sounding Diesel Engines?

EMD 567 V16's, Roots-scavenged. The later EMD's with turbos were a little too smooth.



Napier Deltic 18's. 88 liters of elegant English terror.



Detroit 20V-149's. Pissed off at the world.


My favorite is the EMD 567 engines also. Often see locos with that engine in 16 cylinder. Some 567-12 around still too, one G12 over here and some T43s. But the 645 engine sounds really good in the straight pipe Tb class:

Of car engines I like the sound of the MB OM629 V8 twin turbo, which I had in an E-class once.
 
That was such an awesome car to watch in real life. The onboard sound is nothing like what you hear when it is at full send on the track (From an observers POV). What you hear is the wind flowing over the car, some gear noise, and the brakes. That's about it, provided there were no other cars around. If there were, you couldn't hear it at all. Meanwhile, they're spanking the rest of the field. I used to have a couple of vids of it from the Petit Lemans one year, but I think they ended up lost to time.
As Dr. Ulrich once said, "Noise is not sexy; speed is sexy."
 
It has been 38 years since I drove a truck with a Detroit Diesel 2 stroke and still even today the though stirs hate,,, yes hate. I detest those engines. There is nothing like getting called a 6:30 pm and being asked to do an over night Hayward California to Los Angles turn [ Which was rather enjoyable] and getting to the yard and finding the truck has a Detroit 2 stroke engine instead of a Cummins.
 
.
Volkswagen inline 6, period. Used in VW LT trucks and some Volvos 30-40 years
ago. Some of the slowest Diesels I've ever driven, but very beautifully sounding.

Btw, it's Alfa Romeo and Peugeot.
.
 
Nearly any mechanical diesel sounds good to me, but the old Cat diesels with pre-combustion chambers really sound neat.
 
With some mods it sounds not bad...





I have hope that now that Peugot and FCA merged we might start to see some nice quirky new French designed cars in the US. A Dodge branded Peugot 2008 would be sweet. I'd prefer if they just brought Peugot back to the US but they've said that's not happening right now unfortunately.

baby-run-omg.gif


Nice quirky until US customers start to enjoy actual PSA quality: Puretech petrols with sparks, timming belts, brakes problems and HDi diesels braking injectors and Adblue tank under 60k miles many times out warranty. Here oficial services are overrun with TSB/Buletines, someone paying 1k-3k. As FCA and PSA lover and driver decades ago, I wouldn't buy a PSA even crazy today.
 
The French can't make a reliable engine if their life depended on it! :) :)

The only thing they have is purpose built race stuff.


It would appear that a lot of automakers in the world would disagree as there's million's of PSA diesel's under the hood's of Ford's, Volvo's, Jaguar's, Mitsubishi's, Suzuki's, Land Rover's, Mini's, etc. PSA knows how to make a great diesel engine, they've been doing it as long as anybody out there. Also Rudolf Diesel himself was born and raised in Paris, France and spent a decade working for Linde in France before transferring to it's Berlin location.
 
As Dr. Ulrich once said, "Noise is not sexy; speed is sexy."
And in typical German fashion during the 'Truth in 24' series he mentioned how all that noise is just wasted power.

Excellent film if you're even remotely into racing. Second one was ok, but the first one is really really good.
 
Prove it with examples!

Renault? HA! :)
Peugeot? HA
Fiat? HA!

I've personally seen what happened to the once great Nissan motor corp once they got in bed with Renault. Total garbage!
Odd Nissan had the Francois’s build a diesel.. they made diesels before they were cool. But yes, when I think of quality and reliability, I think of a French diesel. 🤣

Growing up, my neighbor put a 70-80’s Nissan diesel in a 1995 S10. It was on its 4th vehicle… roughly 600k. Still got 35 mpg too.
 
The TD27 was the best Nissan diesel, and probably the best Japanese too. Used in the London Cab. Also the 6 cyl TD42. Cast iron, geardrive cam and pushrods...bulletproof.

Found this good video of a rare 4 cyl Foden. Foden used a alloy exhaust manifold.

 
I loved the sound of the Ford/Navistar 7.3L, the Detroit 2-strokes and the S60 in MCI tour/commuter coaches bolted to an Allison B500R.

Cummins sound bleh to me, unless it’s an M11/ISM in a bus bolted to an Allison.
 
I've had alot of Peugeots and Citröens which hasn't been a problem reliability wise... Absolutely not any worse than the american cars I've had. I wonder if the nay-sayers actually owned a french car.
 
Back
Top