What design elements make an engine last?

[Quest]

Win-

Yes, CVCC engine does have it's shortfalls: excessive cam wear on the last lobe due to lubrication issues, rather weak gear oil poump, etc. That being said, however, I have an aircraft mechanic who owns an original CVCC engine block on his 76 civic which had his cam replaced twice (he was on his 3rd cam when I met him) and his car has been running beautifully, for over 206,000kms. Yes, you may say that the engine is filmsy but it sure beats a lot of big hunk of iron diet blocks IMHO and yet still passed stringent emissions control in the 70s w/ flying colours.

carock-
Honda had their share of troubles when they first put out all alu block and heads in the early 70s, with the 1st gen accords and civics being recalled after putting out in the market for a few months due to cylinder head gasket issues (uneven thermal expension caused tears on the head gasket materials in the original engine release). Honda engineers took on the matter seriously and came out with an ingenious solution: molybdium head gasket with "gliding" properties in providing some slippage/sliding under thermal expension, and also special moly head bolts that would "stretch" under thermal expansion (and Honda specified that these head bolts shall never be reused during engine rebuild).

I admire Honda engineering team's ingenuity and the ideas and technologies derived from motorcycle designs/racing.

my 2c's worth

 

[Win]

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I have an aircraft mechanic who owns an original CVCC engine block on his 76 civic which had his cam replaced twice (he was on his 3rd cam when I met him) and his car has been running beautifully, for over 206,000kms. Yes, you may say that the engine is filmsy

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An engine that takes three camshafts to get to a lousy 122,000 miles? I don't think I would be offering this up as an example of how to make an engine that lasts. If GM or Ford put out an engine that terrible, what kind of words would people use to describe it? I'll bet they would not be nearly so polite as "flimsy".

 

[cousincletus]

^^^Haha. My bro had a 1976 Honda (non-CVCC) he bought used with a blown engine @ 70,000 miles. Put a new (junkyard low miles) engine in it and it was smoking like a cropduster in another 40k miles. Not to mention the "biodegradable" body. Honda has come a long way but my opinion still not as good as GM for a long lasting 4 cyl. Iron Duke "4-Tech," OHC Cavalier, 2.2 Ecotec are all long lasting engines that get decent fuel mileage.

 

[NJC]

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I was trained to think that longevity was the result of expensive materials and tight tolerances in the 70's.That would be the Rolls Royce way. The real key is knowing how to predict exactly how all the components will behave, not over building because one lacks the knowlege of how components will behave.

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Eventually Honda had both. My '84 Accord shop manual specifies some of the engine parts in 4 tolerance zones of 6µm (.00024") each. That's very tight. And at 210K miles it's running very well.

And I found this article on CVCC. It's worth a read: http://www.1stgencivic.com/phpgdv2/service8.php

 

[g20ooh]

If I was putting a engine together cryrogenic treatment would be something I'd really like to incorporate at least selectively ( COST ) - didn't know that about the Volvo .....makes me wonder about temp vs. time for useful improvement .......and some things I left outside along time ago .

 

[g20ooh]

That first one is the old tried and true . You typically end up with a lot of room for user error which is offtopic ( or come to think of it , is really ? ) but always a good thing .

 

[gedcruise]

Oddly enough, our first Honda was a '76 Civic CVCC 1500. My wife purchased it new, before I even knew her.
We sold it some years later, after about 160K.
It did rust somewhat. I painted the car in '82 at about 100K. The front fenders were pretty bad, but Honda sportingly threw us a pair. There was moderate surface rust, which is not real easy to grind out. I replaced the fenders, repaired all the rust, wet sanded the whole thing, and layed on two decent coats of acrylic enamel, in the original screaming orange.
This car had perhaps the best gearbox I have ever had the pleasure to shift. It had decent room for such a tiny car. It handled like a go-kart, and that's also how it rode.
WRT the engine, I don't think it was exactly over-maintained in my wife-to-be's hands. I gave it 3K OCIs, using any cheap 10W-40 and sale filter.
The Civ would blow some smoke on start-up as she aged, probably due to worn valve guides. However, oil consumption remained low enough that oil additions between changes were never required.
Oh, last but least, fuel consumption was in the range of 32-34 mpg, with the 4 spd and 12" rims. This Civ was geared short enough that it would exceed engine redline (6 grand) in fourth.
All in all, a great car, that I really enjoyed driving and owning.

 

[g20ooh]

Oil/Cam issue ;
low oil pump wear/pressure " reserve "+ oil/other maint. program that speeds oil pump wear .
Then inadeq. oil topside and real quick bye- bye cam/bearing area .


Headgasket issue and all the joy that can bring ;
hot spot between #2 and #3 in head from said cylinder's CVCC and Exhaust port/valve locations too close together ( 4 items total ) combined with no coolant reserve in this area . This by itself won't do it ; you need a smallish cooling system malfunction/non optimality and you are there . To blow #2 headgasket essentially , but not always bad technique on repair . If the head got hot enough , long enough , that hot spot was a gasket killer from then on .
All in all , delicate comes to mind .
The flex in this engine had nothing to do with how it performed

 

[gedcruise]

If Honda built a '76 Civic 1500 CVCC replica, I'd be driving one to work the next day. A perfect car/engine? Probably not, but a great engineering compromise that worked really well in my hands.

 

[Gene K]

I would say there is more than one way to skin a cat.

1. 1960's 170ci Slant 6 Mopar

2. 1970's 392ci V-8 International

3. Toyota 22R 4cyl

4. MB 3.0L TurboDiesel

No particular order. The only thing I think these engines have in common is they all last a long time.

 

[Win]

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The flex in this engine had nothing to do with how it performed

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Mine was the 1.8L (1751 cc, IIRC) and you could sum up its performance (while it ran) in one word: woof!

 

[addyguy]

My stepmother had a late 1970's (1977 or 1978) CVCC Civic she bought new. By the time she joined the family, it was in pretty rough shape - lots of rust, bad breaks, blowing smoke...but my father loved it, and he actaully drove it more than she did. I never understood this, b/c he owned a 1978 Chev Malibu wagon that was in much better shape.

Years later, when I owned my own Civic and Corolla SR-5, I understood what he saw in the car - the much sportier and responsive handling of a small car, as opposed to his V-8 'tank'!

Incidentally, years later when I got my own Civic and asked my stepmom about hers, she said it was a perfectly reliable car for the first 6 years she owned it - just needed oil changes and tune-ups, nothing more, ever. Didn't even rust that much until it was about 7 years old, in Ottawa winters!
I'd love to find one as a collector car one day.....

 

[g20ooh]

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I would say there is more than one way to skin a cat.

( more than one way to eat'em too ! )

1. 1960's 170ci Slant 6 Mopar

2. 1970's 392ci V-8 International

3. NISSAN SR20DE 4cyl

4. MB 3.0L TurboDiesel

No particular order. The only thing I think these engines have in common is they all last a long time.

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I corrected your typo .

This way , the list now has equally comparable durability / design factors and engineering integrity .

Or was your list meant to be a compare and contrast between real and " perceived " ?

Perhaps a multiple choice question about which one doesn't belong ?

I see your point about different configurations , but if we are going to illustrate that point with an asian brand I4 , lets get a real one . I realise we all have our brand preferences either way , so if Nissan is on your " do not do " list we still have a lot more choices than I can list in front of the of the 22r .
As an example , about 80% - 90% of what Honda has put on the street in an I4 configuration since deciding to build automobiles . You probably had a good personal exp. with a 22r and your other listings ( I did ) , but really , toyota's proper role here would as illustrator of every possible combination of " how not to " that I can think of . And let me give credit where credit is due , they have come up with a few I didn't think were possible .
The 22r for three , maybe four years as sold here , is possibly one of toyotas better efforts ; but thats like saying " he had the nicest smile " after the bell has rung three times - not really what we 're looking for here , if you follow . Another way to say it ,( although I don't take it personnally

) is that putting the 22R and any of the Mopar Slant Sixes or the Mopar Slant Fives on the same page is kinda' insulting . The 22R belongs at least seven or so pages down wind from the Mopar and for that matter , the Harvester or the MB .

This revised list now has four different engine configurations that incorporate every important design feature listed on this thread so far .

 

[carock]

Hey, I forget the Chrysler Slant Six. Did any car with one of those engines ever get junked because the engine went bad? Along with the Volvo engines, these could have been the longest lived engines ever. I have no idea why they lasted so long. What design features did they have? The materials were nothing special.Everybody else was making similar engines, none of which were so successful.

 

[GT Mike]

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Plus if the engine has a stupidly small sump size relative to the engine size, that can hurt.

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One exception to the rule is the old Dodge 3.9L Magnum V6. Basically a 318 V8 with two cylinders cut off. It only held 4 quarts with filter!
They were rough, shaky, gutless, and thirsty, but ran forever. 250,000 miles or more was not uncommon at all. The timing chains sounded like they were going to leap right out of the front cover, but they sounded like that at 80,000 too, but rarely, if ever, have I seen one fail regardless of how noisy they were.

That engine was the butt of a lot of jokes and slams on the Dakota and Ram that it resided in mainly. You bought the 3.9 if you wanted a vehicle with the power of a 4-cylinder and the fuel consumption of a large V8.
They drank a lot of fuel, but they drank it for a long, long time.

 

[g20ooh]

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Hey, I forget the Chrysler Slant Six. Did any car with one of those engines ever get junked because the engine went bad? Along with the Volvo engines, these could have been the longest lived engines ever. I have no idea why they lasted so long. What design features did they have? The materials were nothing special.Everybody else was making similar engines, none of which were so successful.

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Hello carock ,
Actually the slant six was very , very good to first class from a material point of view , particularly the cylinder head . I no longer have the info , but if you can find an accurate description its quite interesting . I can remember part of it ; chromium , nickel , magnesium , manganese , and I think lithium but in any case 2 - 4 others as well . Here and else where the term " pig iron " is thrown around as if all " iron " heads and blocks where made from the same " low " grade material ( Thank you chevrolet !

) - nothing could be farther from the truth . There were/are more variations in iron " formulas " than is commonly known , or for that matter , with the aluminum alloys used in engine blocks and heads today . In fact , the older , " better iron " formulas ( all of which are almost all domestic USA 1960 - 1972ish production ) were close to mild grade steel in properties and if memory serves many actually/almost qualified for that term . Then there is all the other stuff surrounding what you do with the formula ie " casting technology " ....
Given the effect this all has on cost/competitive advantages its
understandable why all the above have been traditionally some of the Most closely guarded secret - by all the manufacturers - right up there with let me think , ... well ... hmmm.....hmmmm ...... - Toyota headgasket intermittent , partial , and partial intermittent performance or more accurately , failure .
If you can find any of the real formulas for the 2nd GEN . Chrysler Hemi ( 426 all ) you will wonder about a lot of things , including some things Honda is doing with aluminum and BMW in general .
It would be interesting to know more about your Volvo in this regard as well . The " yaa shure " gang has always been pretty good with iron and steel . Certian gun barrels , breeches and receivers come to mind as well as some armor and smallcraft hull metal .

 

[flacoman]

Datsun L16& 18's! Tough to kill, but that wonderful Hitachi carburator was a bugger. My B210 was returning its body panels back to iron ore , but that powerplant just did not die; speedo cable broke at 250ish thousand miles, finally broke a u-joint 6 months later. Sold the thing for $400,the guy got a junkyard driveshaft(u-joints were integral) and it kept on truckin' years after that
my2c
Jorge

 

[carock]

The Datsun 240 Z was another great one. In 1984 a mechanic/coworker of mine owned a 240Z. We lived in San Jose and he had a girlfriend in San Diego, about 500 miles away. He drove down to see her most every weekend and he had put 350K on the car and never even had a valve job. At that time it was the most mileage I had ever heard of without a rebuild. From what I understand, most of these engines died from timing chains breaking if the car was not wrecked first. All in all, Datsun made some block buster cars. What happened with Nissan? Biggest mistake of my professional life was being a Euro car snob and ignoring the Japanese cars when they got started. Can you believe that at one time I thought an MGB was a "better" car than a 240Z