What is the rarest or strangest, unusual engine you have owned?

1974 Saab Sonett with the Ford V-4 engine. Quite unusual. Had a balance shaft and exhaust came right out of the heads into the tailpipe without any manifold. It had an air cleaner that was shaped like the starship Enterprise. The transmission had a sprag clutch so it could freewheel. That was a holdover from the 3 cylinder 2 stroke engine the V-4 replaced. The idea was that in a two stroke, going downhill without your foot in the carb, there was scant oil going into the engine, so the freewheel kept the engine at idle when coasting. Was a neat little car and a lot of fun. But, not very fast with a 65 HP engine.
 
1983 (or 84 can't remember!) Z28 Camaro with V8 Cross-Fire injection. T-Tops didn't leak!! I never had an issue with the engine but the CPU would tank about a year to 18months time after time after time...
 
International Harvester model M diesel farm tractor.

Go the the parts store for a set of points and condenser, they thought I was messing with them.
It had a distributor and started on gas to warm, then you switched it to diesel.




I saw an autopian article about this recently. One of the weirdest setups I've ever seen.
 
The weirdest car engine combo had to be a guy that brought in his vw golf that was converted to rear engine. I have pics somewhere. I had to ask why apparently "It's different was the reply I got."
 
I have a. BMW M6 with a 6-speed manual, and a Viper ACR with forced induction, running a strengthened manual 6-speed. Neither is terribly common. At least it's rare when I see another example of either.
I saw a posting on a BMW forum asking who had a manual transmission bmw m6 gran coupe or the 4-door. Apparently they were sold in double digits. I thought the post was 80 convertibles which seemed weird and 46 hard tops. The weird thing is that the BMW e60 M5 was only offered with the manual transmission in the north America market. Europe only got the 7 speed smg.
 
Probably my 1927 Fairbanks-Morse flywheel engine.

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I didn't own it, but I had the honor of rebuilding a 1931 Model A engine with some upgrades. I sent the OEM camshaft out to get welded and custom lobes ground. I also used a Burtz "high compression" head to raise the static compression from 4.2:1 to 6.6:1. I don't know how much power it picked up (wish I would've had it dyno'd before and after), but it had a lot more spunk to it. The owner was very pleased.

As far as engines I've owned, probably my '66 Ford 289.
 
I didn't own it, but I had the honor of rebuilding a 1931 Model A engine with some upgrades. I sent the OEM camshaft out to get welded and custom lobes ground. I also used a Burtz "high compression" head to raise the static compression from 4.2:1 to 6.6:1. I don't know how much power it picked up (wish I would've had it dyno'd before and after), but it had a lot more spunk to it. The owner was very pleased.

As far as engines I've owned, probably my '66 Ford 289.
A 289 is hardly rare or unusual.
 
The weirdest car engine combo had to be a guy that brought in his vw golf that was converted to rear engine. I have pics somewhere. I had to ask why apparently "It's different was the reply I got."
In the late 90s, a friend of a friend in Fitchburg, MA, had a hobby of building sleepers. He was a natural genius and designed and machined a supercharger for the popular Saturn sedan of the time. That was his daily driver and it boggled my mind how fast it was and how well it handled.

He tried to sell my then-girlfriend a monstrosity of a car, a Honda CRX with a longitudinally-mounted rear V8 of some sort. I only saw it once and admittedly never saw it actually drive. It was like a DeLorean where you opened the hatch and the belts were right there at the extreme rear. I believe the intent was racing as the cabin was stripped and hardly insulated from the engine noise and fumes. No idea what happened to that car— I cut ties with the guy when his name made headlines for some serious crimes.
 
1995 Ford Taurus SHO with the 3.0 Yamaha V-6 and 5 spd manual. A jewel of an engine protected by a rather mundane car.
My brother had one and got into the niche tuning scene for them. I think he had his nearly 350hp at some crazy line 8500tpm. Those Yamaha engines would rev forever and be smooth doing it. Incredible sounding engine.
 
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