crazy engine designs

[Rick in PA]

The recent post regarding the Mini engine where a vacuum pump failure seizes the cam leading to total engine destruction got me to thinking about dumb and crazy engine design.

My wife (then girlfriend) had a Ford Escort. It was a good, reliable little car, except that occasion when the timing belt failed on the turnpike leaving her stranded. My brother had it towed to his shop. He explained that the timing belt ran a tortuous path and usually failed at 50k to 60k miles. Gee, thanks for giving me the heads up on that one, bro. At least it had a non-interference engine, so all that had to be done was replace the timing belt.

I had a buddy at work who had a Renault Alliance (as I remember). It had a similar problem, the timing belt ran a tortuous path and tended to fail early. The problem was that it was an interference engine. When the timing belt failed it trashed the engine. Of course if you had an Alliance with a trashed engine and tried to find a used engine from a junk yard there were none to be found. All the junkyard engines had similarly trashed engines. I remember seeing an Alliance in the junkyard, fine body, nice interior, ah I thought, another victim of the timing belt.

My brother and I were at the auto show a couple of years ago and spotted a cut-away engine on display (I believe it was a Ford). We were both surprised to see the water pump located behind and driven by the cam chain. A leak from the coolant pump would drain directly into the crankcase and replacing the water pump involved removal and replacement of the timing chain. It didn't seem like a good place to put a water pump.

Going back aways, the Chevy Corvair (with an air cooled engine) had pushrod tubes that were sealed to the block and head with o-rings. Of course, after time the o-ring seal would fail and leak oil. That would be a nuisance except for the fact that the cooling air from the engine also heated the passenger compartment in the winter time. So then you had oil fumes inside the car.

I don't want to start a trash-talk thread, just observations of less than optimal design. Your observations? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Bluestream]

How about The Ariel square four?

 

[fdcg27]

In the case of the Corvair, as well as all flat four VWs, better aftermarket seals were available that reduced the incidence of leaks from the ends of the pushrod tubes.
With most VWs, the pushrod tubes could be removed pretty easily without any major dissasembly and the seals then replaced.
Not sure about the Corviar's flat six, although I did own two of them.
Heat for either the VWs or the Corvair came from a sheet metal muff around the exhaust, so oil fumes weren't usually a problem.
CO2 could be, though.
With either a Corvair or an air-cooled VW, the available combustion heater was a very wise buy for a car used in a climate featuring months of cold winter.
I often wished that we had had one on the '81 Vanagon we owned and drove for many years. The litre an hour rated fuel consumption would have been well worth it on cold days, although the VW could at least keep the windshield clear and you might have felt cool but never really cold. It was not a shirt sleeve car in below freezing weather, though.

 

[NHGUY]

The 2.7 Chrysler has water pump inside engine,so when the seal leaks it can fill the crankcase with coolant.

 

[Chris142]

I did a WP/Timing belt job on a Hyundai V6. The engine was overbuilt. Bolts everywhere,in places you cant access. Plus only 1.5 inches of room to work between the engine and body of the car.

 

[ledslinger]

Early VWs up until about 1965 or so, used cooling air which could contain fumes for heating the car interior. Later bugs used an enclosed finned casting on the exhaust manifolds to heat the interior. Much less chance of oil fumes with the later system. Don't know about Corvair's system, other than on my brother's, it would stink and you'd get dizzy.

 

[CT8]

Ferrari engines suck.

 

[artificialist]

If you are going to complain about timing belts, you might as well complain all of them. Whoever decided to put one on the Nissan VG-series engine should be gagged with a timing belt just to send a lesson. Half the staff responsible for the cars it went in should also suffer.

Anyway, a design I don't like is the VW W8 engine found on a few VW Passat models. It took 7 balance shafts in order to stop the engine from vibrating too much, and I don't even like when an engine uses 1 balancing shaft.

SAAB made a V6 engine that I absolutely didn't like. They called it "Asymmetric Turbocharging" when they had one row of cylinders connected to a turbo, and one row not connected. I never liked having 1 turbo on a V-engine anyway, it almost always led to a convoluted exhaust system design.

Cadillac HT4100. Aluminum block, iron heads? What were they thinking?

Pontiac 301 Turbo. It should have made way more power than it did.

The Nissan KA24DE engine was great in the Hardbody and Frontier, but they really screwed up by putting that in the Nissan Silvia, then selling that to the USA. Whoever did that can go next to the guy who put a timing belt on the Nissan VG-engine, and several members of the staff that created the R35 GT-R.

VW 1.8T 150HP. That wasn't much power for an engine with a turbo during that time. Years before that, the Corrado G60 had more power from the same size engine, and the engine was far simpler to build.

VW Wasserboxer. They should have just altered the Vanagon to use the water cooled Golf engine. After all, they did that to the diesel Vanagon, and it worked. All sorts of engine swaps have been created because the VW Wasserboxer was such a bad idea.

1992-1997 LT1 and LT4. Who decided to put the water pump in front of the distributor? If they really wanted to upgrade the ignition system over the TPI V8, they could have used 4 of their waste-spark coils.

There are many V6 engines I don't like, and the Ford 4.0 SOHC is another good example. Timing chains aren't an advantage if they are prone to failure, and require extra labor to replace versus a belt.

 

[JetStar]

The Corvair heater did not use the exhaust system for heat, it was circulated around the cylinders. A '65 Monza 140Hp was my first car. First thing I had to do was push rod tube O-rings, pan gasket, valve cover gaskets, then no more oil leaks.

 

[tig1]

I have replaced Escort timing belts and they do not have a tortuous path. Also they don't break belts every 50-60K.

 

[artificialist]

My grandmother owned a Corvair, but because she lived in Texas at the time, she didn't need to use that weird heater very often. She did say that what caused her trouble was that the cooling fan belt was failure prone and difficult to find, probably because the belt had to make a 90 degree turn.

 

[Robenstein]

The Cadillac Northstar engine had the starter under the intake.

And let us not forget the vintage Crosley sheet metal engines that were brazed together.

 

[Spazdog]

GM LQ1 DOHC 3.4 V6

What appears to be the original OHV cam chain drives a jackshaft that then drives the timing belt.

The alternator is a contortion session to replace and Delco-Remy CS-series alternators are not known for their longevity. Might help if you were born with an extra elbow in the middle of your arm At minimum, you will have to remove the wheel, fender liner, and outer tie rod end to twist your arm in there.

Oil pump drive seal. Hold over from the distributor. Will dump oil liberally and is a nightmare to replace a .50 cent o-ring.


Then there's Volkswagen. What's up with the fusebox being mounted on top of the battery?

Okay, it is better than Chrysler stuffing it under the fender. The 2-point-slow plugs are way more difficult than they need to have been.

 

[eljefino]

BIL's ecotec cavalier ran the power steering pump off one of the cams.

Surprise, cold winter brings gelatenous PS fluid, which was the final straw for the timing chain, which jumped to a premature death.

My dad has a flathead ford, the coolant jacket goes around the exhaust somehow, picking up heat it doesn't have to, and is horribly ineffecient.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: artificialist
VW 1.8T 150HP. That wasn't much power for an engine with a turbo during that time.

Corporate/marketing shenanigans. At the same time when this engine was out, VW/Audi also had a 2.8 V6 engine that was only making 190 HP. So they decided to limit the output of the 1.8T to distance it from the V6, so that they could justify a premium in price for the V6. In later years, when the 2.8 V6 got replaced with a more powerful 3.0 V6, they upped the 1.8T to 170 HP. Of course, with aftermarket tuning you could get significantly more than that.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Early BMW N47 (diesel) had timing chain issues. The chains are mounted on the back of the engine and IIRC the sprockets were welded to the cam.

 

[hattaresguy]

VW's put out a few abortions, the W12 comes to mind, VR6 as well.

I never understood the need for 20 timing chains on the back of a motor, just makes fixing it harder.

 

[mattwithcats]

The 5.7 liter Oldsmobile Diesel...

Same number of headbolts as the gas version, but twice the compression.
Fail...

Engine was poorly manufactured, and also subject to hydrolocking due to water in the fuel...

 

[Kruse]

My brother has a 2008 or 2009 John Deere combine. (For those of you who don't know, a combine is a machine that harvests agricultural crops) Just a couple of months ago during harvest, the engine lost power and died without warning. The dealership loaded it up on a semi trailer and took it in. The engine completely destroyed itself. The head was beyond repair and the block had major damage also. My brother and I are cousins to the shop mechanic, so we got the scoop on repairs. It turns out that this same mechanic fixed three identical combines during harvest that all had the same problem. All three combines were about the same year and each one had about 1500 hours on it. Each combine had cylinder #4 destroyed. John Deere has yet to admit anything.
The cost of his repair is $16,000. Yep, sixteen grand.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: Kruse
My brother has a 2008 or 2009 John Deere combine. (For those of you who don't know, a combine is a machine that harvests agricultural crops) Just a couple of months ago during harvest, the engine lost power and died without warning. The dealership loaded it up on a semi trailer and took it in. The engine completely destroyed itself. The head was beyond repair and the block had major damage also. My brother and I are cousins to the shop mechanic, so we got the scoop on repairs. It turns out that this same mechanic fixed three identical combines during harvest that all had the same problem. All three combines were about the same year and each one had about 1500 hours on it. Each combine had cylinder #4 destroyed. John Deere has yet to admit anything.
The cost of his repair is $16,000. Yep, sixteen grand.

I'm surprised a green engine is that cheap actually. Especially in a $100-200-300k machine. I bet $16k included some manufacturer good will.

I think our worst engine was the Mitsubishi 3.0L V6 in our 1989 Caravan. At about 5 years it started burning oil and then one day the smoke turned from blue to white when a headgasket went... It also ate 2 transmissions...