It's a Coyote. Right?
No. A 1940's tank engine. I'm amazed at the history I don't know.
It's a Coyote. Right?
No. A 1940's tank engine. I'm amazed at the history I don't know.
It displaces 1,100 cu in (18 l) and puts out well over 1,000 pound-feet (1,400 N⋅m) of torque from idle to 2,200 rpm. The factory-rated gross output was 500 hp (370 kW) at 2,600 rpm.
I'd read histories of the M4 Sherman. Quite a few engines in it, air cooled radial, Chrysler multibank, and something plainly called a Ford V-8. I read that and thought, Jesus, they're asking a lot from a flathead.
There's a guy somewhere who crammed one of those into a 1970 Mustang car...I don't remember where but I saw the website a few years back with construction photos.
A 401 CJ said:It's a Coyote. Right?
No. A 1940's tank engine. I'm amazed at the history I don't know.
Was it a flat plane? That would have made for an uneven firing order given that it was 60 degrees. (Was originally intended to be a V12 aircraft engine, but the AAC was only interested in the Allison liquid cooled engines, and the Navy only wanted air cooled radials, so they said berk it, make it a V8 and put it in tanks.)
The neat thing to me is that it was designed as a single unit crankcase and cylinder assembly, unlike then-common practice (is part of why the Flathead was so revolutionary), making the engine block the largest ever single aluminum casting... in the world.
Bunch of pics and tech info Note that it has shaft drive for the camshafts with worm gears!
The head-on cross-section drawing sure does make it look like a flat plane crank.
Something about huge displacement. Makes me almost wish I'd been born 40 years earlier. Or 50
Here's one of those GAA engines in a pulling tractor with a pair of turbochargers and the moon tune. It literally blows the left bank of cylinders clean off the engine. Probably one of the wildest blow-ups I've ever seen.
Appleseed said:I'd read histories of the M4 Sherman. Quite a few engines in it, air cooled radial, Chrysler multibank, and something plainly called a Ford V-8. I read that and thought, Jesus, they're asking a lot from a flathead.
I'd pay money to see a Ford flathead multibank.
In reply to paddygarcia :
It was a five or six bank Dodge flathead-six based engine. Wild stuff.
Exactly - I want to see that with 5x 221 flathead V8s :-)
Where do people even find the old tank engines, anyway? Were they largely scrapped like WW1 equipment?
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
There are a lot of them still in Africa.
Occasionally people in Eastern Europe will find one sunk deep in mud under a lake or river or something and pull it out.
There's a German guy who does a YouTube channel of just going around old battlefields and finding rifles, helmets, etc.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
On a massive thread tangent, I read in one place that the steam turbines that were used for Liberty Ships have found homes in low pressure steam situations- like geothermal wells.
More on line to this thread... More than once, I've wonder "what could have been" had one of the OEM's did an OHC engine from a flat head design. I had no idea that Ford did this pretty advanced valvetrain engine before they did the pushrod, valve in head, V8. Way before. They had the technology and knowledge to go from flathead/valve in block to a DOHC design in the 40s.
Sure- cost for all of the parts is a big, big deal. But it also could have easily been simplified to a single cam per bank.
And then the idea of an all aluminum engine.... Again, about 50 years before Ford had an honest, all aluminum engine in production.
Man, what could have been....
(it's kind of shocking that 20 years later, Ford didn't do an aluminum V8 for CanAm before GM did, considering they had already done a massive aluminum engine in the 40s)
In reply to alfadriver :
Machining was almost all manual, and Ford made their money by finding ways to streamline production so the assembly line could move faster. Sure, lots of people had DOHC engines back then, but they were all hideously expensive, largely hand-tooled devices.
The combination valve guide and cam bucket holder in the GAA is an example of that philosophy, as it made head manufacturing a lot simpler to set up, and therefore cheaper.
My father managed a tank maintainance batallion during WW2. He was not overly fond of the GAA! He said they shook the whole tank to pieces from the basic imbalance in the 60 degree V8. Those tanks did not have rubber engine mounts either....
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
There are a lot of them still in Africa.
And to think, I wanted to go to Africa just to see the world and join my friends visiting family before this comment.
inb4 "Renault FT Tank build thread" or "Tank engine Roadster".
Wikipedia should come with a warning about it being a serious rabbit hole.
I had set off for one reason or another looking for something on New Gothic architecture which led me to Gothic Architecture which led me to the Cathedral in Cologne which led me to one of the most epic tank battles in WW2 (or any period actually) that took place at the front door of said cathedral. This then, is how I learned about the GAA
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