OK, deliberately inflammatory thread title; call it Adrian’s GRM click bait. 
I’ve discovered that the current series ‘McLaren M838T’ series of engines used in all the McLaren street cars since 2010 was based off the architecture they purchased the rights to from Tom Walkinshar Racing. That engine in itself was developed from the older Nissan VRH series of engines dating back to the Nissan Croup C and IMSA engines of the late 80’s. It also spawned the Infinity Indy car engine. So rather than saying McLaren road cars use a Nissan engine, perhaps I should have said that the road cars use a Group C / Indy car engine!!
I discovered this after getting pissed off at people saying Maserati are using Chrysler engines. Looking into that it turns out the some of the block castings used by Maserati for their F136 engines are made by Pentastar. The truth is the engine was designed by, and are still machined and built by Ferrari for Maserati. Calling an engine ‘Chrysler’ because a casting comes from America is a bigger stretch than I made in the title.
On the same engine. When Maserati launched the Coupe in 2001 with the F136 engine everyone called it a ‘Ferrari’ engine. Well the first use of the engine series was by Maserati, Ferrari didn’t use it until 2004 with the F430, and so should we say that Ferrari’s use Maserati or even Chrysler engines? The engine was also used for the A1 GP Cars, so maybe Maserati use Single seater race engines. Yes, I know there are massive differences between the different engines like cross or flat plane cranks, wet or dry sump, different capacities etc. etc. but this is fun.
Anymore?
The XJ220 engine was based on the old Group B Metro 6R4 engine. The early mules of which used a pushrod Rover V8 block with the middle cut out and welded back together to make a V6 which was then heavily heavily machined. The Rover V8 came from the old Old’s 215, so did the XJ220 use an Olds Engine?
The Repco Brabham 3.0L V8 F1 engine used modified Rover/Olds blocks in Grand Prix cars.
This is a silly fun exercise. Anyone got some other good tenuous engine history stories?
STM317
HalfDork
1/12/17 11:48 a.m.
Not exactly the same thing, but Aston Martin's vaunted 6.0L V12 is really just 2 Ford Taurus 3.0 Duratecs that share a crankshaft. The same 3.0L Duratec was put into Noble/Rossion mid-engine supercars with a couple of hairdryers bolted to it.
Adrian_Thompson wrote: The truth is the engine was designed by, and are still machined and built by Ferrari for Maserati. Calling an engine ‘Chrysler’ because a casting comes from America is a bigger stretch than I made in the title.
Someone once told me that all certain automotive components are forged in China because there aren't any US companies doing it anymore that aren't OEMs. But everyone claims (legally) that theirs are made in the USA because the only things coming out of China are unmachined forgings, which are considered to be raw materials...
So in this case Chrysler is just shipping raw materials to Italy, if they aren't just "Chrysler" (Fiat) to begin with...
It went backwards too... the "Audi" engines that AMC sold were machined in the USA, Audi only sent them raw castings. That's why the tolerance on a Gremlin engine is so much different than a 924.
Nissan used a licensed BMC Mini engine in their cars and a variant ended up in forklifts 
The pump-into-F1-engine story of the Coventry Climax is my favorite, though.
Keith Tanner wrote:
Nissan used a licensed BMC Mini engine in their cars and a variant ended up in forklifts
The pump-into-F1-engine story of the Coventry Climax is my favorite, though.
...then developed into the Hillman IMP engine. No one believed me in high school when i said my Imp had an F1 engine 
STM317 wrote:
Not exactly the same thing, but Aston Martin's vaunted 6.0L V12 is really just 2 Ford Taurus 3.0 Duratecs that share a crankshaft. The same 3.0L Duratec was put into Noble/Rossion mid-engine supercars with a couple of hairdryers bolted to it.
And aren't those Duratec engines supposedly based on a Porsche design?
The Buick 215 story is way, way more complicated than that. It started life as an aluminum V8 in the new smaller GM's in 1961, and even with the first turbocharger in the Oldsmobile Jetfire. Ma GM killed it after 1963 due to costs and Repco bought out the surplus of the 6-bolt per cylinder Oldsmobile versions to modify into the RB620 that Brabham used to with the 1966 F1 Championship. Rover ended up buying the rights to the 5-bolt Buick/Pontiac version and modified it into the infamous Rover V8, use din everything from Land Rovers to TVR's. GM later tried to buy it back from ROver, but a deal was never worked out.
Continuing the story, in 1962 GM lopped 2 cylinders off of the 215 to make a V6, but with an iron block, called the Fireball. In 1967 they sold this engine to Kaiser-Jeep, who later was bought buy AMC. This was the "Dauntless" motor. In a brilliant move, AMC sold it back to GM who updated it to the 231. That engine evolved into ultimately the GN / GNX motor and of course infamously won the Indy 500 with a stock block. GM still wasn't done though, as they turned the thing 90 degrees and made the 3800. That motor was later famously supercharged in the Pontiac Grand Prix GTP (and others) and became yet another hot rod motor, including use in the Formula Holden series. The 3800 Series II was wildly modified, including getting turned back 90 degrees again and ending up in RWD Camaro's and Firebird's.
The Buick 215 is easily the engine that spawned the most variants and had the most production, and then won F1 and Indy to top it off.
(In a bit of cockney) "ya know Adrian, I've always fancied your threads"
The 1uzfe design was copied by BMW for their v8. (And since I know some skeptics are gonna call me out, here's the link!)
http://www.lextreme.com/1uzfe_info.html
This info pales in comparison to that Buick 215 story.... that's nuts.
CyberEric wrote:
STM317 wrote:
Not exactly the same thing, but Aston Martin's vaunted 6.0L V12 is really just 2 Ford Taurus 3.0 Duratecs that share a crankshaft. The same 3.0L Duratec was put into Noble/Rossion mid-engine supercars with a couple of hairdryers bolted to it.
And aren't those Duratec engines supposedly based on a Porsche design?
Yes, the Duratec was originally a Porsche V6, but they sold it to Ford, who manufactured it as a V6 for Ford, Mazda, and turned it into the Jaguar AJV6. This one also gets wacky with the development, as Noble bolted turbos to a version for the M400, and Ford themselves added 2 cylinders to turn it into the 3rd Gen SHO's V8. Then yes, Aston Martin stuck two 3.0L V6's together to make their V12, which is still in production.
Javelin wrote:
CyberEric wrote:
STM317 wrote:
Not exactly the same thing, but Aston Martin's vaunted 6.0L V12 is really just 2 Ford Taurus 3.0 Duratecs that share a crankshaft. The same 3.0L Duratec was put into Noble/Rossion mid-engine supercars with a couple of hairdryers bolted to it.
And aren't those Duratec engines supposedly based on a Porsche design?
Yes, the Duratec was originally a Porsche V6, but they sold it to Ford, who manufactured it as a V6 for Ford, Mazda, and turned it into the Jaguar AJV6. This one also gets wacky with the development, as Noble bolted turbos to a version for the M400, and Ford themselves added 2 cylinders to turn it into the 3rd Gen SHO's V8. Then yes, Aston Martin stuck two 3.0L V6's together to make their V12, which is still in production.
It's more complicated than that.
The 2.5l is the design that had input from Porsche Design. The 3.0l is a derivative of that motor.
The 2.5 Ford and the 2.5l Mazda are totally different engines, but the 3.0l Ford and Mazda are the same (sort of).
And I really love the Aston Martin V12. Got me some really fun business trips thanks to that connection. I'm actually surprised that it's still so much the Duratec- so that engine makes the Ford GT the SECOND engine I worked on that showed up at LeMans.
BTW, if you really want to be twisted and odd, one can kinda sort a claim that the Ford GT ran a Nissan engine, too. The base 3.5l was designed to compete with the Nissan one, and I think a lot of the Ford engine was based off the Nissan (this was back in the early 2000's when that engine was designed).
Trackmouse wrote:
(In a bit of cockney) "ya know Adrian, I've always fancied your threads"
The 1uzfe design was copied by BMW for their v8. (And since I know some skeptics are gonna call me out, here's the link!)
http://www.lextreme.com/1uzfe_info.html
This info pales in comparison to that Buick 215 story.... that's nuts.
How exactly did BMW "copy" the design features when they developed their Quad Cam V8 starting in 1984? Especially since Audi and Porsche also have had quad cam V8's that they could "borrow" inspiration from (as they've all done before). A single line on a random website does not equal proof.
They are both great engines, but just because someone says something, doesn't make it true.
The Datsun L-series engines were based on designs provided by Mercedes after WWII.
The Audi 100LS motor used in the 924 was originally developed by Mercedes for Audi.
When AMC used the motor in their cars, Porsche specifically required that any and all Porsche markings were removed from the castings. They also used different diameter main bearings to further differentiate the motors. The downside is that it makes getting main bearings for the 924 motor much more difficult.
Chrysler sold the engine designs for the 2.2/2.5 to China, the company they sold them to used them in an Audi 4000 body they purchased the rights for from Audi. Strange bedfellows indeed.
The Maserati TC by Chrysler had an optional DOHC 2.2 motor. The head was designed by Maserati with Cosworth's help in the casting/production. This motor used a 5-speed transaxle from Getrag that was originally designed for a mid-engined Corvette that was scrapped by GM.
In reply to Stefan:
Maybe in the same way that the Ford 1.6 CVH engine from the late 70's is based off of the Alfa 1600 twin plug.
The Alfa motor was used extensively for benchmarking. And the actual design of that first engine was supposedly really good. But it was lost in translation from a prototype engine to manufacturing..... Oh, well.
Trackmouse wrote:
(In a bit of cockney) "ya know Adrian, I've always fancied your threads"
I appreciate that, so much so that I wont make fun of your accent :)
In reply to Javelin:
Holy crap, I knew more than I typed, but i hadn't made the connection from the Buick 215 to the Indy engine. Was that the Menard engine? I thought the V6 was blisteringly fast in quali, but could never last the distance. I thought the winning Chevy engine from the 80's was the V8? Which year did it win? I need a new rabbit hole to go down.
On the Durtec V6 being Porsche derived, that's the most restrained I've ever seen you comment on that link Eric. In the past I thought you'd said basically 'Yes for bought the rights to the V6 from Porsche, but it was crap and we had to re-do everything to make it work'
More fun ones off the top of my head.
There is the Ford V4 which was also used in Saabs and expanded into the Essex V6 which was the basis for both the Capri 3100 RS. The same engine, or at least block and some other components were used as the basis for the Cosworth 3.4L GAA einges used several moderately successful F5000 engines running against larger capacity, but also higher weight and CofG 5,000cc Ford and Chevy stock blocks.
Of course there is the Audi Van engine that was used in the Porsche 924 and and it's derivatives in the 924 Carrera GT/GTS/GTR. The GTR made over 420hp at LeMans.
Everyone loves the story of BMW taking M10 engine blocks from the scrap yard with over 100K miles on them as stress relief to make into the formidable 1,500hp 1.5L F1 Turbo engines. I've heard and read that story many many times, but never seen any convincing proof from someone who was there to know if it's actually true or not.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson:
Why repeat myself?
Also, it was so long ago, time makes one forget things. You know that. 
Adrian_Thompson wrote:
Everyone loves the story of BMW taking M10 engine blocks from the scrap yard with over 100K miles on them as stress relief to make into the formidable 1,500hp 1.5L F1 Turbo engines. I've heard and read that story many many times, but never seen any convincing proof from someone who was there to know if it's actually true or not.
Apparently it's a myth...and it got around so much and so fast, that while BMW was developing this same engine they actually tested a weathered engine in response to the myth, and it didn't go well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1w7h8r/bmws_1983_enginetech_innovation_pee_on_it/cezr46k/
Which might be the most hilarious story of rumor-paranoia in racing I've ever heard...hey I should start a thread on that!
In reply to alfadriver:
What about how crappy the AJ6 engine is that the V12 replaced?
Hang on, that's a good one too. This has as much stretch as the Rover/Buick 215 CI, but there's a link none the less. The DB7 started out as a Jag F type and before Eric's beloved Contour/Mondeo engine went in, it had a supercharged AJ6 Jag straight 6. The AJ6 replaced the beloved XK 6cyl and was only the third engine Jaguar developed after the XK6 and 12 engines. As Jag pre Ford were in perpetual financial hardship, when they set out to build the AJ6 they needed as much carry over tooling etc as possible. That means the AJ6 engine, while all new shares much of the basic layout and arcitecture with the old XK engine. The first proto of a replacement XK engine used a light weight version of the cast iron XK block with a 24 valve head. The actual AJ6 engine used an alloy block with a development of that same 4 valve head. A version of the 4.2L XK engine called the J60 was used in the FV107 Scimitar and FV101 Scorpion light tank. So if you really want to piss off an early DB7 owner tell him his car is powered by a tank engine I'm sure Eric will jump in and correct my memory on some of this though.
While on Jags, there is the V12 that was basically two XK 6 cyl engines with a common crank and the block made of alloy. The XK engine started off in 1949 in 6cyl form and won LeMans twice, the second time in 1990 now making well over 700hp still with 2 valve per cyl SOHC's
GameboyRMH wrote:
Adrian_Thompson wrote:
Everyone loves the story of BMW taking M10 engine blocks from the scrap yard with over 100K miles on them as stress relief to make into the formidable 1,500hp 1.5L F1 Turbo engines. I've heard and read that story many many times, but never seen any convincing proof from someone who was there to know if it's actually true or not.
Apparently it's a myth...and it got around so much and so fast, that while BMW was developing this same engine they actually tested a weathered engine in response to the myth, and it didn't go well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1w7h8r/bmws_1983_enginetech_innovation_pee_on_it/cezr46k/
Which might be the most hilarious story of rumor-paranoia in racing I've ever heard...hey I should start a thread on that!
Thank you, I've sought clarification on that for year. Good to know the truth, but a little disappointing TBH
Is anyone brave enough to post the text from the link Trackmouse posted? I get this message 'Access to this website is blocked because of a known risk.' Click and post at your own risk!
In reply to Adrian_Thompson:
I don't know much about the 6 cyl that first powered the DB7, but dating it back to a tank engine does explain why the engine was so very heavy- it was quite a bit heavier than the V12.
Interesting to consider that chassis wise, the Duratec V12 was the second V12 in that hole.
The other funny thing about the tank engine in a DB7, some Aston Martin managers mentioned to me the agrarian nature of the Viper. (the DB7 used a version of the 6 speed, so one was available)
In reply to Stefan:
The Toyota 1uz was in preproduction in '79. Its predecessor set the benchmark for both companies to copy a bit of. They later improved and that's when Beamer copied bits here and there.
We can play the "he said, she said" BS all day man. I'll say what I'll say. Don't like it? Burden of proof is on you. I come to this forum to talk cars and learn stuff. Not bicker like school kids about topics no one cares about. Peace out.
Adrian_Thompson wrote:
Trackmouse wrote:
(In a bit of cockney) "ya know Adrian, I've always fancied your threads"
I appreciate that, so much so that I wont make fun of your accent :)
In reply to Javelin:
Holy crap, I knew more than I typed, but i hadn't made the connection from the Buick 215 to the Indy engine. Was that the Menard engine? I thought the V6 was blisteringly fast in quali, but could never last the distance. I thought the winning Chevy engine from the 80's was the V8? Which year did it win? I need a new rabbit hole to go down.
You are correct, the Menard-Buick V6 never actually won the race. The Chevy-Ilmor was a V8. Because the Menard engine was a "stock block" it was allowed more boost, which of course led to the famous (infamous?) OHV Mercedes-Ilmor that dominated the 1994 race and was promptly outlawed.
In reply to edizzle89:
I came here to post the same thing, only not so thoroughly supported by facts. Well done.
I have heard, but cannot substantiate that the 4AGE was a reverse engineered English Ford (Kent? You know, like an Elan would have, along with lost of other cars)
