In an earlier thread, I learned that Henry Ford bitterly opposed his son’s (Edsel Ford) plans to develop an inline 6-cylinder engine. Supposedly, Henry was satisfied with his inline 4 cylinder engine-so why the V-*?
In amny ways, Ford’s V-8 was a technological breakthrough-it was the first mass-produced V-8 in the world (Lancia had built a V-8 in 1911, but it wasa low volume, hand-built engine. Ford was the first to make a reasonably priced V-8 engine, available in a low-priced car.
Ford liked simple designs, and like a good engineer, he liked 4-cylinder engines (they were simple and cheap to assemble).
So why the V-8? Was it done so he could leapfrog GM?
I’ve heard that many automobile engineers claimed a V-8 would be inherently impossible to balance; Ford said they didn’t know what they were talking about and built the V-8 largely just to prove the naysayers wrong. Possible or even probably an urban legend but I’ve heard it from a ton of people.
How many people know that Chevy built a V-8 back in the 1920s?
Ford’s great leap with the V-8 was that its cylinders and crankcase were all one piece. Earlier V-8’s such as Cadillac’s had cylinders and crankcases and water jackets as separate pieces bolted together.
the first “mass produced” V8 on these shores was the 1914 Cadillac engine, which had a flat-plane crankshaft (basically an inline-4 crank with the crankpins able to accomodate a pair of connecting rods.) Like an I4, a flat-plane V8 is in primary balance but not in secondary balance. It wasn’t until the cross-plane crankshaft was developed where V8s were both in primary and secondary balance.
as far as I know, all road-going V8s today are cross-plane, with the exception of Ferrari V8s which remain flat-plane.
Those people are cretins.
Glenn Hammond Curtiss built a V8 motorcycle and set a land speed record of 136.3 mph - in 1907. The record was not beat by any vehicle for 11 years, and it was 23 years before it was beat by another motorcycle.
I did say the story was probably an urban legend. Cretin seems a little judgmental.
Really?
Something being talked of as “impossible” when that thing had been accomplished by one of the greatest engineers who ever lived seven years earlier? Who set a record that was not beaten for 23 years?
What would you call it?
I am annoyed at Curtiss’ accomplishments being ignored, so that probably influenced my choice of words. “Ignoramuses” would probably be more polite.