one peice engine

A General Discussion forum for cars and other topics, and a great place to introduce yourself if you are new to NICO!
User avatar
themadscientist
Posts: 26254
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 3:30 pm
Car: R32 GTR, DR30 RS Turbo, BRZ, Lunchbox, NSR50 Sportster 883 Iron
Location: Staring down at you with disdain from the spooky mountaintop castle.

Post

Has anybody else wondered why in this age of exotic alloys and computer-controlled CNC milling nobody has made a one peice engine? By one piece I mean the block and head are machined out of a single block of alloy. The combustion chamber could be milled through the bore, oil and water passages shot at intersecting angles and plugged at the ends, valves pistons and rods can be dropped down through the boreas well and then the mains can be milled as one peice and bolted down to the bottom of the engine over the protruding rods and then the crank installed as normal. The head ports could be milled like normal as well as the cam supports. The rest would be like a regular engine. No more head gasket or head to block sealing issues.


Stoneage_Turbo
Posts: 2178
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2002 3:33 am
Car: 1994 Caddy Deville 4.9
Just about anything

Post

"Has anybody else wondered why in this age of exotic alloys and computer-controlled CNC milling nobody has made a one peice engine?"

they have , its called a offenhouser 4cyl , ran at indy for many years sucessuflly , i think from the late 50s all the way thru 79 , head and block was one peice , crankcase came out to service engine componets , it was oo stout that in 79 i think they were running around 55pi of boost and ran well over 200 mph down the backstright in qualifying trim :ylsuper

also nicknamed "the offy"

User avatar
Mayhem_J30
Posts: 2643
Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2002 2:00 am
Car: Ummm...My Car
Location: Louisville, KY

Post

the strenght and integrity of the block would be amazing! but working on it...amazingly dificult. I've never wondered about that though as I'm not learned milling technology.

User avatar
themadscientist
Posts: 26254
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2002 3:30 pm
Car: R32 GTR, DR30 RS Turbo, BRZ, Lunchbox, NSR50 Sportster 883 Iron
Location: Staring down at you with disdain from the spooky mountaintop castle.

Post

well I guess Offenhouser proved the concept as well as villified my question. If they could do that back in the 70s why hasn't anyone taken the idea further with the technology we enjoy today?

Stoneage_Turbo
Posts: 2178
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2002 3:33 am
Car: 1994 Caddy Deville 4.9
Just about anything

Post

not sure , maybe the automakers are enjoying all the cars coming into dealers for headgasket jobs

the offy was awesome , dohc 4 valve 4 cyl , amazing power when boosted , but like the buick v6 of the 80s at indy it also was a reliblity problem for 500 mile races , i forget just why tho , i was born 3 years after the offy era , but i read every tidbit i can find on the awesome critter

indy is home to many advances in car design , the rearview mirror came from there along with many other advances , also try to read up ont he turine cars from andy granntelli , they were nicknamed the "vaccum cleaner" for the sound they made as they went by , would have won if it wasnt for a 50 cent bearing that failed , it was many laps ahead of the second place car wen it went out with only a few laps tillt he end of the race , year later it was banned becuase f how fast it was

if it wasnt for a guy named chevrolet winning a early 500 we wouldnt have the chevrolet atuomoble , of coarse mr chevy intended it to be a luxury car not unlike rolls royce , wile away on vaction in europe he assisnt redisgned the car to be cheap as a ford , makeing mr chevy very unhappy and turning the chvey into a bastard child for all time , mr chevy tried many times in court to get his name off the car but to no avail

DAEDALUS
Posts: 5421
Joined: Mon Jul 22, 2002 8:50 pm
Car: 1990 Infiniti Q45

Post

Surely cost is the driving factor. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's cheap! The price/lb increases as the lump of metal gets larger. And increased complexity will drive mfg costs up, regardless of how big a run you have. But the higher costs only offer small payoffs in weight savings and decreased risk.


Return to “General Chat”