I was in a shop building from the time of dippers and so I grew up with dad in a shop and learning stuff that at the time didn't seem like anything important but for some reason made it easy for me to carry forwards what dad was doing. Born in forty nine, I seen stuff that even guys older than myself now never had this opportunity to understand why its important. Because I did not fit in with other kids, I was a ford guy because my having to hang with kids that ran a chevy or dodge. Enter into this equation...... I get to be in my later forties and so then I really didn't care about name of rig as to the power. I did run a lot of small block chevy 383 stroker engines because of the sound. My personal rig was a big block ford, the FE for the torque of them. My wrecker here in alaska had a big block because of torque and grunting away though places no one else even considered. I remember coming home from the army and trying to outguess the governments reasons for taking our high horsepower cars. Therefore using what I knew instead of looking cool, I always had something people would just beg to own for their own rigs.
Beautiful work. It would have been interesting to see the sparkplugs. We're they long reach ? Presumably, TDC piston height is about one inch below the block deck. Heads predate "Heron heads" ! Also, a flat-plain crank would have been much cheaper to manufacture. Definitely a very advanced engine, for its time. How did it compare with the four cylinder Peugoet L76 of 1912/13, which cleaned up at Indianapolis in 1914? Just saw the sparkplugs in the next episode.!
I was about to say we show the spark plugs in the next episode, but then I read to the bottom of your comment, and you found it! We would have to do some research to make that comparison, but it’s a very interesting question. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments.
Very interesting. Some observations. Like some of the commenters, I too was surprised to see a one piece casting for the block. For the record, the ability of Ford to offer an affordable V8 in 1932 depended on being able to cast the block in one piece. The typical V8 prior to 1932 (except for this one) was built up from a crankcase with each of the two cylinder banks bolted on. Too expensive for the low priced field. The challenge for casting in large quantities Fords flathead, being a side valve was all of the complicated ports required for routing the exhaust to the outside of the block. The Lincoln Zephyr V-12, also a side valve with a one piece block casting would have to rank (even to this day) as the most complicated block casting ever for a passenger car. Another surprise was just two main bearings. Very counter-intuitive for a racing engine. A contemporary Model T had 3. The combustion chamber is formed by the space between the perfectly flat cylinder head and the top of the flat piston. Sorry to disagree but that is not an efficient design with the spark plug off to the extreme side of the cylinder. Flame travel to the opposite side is relatively distant. Combustion chamber research in the 1920's would lead to designs which used a squish area where the piston came very close to the cylinder head at the top of the stroke, squeezing the fuel/air mixture closer to the spark plug, speeding up the combustion process. That kind of thinking was incorporated in the combustion chamber designs of most engines, both side and overhead valve by the mid 1930's. As for balance, the flat plane crankshaft, the only kind being used by anyone at the time except for six cylinder engines causes secondary (twice crank speed) vibrations just as in 4 cylinder engines. Secondary imbalance is not particularly noticeable in low revving engines. Cadillac would develop the cross plane crankshaft to solve this problem for engines they would use in 1923. Lincoln would address this by using a 60 degree bank angle. With respect to dynamic engine balance, as the crankshaft has no counterweights it might be best to use knife edges rather than a balancer that spins the crankshaft. A balancer which spins the crankshaft might cause the crank to flex a little like a jump rope. And yet lacking a center main bearing that will be happening when running anyway. Thanks for the video.
Thank you for your comments - well thought through and you bring up some interesting points. I will speak with Alan and find out if he has additional documentation or research to add to our video. Thanks for joining in and adding to the discussion!
Thank you BarryT'sGarage for the very well explained video. The engine is very long-stroke. The valves do not have a very large cross-section. The piston area divided by the free ring area in the valve gap at max opening gives a ratio from which the mixture velocity in the valve gap results in the product with the piston velocity at the speed of the maximum torque. At approx. 83 m/s, which is 1/4 of the speed of sound in the air, the highest degree of delivery and thus the maximum torque is reached. In the video you explained very well that the crankshaft is already almost perfectly balanced up to 50 revolutions per second. The speed of sound in the steel of the crankshaft, the connecting rods and the engine block have a harmony of 2^10 equal to 1024. If you have a 912.894 gram component in which there is a 0.8914 gram washer, the material-acoustic harmony is perfect. If the whole engine weighs 116.850 kg, then this harmony is also very good. The real physical harmonic background is the Planck mass quantum of 2.17651 (13)×10-⁸ kg = 21.7651 µg. This gives times 2^10 = 0.222874624 grams * 4 = 0.891498496 grams. I liked the video very much. Especially the oil pressure regulation and the many subtleties. I find the intake manifold with the cooling water guide and the 4 channel carburettor extremely advanced for the time. Best regards from Germany. Michael Frithjof Müller 🏁
Micheal, thank you very much for your detailed comment, the mathematics you describe is beyond my expertise, but I will pass this on to Alan and maybe he will comment about it later! Great to have you watching from Germany. I hope you have a great day!
Not only is the engine awesome and a bit ahead of its time, really, but it couldn't have anybody better working on it. It's gonna run unbelievably nice. I love when people take amazingly well-engineered stuff of its time, but then improve it a bit with modern technology, but not to the point it takes away the spirit of the engine. Basically doing what they would have done in 1915, IF they had the capabilities.
I love this video. Thanks for posting. Great to get some insight into long obsolete, and rare engines. And I’m glad to see the engine found a home with this particular owner/builder.
I worked at a Rolls-Royce restoration company for a few years and they had built an engine run stand, it had a 3 phase electric motor that bolted to the flywheel when installed. You had everything rigged up including coolant and what the boss used to do was first run it for an HR at 500rpm remove it and the sump check bearings he used a blueing because Rolls-Royce don't have torque settings or clearance gap settings he was essentially polishing and checking for hot spots he used plasti gauge to make sure the tollerance was at his spec and this varied dependent on what oil the engine was running and what country it came from. Then he would bolt the engine back on fill it with coolant and switch it up to 750 rpm and just leave it running for a week obviously checking it for leaks etc. I shit you not once they were in a vehicle or running on petrol on that stand they ran like a Swiss clock no rattles or anything. Rolls-Royce had a motto a torque wrench is no substitute for a great engineer love your build and cars.
So impressive that not only restored but to use car like they were intended to be. I have a feeling I will being saying wow alot with your channel. Rhanks as always.
We’re going to try to continue to getting this information out, Alan has researched a lot of documentation that is not available anywhere online and we need to put it out there! Thank you for your comment and encouragement!
Wow that’s a lot of very cool engineering way ahead of its time I could tell he really likes that design so when he spends 50 hours tweaking it I don’t think he minds! I really was impressed by the ring design each one sealed differently but I was asking myself how does he gap the rings but anyway that was time well spent 😀🇨🇦
Thank you, Keith! You are correct, Ellen would rather spend the time fine-tuning things and getting them as close to perfect as he can then do anything else halfway. Thank you for being part of the channel as usual. I hope you have a great day up there in Canada! Greetings from Arizona.
What a beautiful piece of engineering! I'm surprised by the gapless top rings, the pressure lubed crank, overhead valve design in 1915 and the monoblock casting 15 years before the giant was able to create his. The only weakness I see in this engine's design is the lack of a center main journal on the crank. The old timers that I grew up around called those spiral labyrinths a "windback". You see them on input shafts on transmissions and the speedometer pencil gears in place of a seal. Outstanding! Equally interesting is the gentleman who you are interviewing. I could enjoy a video on him and where he learned his skills and a general overview of his collection.
Well the print of that engine says B&S is 3-1/4 X 4 . That comes out to about 265 CDI ,closer to 4.5 liters ! I believe that flat chamber head is called a "Herron" sp style head with the combustion area in the cylinder.
Thanks for that. With the spark plug going in the side of the block leaving room at the top of the stroke to not interfere. We could have covered that but it missed it!
@@BarryTsGarageI'm in Phoenix and strangly enought a friend of mine knows Allan. And he is into old cars and has some info on that engine. His info says the car engine is 2-5/8 X3-3/4 B&S so the CID would be more like 3 litter. Thought those pistons look real small for 3-1/4 ! John Evans aka dog8nut
@@BarryTsGarage This was an awesome revelation to me. Had not know any thing about the car or unique engine - and I'm 87. Hopefully you'll show us the sparkplug location in some up coming video. You have a new subscriber. Thnaks for sharing the knowledge.
Modern bearings are not perfectly round, they are thinner on the sides to prevent scraping oil off the crank at high rpm when the rod distorts. I think Smoky Unick developed them when he was racing chevy engines in Nascar..
Very interesting placements of the spark plugs. Inside the V in the block. I wonder how much cooling passages there are in the block. Also very interesting that it is a 1 piece block, i was under the impression that all V8s prior to Henry's were 3 piece blocks. Well done!!! Crazy to think jist 2 main bearings hold that crank in!
That is one piece of advanced engineering for 1913. WW1 produced a huge leap in engine advancement, principally in aero engineering. The Liberty V8 being an example. Barely a decade on from that we had radial engines that are still in regular scheduled Alaskan freight operations' use to this day.
Looks like a one-piece block which was very unusual in that era. One reason Henry Ford's V8 was such a ground-breaker was it was the first mass-produced one-piece V8 block. Also note spark plug holes in the block inside the vee.
Actually the Ferro V8 was mass produced too, it was produced for 3 different auto makers the Scripps Booth, Briscoe and the Jackson all had these Ferro V8'S some had different bore and strokes, but nonetheless the same design. And as Alan mentioned used in race boats, so I would say mass produced. Henry produced a V8 that was cheap to produced
Very interesting although I don't quite understand how you can use Plastigage to measure clearance on poured babbit bearings. Love that smile of Alan Travis.
@BarryTsGarage I had to think about the bearing. Obviously the babbit bearing must be split into two halves after pouring or it couldn't be transferred from the rig where it's poured to the journal where it's used.
On the contrary, flat plane cranks was all they knew at the time. A flat plane crank V-8 exhibits secondary vibration, and with two banks of 4 cylinders it is worse than the secondary vibration of a 4 cylinder. Cross plane cranks, first developed and used by Cadillac around 1923 were the solution to the secondary vibration problem. The first V-8's which preceded the 23 Cadillac were so low revving that the secondary vibration was not all that objectionable. The development of higher revving engines provided the motivation to create cross plane crankshafts which became the industry standard.
What an advanced design, the Peugeot Grand Prix of the same era comes to mind. Does this engine have racing history? I feel like it should be more well known and coppied like the Peugeot. Beautiful work, thank you.
With some of the old engines being so advanced for their times thy still lacked the hindsight of past failures to see where they were still so primitive. Like how long it took to realize a piston and rod moving up and down thousands of times a second generated huge forces that needed to controlled or using a two main bearing crankshaft only supported at the ends. I would bet the center four cylinders of this engine have a different amount of dynamic stroke due to crank flex than the end cylinders do. But all the engineering has to be tried to evolve and this is a shining example of a early internal combustion engine.
I think the flathead ford took so long to develop because it needed a price point for the common person to afford one. That ferro is cool but I'd bet it was very expensive in its day too.
You are correct, like the 348 and 409 the combustion chamber is formed by the space between the piston at the top of the stroke and the flat cylinder head. The difference is this engine lacks the squish area formed by the shape of the top of the piston. Do a google image search of "Chevrolet 409 pistons" to see the difference. Without that squish area the combustion process is slowed down, not good. In 1915 this was not very well understood. Harry Weslake would do a lot of the early research into improving combustion chamber efficiency and he even developed an aftermarket cylinder head for the Model T which incorporated his design ideas.
Marvelous. Is that a single casting block? If that was able to be made in 1915 why did Ford have such a hard time learning to do single casting V8 blocks 15 yrs later?
@@neildorey3978Ford was also making for mass production, it is often easy to make 1 of something, but making thousands reliably and consistently is much harder. The engine shown was for racing so essentially hand made.
Actually the engine shown was used in a prototype type and I believe he said was used in boat racing. But these engine were used in cars produced for several years and many of them are still running, also another version of there same design engines were used in Brisco and Jackson automobiles.
The plug threads can be seen if you look carefully about 4 mins into this video. It leaves a pretty big chamber, but everything was very low compression those days...
@@TheShamiesteryes there are threaded holes in the valley-side of the block. Next video we discuss the spark plugs and their orientation some more. Thanks
I refer you to the next video on this vehicle! First Start after Rebuilding a 1915 V8! 1913 Design Ferro/Scripps Racing Engine Part 3 w Alan Travis czcams.com/video/48pngvr-wdk/video.html
From the standpoint of the valves being directly above the piston and the spark happening in the center between them. This is in the context of 1913 engineering development.
Correct, nothing Hemi about it. With the spark plug screwed into the block at the top of the bore, flame travel is slow. This design would like a lot of ignition advance, but that would have been limited by the very low octane rating of the fuels available back then. With todays fuel the bump in compression ratio should work just fine.
This is a really cool engine, but why does the presenter act like he's annoyed just telling me about it. It's like I'm getting hate described the motor.
Don’t mistake the passion for annoyance… Alan is very enthusiastic about keeping very old machinery working but pointing out the struggles of the old technology that he can artfully improve… thanks for watching!
@@BarryTsGarage Yeah I don't really buy that. That motor has a crazy wide angle V, has a MASSIVE Deck Face, and Bores so separated from each other that they stretch from the Earth to the Moon! I bet he could order pistons 3.5 HUNDRETHS OVER Pistons and still have room to go. It seems more like a Steve Morris SMX from 1917 then anything else.
I think you are really the point on just how incredibly amazing this engine is… but much more so, this gentleman is just awesome and absolutely wonderful in the just absolutely incredibly throughout restoration work on something that’s really this rare and incredible even with his small additions of improvements that don’t destroy it’s original character. I’m in n wonderment watching a video on my phone… had i been in the shop I’d probably have been babbling on and completely unable to complete a logical thought and a full sentence…. HE DID A FANTASTIC JOB WITH HIS INTERVIEW, bud! Please link one of your interviews as a demonstration and learning tool on one of your past more professional demonstration’s on proper interviewing technique so we might understand how to carry out a more efficient and intelligent and absolutely incredible look into some of our lost industrial age’s incredible knowledge and engineering examples.
He said since it is a flat crank it is automatically balanced. That doesn't make since, one reason flat crank V8's aren't more popular even though they rev fast is that they vibrate.
Amazing engine thanks for sharing
Wow.. This guys shop/collection is awesome!
I was in a shop building from the time of dippers and so I grew up with dad in a shop and learning stuff that at the time didn't seem like anything important but for some reason made it easy for me to carry forwards what dad was doing. Born in forty nine, I seen stuff that even guys older than myself now never had this opportunity to understand why its important. Because I did not fit in with other kids, I was a ford guy because my having to hang with kids that ran a chevy or dodge. Enter into this equation...... I get to be in my later forties and so then I really didn't care about name of rig as to the power. I did run a lot of small block chevy 383 stroker engines because of the sound. My personal rig was a big block ford, the FE for the torque of them. My wrecker here in alaska had a big block because of torque and grunting away though places no one else even considered. I remember coming home from the army and trying to outguess the governments reasons for taking our high horsepower cars. Therefore using what I knew instead of looking cool, I always had something people would just beg to own for their own rigs.
Great beforemytime❤❤😂🎉🎉🎉
😊l😢😢😢
Fascinating! Like Jay Leno’s garage. Would love to see more of this guy
More to come!
@@BarryTsGarage Awesome great to hear! Will be on the lookout for them
The rings remind me of todays gapless rings. Wow that engine is amazing!
Thanks for sharing
This is a darn good video that old cool to know!
Beautiful work.
It would have been interesting to see the sparkplugs.
We're they long reach ?
Presumably, TDC piston height is about one inch below the block deck.
Heads predate "Heron heads" !
Also, a flat-plain crank would have been much cheaper to manufacture.
Definitely a very advanced engine, for its time.
How did it compare with the four cylinder Peugoet L76 of 1912/13, which cleaned up at Indianapolis in 1914?
Just saw the sparkplugs in the next episode.!
I was about to say we show the spark plugs in the next episode, but then I read to the bottom of your comment, and you found it!
We would have to do some research to make that comparison, but it’s a very interesting question. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments.
The more I watch through this video the more fascinated i become! Mono-block? Flat plane crank? Overhead valve? It’s basically a shiny new LS!!!
CRAZY!
@@BarryTsGarage This is far advanced compared to it's contemporary ...Chevroletas
Very interesting. Some observations.
Like some of the commenters, I too was surprised to see a one piece casting for the block. For the record, the ability of Ford to offer an affordable V8 in 1932 depended on being able to cast the block in one piece. The typical V8 prior to 1932 (except for this one) was built up from a crankcase with each of the two cylinder banks bolted on. Too expensive for the low priced field. The challenge for casting in large quantities Fords flathead, being a side valve was all of the complicated ports required for routing the exhaust to the outside of the block. The Lincoln Zephyr V-12, also a side valve with a one piece block casting would have to rank (even to this day) as the most complicated block casting ever for a passenger car.
Another surprise was just two main bearings. Very counter-intuitive for a racing engine. A contemporary Model T had 3.
The combustion chamber is formed by the space between the perfectly flat cylinder head and the top of the flat piston. Sorry to disagree but that is not an efficient design with the spark plug off to the extreme side of the cylinder. Flame travel to the opposite side is relatively distant. Combustion chamber research in the 1920's would lead to designs which used a squish area where the piston came very close to the cylinder head at the top of the stroke, squeezing the fuel/air mixture closer to the spark plug, speeding up the combustion process. That kind of thinking was incorporated in the combustion chamber designs of most engines, both side and overhead valve by the mid 1930's.
As for balance, the flat plane crankshaft, the only kind being used by anyone at the time except for six cylinder engines causes secondary (twice crank speed) vibrations just as in 4 cylinder engines. Secondary imbalance is not particularly noticeable in low revving engines. Cadillac would develop the cross plane crankshaft to solve this problem for engines they would use in 1923. Lincoln would address this by using a 60 degree bank angle.
With respect to dynamic engine balance, as the crankshaft has no counterweights it might be best to use knife edges rather than a balancer that spins the crankshaft.
A balancer which spins the crankshaft might cause the crank to flex a little like a jump rope. And yet lacking a center main bearing that will be happening when running anyway.
Thanks for the video.
Thank you for your comments - well thought through and you bring up some interesting points.
I will speak with Alan and find out if he has additional documentation or research to add to our video. Thanks for joining in and adding to the discussion!
Thank you BarryT'sGarage for the very well explained video.
The engine is very long-stroke. The valves do not have a very large cross-section. The piston area divided by the free ring area in the valve gap at max opening gives a ratio from which the mixture velocity in the valve gap results in the product with the piston velocity at the speed of the maximum torque. At approx. 83 m/s, which is 1/4 of the speed of sound in the air, the highest degree of delivery and thus the maximum torque is reached. In the video you explained very well that the crankshaft is already almost perfectly balanced up to 50 revolutions per second. The speed of sound in the steel of the crankshaft, the connecting rods and the engine block have a harmony of 2^10 equal to 1024. If you have a 912.894 gram component in which there is a 0.8914 gram washer, the material-acoustic harmony is perfect. If the whole engine weighs 116.850 kg, then this harmony is also very good. The real physical harmonic background is the Planck mass quantum of 2.17651 (13)×10-⁸ kg = 21.7651 µg. This gives times 2^10 = 0.222874624 grams * 4 = 0.891498496 grams. I liked the video very much. Especially the oil pressure regulation and the many subtleties. I find the intake manifold with the cooling water guide and the 4 channel carburettor extremely advanced for the time.
Best regards from Germany.
Michael Frithjof Müller
🏁
Micheal, thank you very much for your detailed comment, the mathematics you describe is beyond my expertise, but I will pass this on to Alan and maybe he will comment about it later!
Great to have you watching from Germany. I hope you have a great day!
That gentleman knows is stuff.👍
What a fascinating looking machine!!! My experience is 50’s-90’s V8 engines so this is new to me.
Same here - thanks, Vinny!
Not only is the engine awesome and a bit ahead of its time, really, but it couldn't have anybody better working on it. It's gonna run unbelievably nice. I love when people take amazingly well-engineered stuff of its time, but then improve it a bit with modern technology, but not to the point it takes away the spirit of the engine. Basically doing what they would have done in 1915, IF they had the capabilities.
I Agree. I can't wait to hear it RUN
love this engine and work,on historic work of art,please make more showing it working,thanks first class
More to come!
fantastic cannot wait,thanks@@BarryTsGarage
I love this video. Thanks for posting. Great to get some insight into long obsolete, and rare engines. And I’m glad to see the engine found a home with this particular owner/builder.
Glad you enjoyed it! Please look for the first start video on this?
Wow! Beautiful engine and wonderful work!
I worked at a Rolls-Royce restoration company for a few years and they had built an engine run stand, it had a 3 phase electric motor that bolted to the flywheel when installed. You had everything rigged up including coolant and what the boss used to do was first run it for an HR at 500rpm remove it and the sump check bearings he used a blueing because Rolls-Royce don't have torque settings or clearance gap settings he was essentially polishing and checking for hot spots he used plasti gauge to make sure the tollerance was at his spec and this varied dependent on what oil the engine was running and what country it came from. Then he would bolt the engine back on fill it with coolant and switch it up to 750 rpm and just leave it running for a week obviously checking it for leaks etc. I shit you not once they were in a vehicle or running on petrol on that stand they ran like a Swiss clock no rattles or anything. Rolls-Royce had a motto a torque wrench is no substitute for a great engineer love your build and cars.
WOW Great answer! Thanks for sharing this!
Those guys to be some serious Artisan mechanical whizzes to be entrusted with rebuilding those priceless automotive artifacts.
i used that same seal on my subaru power steering pump - pressure side - worked like a charm !
Looks like an air conditioning seal
Could very well be used for that, too.
This is the best video I've seen in a while
Wow, Allen, thanks so much! We are working on a follow up video on this project now.. 👍
So impressive that not only restored but to use car like they were intended to be. I have a feeling I will being saying wow alot with your channel. Rhanks as always.
Thank you for your comment, Ben, so great to have you along, and it’s very encouraging to get notes like yours!
Amazing engine!
This is kinda stuff i want more info on. These early vintage stuff is like unobtainable for us younger generations
We’re going to try to continue to getting this information out, Alan has researched a lot of documentation that is not available anywhere online and we need to put it out there! Thank you for your comment and encouragement!
Isn't that the coolest 😎 motor, technology back then.👍
Absolute leading edge
2 mains in that motor.......wow
Amazing great job ; thanks from old New Orleans 😎
Thanks for joining us in Phoenix!
Wow that’s a lot of very cool engineering way ahead of its time I could tell he really likes that design so when he spends 50 hours tweaking it I don’t think he minds!
I really was impressed by the ring design each one sealed differently but I was asking myself how does he gap the rings but anyway that was time well spent 😀🇨🇦
Thank you, Keith! You are correct, Ellen would rather spend the time fine-tuning things and getting them as close to perfect as he can then do anything else halfway.
Thank you for being part of the channel as usual. I hope you have a great day up there in Canada! Greetings from Arizona.
What a beautiful piece of engineering! I'm surprised by the gapless top rings, the pressure lubed crank, overhead valve design in 1915 and the monoblock casting 15 years before the giant was able to create his. The only weakness I see in this engine's design is the lack of a center main journal on the crank. The old timers that I grew up around called those spiral labyrinths a "windback". You see them on input shafts on transmissions and the speedometer pencil gears in place of a seal. Outstanding! Equally interesting is the gentleman who you are interviewing. I could enjoy a video on him and where he learned his skills and a general overview of his collection.
I was surprised myself when Alan explained it to me. Thanks 🙏
BTW Definitely more videos to come with Alan and his collection! 👍
BRILLIANT. Hope i didnt speak too much.
You are welcome anytime! Thanks 🙏
Well the print of that engine says B&S is 3-1/4 X 4 . That comes out to about 265 CDI ,closer to 4.5 liters ! I believe that flat chamber head is called a "Herron" sp style head with the combustion area in the cylinder.
Thanks for that. With the spark plug going in the side of the block leaving room at the top of the stroke to not interfere. We could have covered that but it missed it!
@@BarryTsGarageI'm in Phoenix and strangly enought a friend of mine knows Allan. And he is into old cars and has some info on that engine. His info says the car engine is 2-5/8 X3-3/4 B&S so the CID would be more like 3 litter. Thought those pistons look real small for 3-1/4 !
John Evans aka dog8nut
@@BarryTsGarage This was an awesome revelation to me. Had not know any thing about the car or unique engine - and I'm 87. Hopefully you'll show us the sparkplug location in some up coming video. You have a new subscriber. Thnaks for sharing the knowledge.
Modern bearings are not perfectly round, they are thinner on the sides to prevent scraping oil off the crank at high rpm when the rod distorts. I think Smoky Unick developed them when he was racing chevy engines in Nascar..
That’s great to know, I’ve never done a deep dive into those bearings! Thanks for joining in
Very interesting placements of the spark plugs. Inside the V in the block. I wonder how much cooling passages there are in the block. Also very interesting that it is a 1 piece block, i was under the impression that all V8s prior to Henry's were 3 piece blocks. Well done!!!
Crazy to think jist 2 main bearings hold that crank in!
I agree - the 2 Mains might be the riskiest part of the advanced and somewhat experimental design….
That is one piece of advanced engineering for 1913. WW1 produced a huge leap in engine advancement, principally in aero engineering. The Liberty V8 being an example. Barely a decade on from that we had radial engines that are still in regular scheduled Alaskan freight operations' use to this day.
Great point
Looks like a one-piece block which was very unusual in that era. One reason Henry Ford's V8 was such a ground-breaker was it was the first mass-produced one-piece V8 block.
Also note spark plug holes in the block inside the vee.
Very good point!
Actually the Ferro V8 was mass produced too, it was produced for 3 different auto makers the Scripps Booth, Briscoe and the Jackson all had these Ferro V8'S some had different bore and strokes, but nonetheless the same design. And as Alan mentioned used in race boats, so I would say mass produced.
Henry produced a V8 that was cheap to produced
Very interesting although I don't quite understand how you can use Plastigage to measure clearance on poured babbit bearings. Love that smile of Alan Travis.
I believe he was referring to measuring.
@BarryTsGarage I had to think about the bearing. Obviously the babbit bearing must be split into two halves after pouring or it couldn't be transferred from the rig where it's poured to the journal where it's used.
this engine makes ford's engine look very primative
👍👍 Or almost any engine from that day, it is super advanced for 1913!
Can't believe they knew about using flat plane crankshafts back then
On the contrary, flat plane cranks was all they knew at the time. A flat plane crank V-8 exhibits secondary vibration, and with two banks of 4 cylinders it is worse than the secondary vibration of a 4 cylinder. Cross plane cranks, first developed and used by Cadillac around 1923 were the solution to the secondary vibration problem. The first V-8's which preceded the 23 Cadillac were so low revving that the secondary vibration was not all that objectionable. The development of higher revving engines provided the motivation to create cross plane crankshafts which became the industry standard.
What an advanced design, the Peugeot Grand Prix of the same era comes to mind. Does this engine have racing history? I feel like it should be more well known and coppied like the Peugeot. Beautiful work, thank you.
Yes it does. We plan to get into that in the next video
With some of the old engines being so advanced for their times thy still lacked the hindsight of past failures to see where they were still so primitive. Like how long it took to realize a piston and rod moving up and down thousands of times a second generated huge forces that needed to controlled or using a two main bearing crankshaft only supported at the ends. I would bet the center four cylinders of this engine have a different amount of dynamic stroke due to crank flex than the end cylinders do. But all the engineering has to be tried to evolve and this is a shining example of a early internal combustion engine.
Thanks for adding to the story with the thoughtful comment!
they were way ahead of there time
I agree
Alan seems to have forgotten that Cadillac introduced an L-head V8 in 1914 and in 1915, Peerless introduced a V8 and Packard a V12 engine.
He mentions near the beginning that although this is a 1915 example, the engine debuted in 1913...
And Chevy had a OHV V-8 in 1917.
@@BarryTsGarageinteresting i have not found any info to support 1913, will be most interested in see this info on this, alway looking to learn more.
I think the flathead ford took so long to develop because it needed a price point for the common person to afford one. That ferro is cool but I'd bet it was very expensive in its day too.
Were the head gaskets for that Ferro V-8 made by Olsons Gaskets in Port Orchard, Washington?
I’ll ask Alan.
@@BarryTsGarage Thanks. I think I recognized the work.
Cylinder head is similar to 348 , 409 chevy
You are correct, like the 348 and 409 the combustion chamber is formed by the space between the piston at the top of the stroke and the flat cylinder head. The difference is this engine lacks the squish area formed by the shape of the top of the piston. Do a google image search of "Chevrolet 409 pistons" to see the difference. Without that squish area the combustion process is slowed down, not good. In 1915 this was not very well understood. Harry Weslake would do a lot of the early research into improving combustion chamber efficiency and he even developed an aftermarket cylinder head for the Model T which incorporated his design ideas.
Marvelous. Is that a single casting block? If that was able to be made in 1915 why did Ford have such a hard time learning to do single casting V8 blocks 15 yrs later?
I think Ford had problems because he wanted to stay with a L head design, way more passages to deal with.
@@neildorey3978Ford was also making for mass production, it is often easy to make 1 of something, but making thousands reliably and consistently is much harder. The engine shown was for racing so essentially hand made.
Actually the engine shown was used in a prototype type and I believe he said was used in boat racing. But these engine were used in cars produced for several years and many of them are still running, also another version of there same design engines were used in Brisco and Jackson automobiles.
Gapless top ring , tapered gap on secondary ring
Thanks for the correction - I’m enjoying learning.
What was the center main bearing and saddle like??
What was it like? Non-existent, there is no center main bearing.
Correct.
Hmmm flat plane v8 with over head valves and pressurized crankshaft
In 1915.
Btw wher do the spark plugs go? The holes have to be drilled?
The plug threads can be seen if you look carefully about 4 mins into this video. It leaves a pretty big chamber, but everything was very low compression those days...
@@BarryTsGarage the plug screws in the block?
@@TheShamiesteryes there are threaded holes in the valley-side of the block. Next video we discuss the spark plugs and their orientation some more. Thanks
How many of these were made, and how many still exist?
I refer you to the next video on this vehicle!
First Start after Rebuilding a 1915 V8! 1913 Design Ferro/Scripps Racing Engine Part 3 w Alan Travis
czcams.com/video/48pngvr-wdk/video.html
I only see two main bearings ? In a V8 !
Yup
Young people would not know about babbitt bearing ( even i had to look it a while back )
Hemi? How is it remotely a semi hemi?
From the standpoint of the valves being directly above the piston and the spark happening in the center between them. This is in the context of 1913 engineering development.
Correct, nothing Hemi about it. With the spark plug screwed into the block at the top of the bore, flame travel is slow. This design would like a lot of ignition advance, but that would have been limited by the very low octane rating of the fuels available back then. With todays fuel the bump in compression ratio should work just fine.
This is a really cool engine, but why does the presenter act like he's annoyed just telling me about it. It's like I'm getting hate described the motor.
Don’t mistake the passion for annoyance… Alan is very enthusiastic about keeping very old machinery working but pointing out the struggles of the old technology that he can artfully improve… thanks for watching!
My issue is more with the interviewer making a comment or an " uh-uh" with every micro-pause. Just let the man speak!!!!
@@BarryTsGarage Yeah I don't really buy that. That motor has a crazy wide angle V, has a MASSIVE Deck Face, and Bores so separated from each other that they stretch from the Earth to the Moon! I bet he could order pistons 3.5 HUNDRETHS OVER Pistons and still have room to go.
It seems more like a Steve Morris SMX from 1917 then anything else.
Constructive criticism to the interviewer it's not necessary to keep saying OK , yes etc.its annoying.
I agree, will try to do better. Thanks!
I think you are really the point on just how incredibly amazing this engine is… but much more so, this gentleman is just awesome and absolutely wonderful in the just absolutely incredibly throughout restoration work on something that’s really this rare and incredible even with his small additions of improvements that don’t destroy it’s original character. I’m in n wonderment watching a video on my phone… had i been in the shop I’d probably have been babbling on and completely unable to complete a logical thought and a full sentence…. HE DID A FANTASTIC JOB WITH HIS INTERVIEW, bud! Please link one of your interviews as a demonstration and learning tool on one of your past more professional demonstration’s on proper interviewing technique so we might understand how to carry out a more efficient and intelligent and absolutely incredible look into some of our lost industrial age’s incredible knowledge and engineering examples.
He said since it is a flat crank it is automatically balanced. That doesn't make since, one reason flat crank V8's aren't more popular even though they rev fast is that they vibrate.
Hmmmm