worst automotive engines?

[wyrmrider]

My brother still has a V8-6-4 81 Seville still get's good mileage form here to Vegas- NO major problems

I like Corvair (nothing wrong that viton o rings won't fix)
My cousin has a reverse rotation Crower setup with turbo in a VW bus
only problem was forgetting the special thrust washers in the distributor...
but X2 on Vega

[pdq67]

Oh, this is easy!!

The 1948 or so, Crosley "Hot Shot" sheet-metal brazed together little-bitty, 4-banger engine...

It was a SOHC engine to boot with a mechanical cam drive.. It also was the 1st American car that had disc brakes on it...

It would have been a GREAT little engine if they would have used "non-acid" flux to braze it together...

Next is the Vega! GM got it right in the end by installing cast-iron sleeves in it but by that time the damage was done...

Same way with the NOT ENGINE DESIGNED, but car design in general with the 1st Gen Corvair being a death-trap to say the least.. 2nd Gen Corvair was almost a world class car as was the last of the Fieros, but too late again..

It's as if the as*holes at GM NEVER would sell a competitively priced GOOD small car.. And to this day they don't, imho..

They and Suzuki sold about the BEST corn-popper car in the world that got better than 50 mpg if driven 1/2 way sane and it was the 1987 Chevy Sprint ER car... MIne bought new got 50+ mpg for years and years being driven at 70 mph or more so tell me that they can't build a cheap little-bitty corn-popper commuter car for someone like me..

GM own's that little 1,000 cc, 3-banger engine and it to this day is a dandy by me.. They made two of them, an early semi-hemi and a later more like a wedge sohc design.

I really figure if I can get it to pass inspection is to strip all the extra crap out of an Insight and drive it on engine alone..

I say this because imho, it has a SOTA engine in it already..

pdq67

[topfuelrocket]

ford 6.0 diesel trumps all. You know an engine is bad when there are law firms that specialize in nothing but customer lawsuits over that specific engine.

I'll take a 6.0 over a lot of other engines. They're just maintenance whores.

The 5.7 diesel definetly takes the prize.

I double agree It has to be the 5.7L gas block converted. to a want to be diesel engine

[pdq67]

You take a 350 Olds diesel block and sonic check it's cylinders and the max bore it out and then add something like a reworked 425" engine's crank and go..

You should end up with a 425" low deck OR so-called SBO engine..

pdq67

[topfuelrocket]

How about the Pontiac 301 carb turbo, followed by the early buick carburated V6 turbo, Great ideas back then

[dirtracr5]

I'll take a 6.0 over a lot of other engines. They're just maintenance whores.

sure, if you consider injectors, turbos, head gaskets, egr valves and oil coolers "maintenance"...LOL.

[topfuelrocket]

You take a 350 Olds diesel block and sonic check it's cylinders and the max bore it out and then add something like a reworked 425" engine's crank and go..

You should end up with a 425" low deck OR so-called SBO engine..

pdq67

Thats cool but try and run it as a diesel, I remember my fathers shop back then, he was rebuilding them in the day. dealers had warrantys none stop

[MadBill]

Stepping into the Wayback Machine, I nominate the 1923 'Copper Cooled' Chevrolet, a copper-finned air-cooled engine that overheated and detonated monumentally. Production was halted at ~ 500 units and almost all* were bought back by the factory, barged out into lake Erie and dumped. *Possibly all but the one Henry Ford bought for his Dearborn museum.

[PackardV8]

The Ford 6.0 gets a bad rap, but then there's mine at 150,000 and one EGR cooler. Other than that nada, but it still beats most anything across the intersection or merging onto the freeway.

I'd agree the late-'60s-early'70s Triumph 4cyl and V8 is in the running for the worst engine design of the last half the 20th century. There was nothing good and everything bad about that design. It almost sank Saab when they used it.

When Henry came out with the V8, a noted designer said, "It's an excellent fire tube boiler, but a piece of shit as an automotive engine. Exhaust passages wind across the entire block, the water pumps pull instead of push.

Some of the most reliable and most loved engines are so because they had such a low specific output they couldn't hurt themselves. I give you the Chevy stovebolt six, various Toyotas, Datsuns, Nissans, Volvos, Subarus and the like.

It's good that AMC sixes have a strong lower end, because they're going to be eating a lot of water and heat because all the heads crack.


jack vines

[jacksoni]

Gm never put iron sleeves in the Vega block but some replacement engines. dealer installed for fried ones, were from a rebuilder that did sleeve them under GM's approval.

The problems with the bores were due to a little tiny radiator, no overflow recovery system and the usual maintainence of the average driver= NONE. Get them hot and they were cooked. I had a Doug Roe designed heart shaped high compression head on one of mine that went well over 100000 miles no trouble. I did pull the engine from first one I had- 1971GT- for a 215 Buick 4 bbl that made a really nice swap. And I had one I leaned on some that went over 270 at Bonneville. Weren't perzackly stock though.

[af2]

You take a 350 Olds diesel block and sonic check it's cylinders and the max bore it out and then add something like a reworked 425" engine's crank and go..

You should end up with a 425" low deck OR so-called SBO engine..

pdq67

Thats cool but try and run it as a diesel, I remember my fathers shop back then, he was rebuilding them in the day. dealers had warrantys none stop

I still have black on my hands from the warranties then....

[SupStk]

I worked as a Chevy tech when they put the 5.7 diesels in their pickups. Warranty on those things about ate my lunch since I worked on flat rate. Buy the time GM quit on 'em most of the bugs were worked out but they couldn't give them away.

+1 on Vegas, 2.8, 3.8 Fords, 4100 Caddy and 2.6 Mitsubishi along with their other junk already mentioned.

[MODNROD]

1970s Triumph TR-7.
Worst ever.

If that's the same as the '70s Triumph Dolomite engines, then +10.
Bloody horrible things, with the mechanical integrity of a shot bucket.

[Kenova]

Some of the most reliable and most loved engines are so because they had such a low specific output they couldn't hurt themselves.
jack vines

I have always maintained that this is why the 283 had such legendary reliability.

Ken

[cv67]

Early 4 bangers in the Aries K cars.