Old Ford Experimental Engines

[Boss1Ray]

An article picked up by Hemmings originally appearing in a 1973 edition of "Special Interest Autos" magazine.

Some strange designs.

https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2008/01/27/sia-flashback-experimental-ford-engines/









Ray

 

[Don C]

Thanks for posting, Ray, interesting stuff. I hope they're still in the museum and haven't gotten lost.

 

[Boss1Ray]

Yeah. At least you can see the pictures. The text got jacked up in the scans.

It looks OK in the link. Weird engineering stuff.

Ray

 

[Don C]

With some of them you can see what they were trying to achieve, like the split engine over the transaxle, or the X-8s. But some, like the 144° V-10, mystify me, maybe it was an attempt for smoothness, but it seems like offsetting firing pulses would add more roughness, while a flat opposed engine would be smoother and take up only slightly more space.

 

[basstrix]

144 goes into 720 by 5, so I'm guessing it's the separation needed for a shared journal type of crank.