Pretty amazing (automotive content)

Bucket

This came up on Facebook from Top Gear - a 100-year-old Fiat with a 28.5 litre (yes, really) four-cylinder engine. Built for land speed records.

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/fiat-s76-starts-beast-of-turin-2014-12-02

Only two ever made, and the surviving body of one has been mated to the surviving engine of the other. The engine is started up for the first time in over 100 years at 1:55 (after some herculean effort from the man cranking the engine )

And the noise... bloody hell. Sounds like Satan's lawnmower. And you can see all the explosions happening inside it!

holnrew

I think my laptop speakers blew.

Nitefly

Bloody Hell - what a sound!   :-O

RaymondLin

It stops at 2:23, is that when it used up the tank of fuel? 

Corvus

Fiat - probably an electrical problem.

Sounds great though.

ROOG

What a Beast.

Brave man to crank that!

 

ICBM

Good lord .

As Bucket said, that really does bring it home that an internal combustion engine is driven by a series of controlled explosions - something which is quite easy to forget when you listen to a modern car engine.

I doubt I'd want to drive it either - 300BHP on something not very far removed from four Victorian bicycle tyres and with similar brakes no doubt!

boogieman

Reminds me of that Brutus thing with the airplane engine they had on Top Gear. That engine though, wow! Sounds incredible. Looks to be the size of a wardrobe too.

ROOG

Did they just install a 28.5 litre engine in a glorified pram frame?

Corvus

There's some home-grown monsters, I'd love to go see them somewhere but last time I tried I failed to find event listings etc.
One with a 24-litre aero engine

http://www.xrstyle.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?31124-VSCC-Curborough-speed-trials

Somewhere there's a great article with a bunch of pics on the first one - note oak chassis... them were't days etc.

Corvus

.

boogieman

Corvus said:

There's some home-grown monsters, I'd love to go see them somewhere but last time I tried I failed to find event listings etc.
One with a 24-litre aero engine

http://www.xrstyle.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?31124-VSCC-Curborough-speed-trials

Somewhere there's a great article with a bunch of pics on the first one - note oak chassis... them were't days etc.

You get a wow for that lot.

Remember "The Beast"? Cant think of the guy's name that built it, John summat? It was a kind of stretched hatchback with a Rolls grille........and a RR Merlin engine. Road legal too.

ROOG

boogieman said:

 

 

Remember "The Beast"? Cant think of the guy's name that built it, John summat? It was a kind of stretched hatchback with a Rolls grille........and a RR Merlin engine. Road legal too.

Was that the one that broke down on kids TV show Blue Peter?

boogieman

Errr, dunno! I know it caught fire and had to be rebuilt at one point.

boogieman

Found it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHp58Ss5GvM

Corvus

Hi boogieman, I do remember that, there's also a fella who built a Rover SD1 with a tank engine that was the Merlin engine in a different guise... had ginormous chassis rails   Saw it at a show a few years ago part-done.

Phil_aka_Pip

awesome. heard it at work on my mate's laptop but the speakers were crap so I listened at home just now. wow!

Bucket

boogieman said:

Remember "The Beast"? Cant think of the guy's name that built it, John summat? It was a kind of stretched hatchback with a Rolls grille........and a RR Merlin engine. Road legal too.

Yep, I know about that from a couple of magazine articles in recent years. Fascinating thing.

maltingsaudio

http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/general-auto-conversion-discussion/13376-why-not-more-motorcycle-engines-2.html

boogieman

The rotary one. Wow!!!

ICBM

boogieman said:

The rotary one. Wow!!!

Hopefully it's actually a radial rather than a rotary, or that would be seriously scary with your legs either side of it!