So you've got an extra Rolls Royce 27L V12 laying around huh?

[Jon K]

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i263/summer06_2006/da3b7a8c.jpg

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i263/summer06_2006/fd58a5af.jpg

"Driveshaft tunnel"

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f105/auctioncars/df21cecb.jpg

The victim

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f105/auctioncars/8df077e0.jpg

The carnage!

That is ridiculous

Its a V12 Rolls Royce engine built for tanks stuffed into what used to be, I think, a Rover V8. WOW.

[NY535iManual]

Two words: Keeee Riiiiist. Is that a nitrous bottle too?

[Tiger]

27L???!!! Where does that go in? Are you sure it is not 7.2 L like typical Rolls?

[SnakeyesTx]

It's a tank engine, which is a detuned aircraft merlin. The tank is so it can run on LPG (natural gas). There's a video of it running floating around the web somewhere. The person who's building it is actually part of the staff of a magazine. The link for it is here : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8247949944477077608

The link for the car itself is here : http://www.ppcmag.co.uk/staffcardetail.asp?id=8

[calmloki]

http://www.rodshop.com.au/project55p2.htm
Oh those Aussies!

[TheEndIsNear]

Wow!!!

[Tiger]

I thought it was an airplane engine... now why would they want explosive gas inside the tank? That is why we use diesel... in case of any fire... no possibility to blow up except for the arsenal.

[Nick.Hay]

The scary thing about this Aussie chev...

Its road registered!!!

[The Bigfella]

now why would they want explosive gas inside the tank? That is why we use diesel... in case of any fire... no possibility to blow up except for the arsenal.

Not forgetting, of course, the rather ugly concept called "enemy fire". I was doing some work for the Army last year and had a look at some armour test results - if you get penetration of the armour, it don't matter much whether it blows up or not - you're dead if you are inside.

Ian

[Wyn]

If I had a RR Merlin, I'd be happy for life, I'd just rev it up and be in extacy forever.

[Jon K]

LPG is fine as a fuel... its no more explosive or dangerous than tugging 20 gallons of petrol around...

[Jon K]

I thought it was an airplane engine... now why would they want explosive gas inside the tank? That is why we use diesel... in case of any fire... no possibility to blow up except for the arsenal.


Yeah but the thing is, with airplanes you need horsepower, not torque. A 27 liter diesel engine would weigh 8 tons and make 250 hp - true, it'd make 32,000 ft lb of torque, but we're not trying to move islands...


This is the reason a lot of early aviation motors were supercharged.

[Omega]

The scary thing about this Aussie chev...
Its road registered!!!

So is the Rover. Fully road legal and taxed. It was originally a 2.6 liter Rover SD1, not any more. :D

For more info follow the link: http://www.ppcmag.co.uk/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=15

The guy who built it (Charlie) is very self affacing about his abilities but the guys at PPC magazine keep getting him to write about it.

[Paul in NZ]

ahh the merlin.
I didnt realise that they were 26 litres.They started of in life at about 750 HP by the end of the war the 36 litre version was pumpin over 2000 hp,was the reason the spitfire remained successful for the whole war.The merlin had a two stage supercharger..Any one who likes engines will shudder every time a spitfire ,hurricane,or merlin powered mustang flys overhead.

[Omega]

A company I worked for many years ago rebuilt a Merlin engine and put it on a dyno. After about 2 minutes the engine backfired and blew the exhaust stacks off of the outer wall of the test cell.

My ears were ringing for hours.

[Ross]

What, no turbos? Pussy!

[Traian]

What, no turbos? Pussy!

Easy now! See 3rd pic down :D
http://www.ppcmag.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1660

[Ross]

Didn't see that, only saw the photos on Jon k's post. He has an automatic though, double pussy!
What the hell kind of driveline could live behind that thing if it ever hooks up?

[Wyn]

ahh the merlin.
I didnt realise that they were 26 litres.They started of in life at about 750 HP by the end of the war the 36 litre version was pumpin over 2000 hp,was the reason the spitfire remained successful for the whole war.The merlin had a two stage supercharger..Any one who likes engines will shudder every time a spitfire ,hurricane,or merlin powered mustang flys overhead.
The Merlin was never 36 liters, it was always 27L. The Vulture was the 36L engine, and was used in the Manchester.

[tim]

Too bad the BMW's of the era (like the 801 in the fw190) were all radial. The DBenz 601 that was in the 109 was no slouch and it had methanol injection to increase manifold pressure. But next to the Merlin it sounds like a lawnmower. Another sweet sounding WWII plane engine is the Pratt and Whitney Double Row Wasp (which was in the Later Corsairs and Hellcats). I went to Reno one year and heard one going by at about 500mph. Damn!

Here's a link that has both motors with sound files. Feast your ears: http://www.aviationshoppe.com/Sounds1.html

[The Bigfella]

Took this one about 10 months ago. Went for a ride in the right seat on a Vietnam war ground attack jet the same day (maxed at 4 gs) No BMWs in sight - plenty of other Allied eye candy though.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid183/p58e3be14f3f4a3dae950f61653b464dd/f29d2b46.jpg

Ian

[Jimbo]

My dad actually bought me a flight in a Merlin powered P51 Mustang at an airshow for my 17th birthday. The sound was absolutely amazing, and the acceleration at takeoff was considerably more than any airliner, and way more intense than any car ive ever driven. Truly a classic plane and engine combo.

I remember reading somewhere that the first Mustang prototypes were powered by some American engine (Pratt and Whitney maybe?) and the governemnt almost passed on the aircraft because the performance was so lackluster. Then someone put a Merlin in there and we got arguably the best fighter of WWII.

This was the actual plane I flew in, im not in it though, I just found this pic online.
http://www.midwaysailor2.com/redwing/mustang-043b.jpg

[Ross]

You are thinking of the GM Allison engine, still no slouch.

[The Bigfella]

The Aussies ran lots of Mustangs (500+) including in Korea IIRC - even made them here during WW11, wioth the local version labelled the CA-18. Photo taken same day as the Spitfire.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid183/p826f6d7f2c63e3bf6bb50f0e7b0e467b/f29d2e73.jpg

WRT acceleration - the Dragonfly that I went up in did 0-200kph in 5 seconds flat.


To keep this thread drift going - here's a cowl shot of the Merlin in the Spit.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid183/p7e1cb333c3ffc677668e5be72e987f08/f29d2b4d.jpg

[Jimbo]

You are thinking of the GM Allison engine, still no slouch.
That's the one, just looked up the specs in P-51 trim:
1100hp for the Allison
1430hp for the Merlin

So how would that feel in a Rover SD1 :D, I bet the front to rear weight distribution leaves something to be desired in that thing.

[Omega]

What the hell kind of driveline could live behind that thing if it ever hooks up?

Right this is from memory as I read about the Rover about 2 years ago..

The Rover is road legal and has been driven on the street for a couple of years. Charlie has stripped it down for the final build and has added home built fuel injection to the engine.

The gearbox is from a Jaguar but the power take off from the engine goes through (I believe) an overdrive box from a Leyland bus first before being passed to the gearbox. The overdrive box has a ratio of 1:3. The engine has massive torque but low revs (1600 rpm max) which makes it near impossible to bolt a torque converter to.

By running through the overdrive, the flexplate speed is multiplied by 3 so 500 engine rpm = 1500 flexplate rpm and the torque is reduced to 1/3 of it's original value.

When Charlie got it running originally he stamped on the brakes, reduced the throttle to tick over and dropped the box into drive, and he nearly drove through the garage wall as the torque of the drive overpowered the brakes.

Like I said this is from memory and Charlie is a much better engineer than I. He initially had the engine running on carbs with 2 distributors that were for a 4 cylinder engine. He span both dizzy's at 1.5 crank speed to get 6 sparks from the 4 leads. Don't ask me how it worked. I don't know.

All I will add is from an inginuity and technical engineering problem solving point of view the car is a bloody masterpiece.

Oh yes.. Once it's finished he's also going to drive it at a racetrack or airfield to see if it will do 200mph... :D

[Paul in NZ]

The Merlin was never 36 liters, it was always 27L. The Vulture was the 36L engine, and was used in the Manchester.

Strictly speaking youre right,but the later versions of the spitfire did have a 36 litre v12,i think it was called the griffon.

[F4Phantom]

Speaking of the diesel thing, the germans made diesel bombers, what extra weight they carried in engine mass was made up in smaller fuel loads.

[Paul in NZ]

yes two stroke double supercharged deisels