Ridiculous engine bay sights

[Station]

Why were the engine bays huge, while the engines seemed tiny? I don't remember them being small, and the difference today, you can hardly fit your finger down the gaps!

 

Morris Marina:

 

 

Vauxhall Viva:

[dollywobbler]

Because in the old days, engines were designed to be worked on!More seriously, the transverse engine layout was primarily to save space, so the engine ends up being squashed and inaccessible. Thanks Issigonis!Longitudinal engines generally have much more space around them.

[Cheggers]

I'm not sure engines have grown THAT much...there's just more ancillaries (aircon, ABS, Traction Control etc etc) & mysterious black boxes than there ever used to be.

[pompei]

I'm guessing that perhaps that Marina has an A series egine, often seen in Minors, Minis etc, in what is in comparison quite a big car.

[Spottedlaurel]

V4 engine in aircraft carrier Zephyr Mk4 is the silliest one I can think of. I think that highlights that style dictated a long or tall bonnet line, but the simple engines with very few ancillary components back then looked fairly dinky.

[pompei]

Did the Mk III Cortina come in 1.3 flavour? Bet there's plenty of spare space in there

[mk1_4dr]

Did the Mk III Cortina come in 1.3 flavour? Bet there's plenty of spare space in there

Yeah, 1300 xflow mk1 Capri's aswell.To be honest, the xflow in escRot seems to fit the bay quite nicely, still plenty of room to work on it though (well, now the battery's in the boot that is)

[Guest]

The Charmant has a spacious engine bay:

 

Looks more cluttered than it is thanks to all the rubber hoses.

[warren t claim]

I think it is because cars like the Cortina/Granada were engineered to house much bigger engines for the Australian and South African market. I believe even the humble Marina was built with a straight six somewhere in our wonderful empire.

[Richard]

The B Series/Slant 4 did a much better job of filling the Marina/Viva's engine bays.I do remember thinking the Marina and Viva engines were comically small but I was used to the Sunbeam/Avenger engine, which was a bit of a monster.

[pbottomley]

In terms of a Viva its great, get in close the bonnet, keep the rain off and service the damn thing. Baby engine in big engine bay FTW I say

[Richard]

Same with the transverse engined Renault 21s. It was a delight to change a timing belt when you could see what you were doing.

[Calum_B]

The A40 is lovely to work on.

 

Not really got a good pic of my engine bay I don't think...

That's it, being prepped for its respray!

 

Here's another though, for a better pic (a race prepared one, so a lot bigger carbs, but no heater for example)

 

By comparison, the Land Rover is a bit more awkward to work on. Because the wings come up so high, you have to reach right down into the engine bay to get at anything that's not at the top, and to do this it's often best to fold the bonnet against the windscreen and stand on the bumper. At least the wings are easily removed for more serious work, so it isn't bad to work on really.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v200/ ... C00329.jpg

[Milford Cubicle]

I'm jealous, the engine in my car is well crammed in.Transversely mounted + top-mounted intercooler, turbo/air intake gubbins and pipes, various ancillaries.

[Rusty Pelican]

gubbins .

Too much unnesessary Gubbins if you ask me

[Milford Cubicle]

Well, I think I could do without the air conditioning. The turbo and intercooler have to stay, I don't fancy 0-60mph in 17.5 seconds.

[Richard]

The 405 engine bay doesn't have that much in the way of gubbins. It's not even that small a space, it's just that the engine is in at an angle and crammed against the wing and bulkhead.

[Vin]

In the Pandas, the most visible thing in the engine bay is the spare wheel

[Jonnyvalenta]

The 405 TD isn't that bad to work on compared to the same installation in a BX!

[seth]

Calum, that race A40 has some really sexy carbs!The A35 is a bit odd in that the engine is so far down inside the little oval bonnet opening.

[Nervy Si]

the transverse engine layout was primarily to save space, so the engine ends up being squashed and inaccessible.

Yeah, I think this has a lot to do with it. There's enough space in my Jag engine bay, with it's longditudinal 6, even with all the additional gubbins. My mate's old Clio on the other hand had no room for a match head, because as you say, they made the most of the compact engine set up by shortening the car and therefore the engine bay. Plus, I suppose car styling has moved away from the good old 3-box saloon (which allowed perhaps 1/3 of the car's length for the bonnet and underlying engine) towards 2- or 1-box design, with engine space minimised.

Did the Mk III Cortina come in 1.3 flavour? Bet there's plenty of spare space in there

I think even the Cortina 80 (~Mk 5) came in 1.3 flavour, in fact I met a bloke who had a 1.3 coupe. Trouble is, sometimes smaller engine capacities don't mean smaller engine blocks. The BMW M30 straight-6 mill is the same size whether is is bored/stroked to 2.3, 2.5, 2.8, 3.2, 3.3 or 3.5 litres. I believe our American cousins call these under-bored large engines 'boat anchors'

[Tayne]

.

[Dead_E23]

I thought the 2.3 and 2.5 displacements used the M20 engine? Certainly true about the M30 being a big old lump of metal - the engine bay of my E23 735i is surprisingly jam packed and not at all easy to work on. Unfortunately, I need to get at the flywheel to replace the pin that works the crankshaft position sensor - hence my user name! (Plan B involves megasquirt, when I eventually get around to it...)

[warren t claim]

Why can't we have a transverse engine and RWD? Fun driving and loads of interior space! Plenty of 80's FWD saloons had a 4WD option so it must be possible.

[seth]

Fun driving and loads of interior space!

Except the biggest loss of interior space would come thanks to having a trans tunnel.

[brammy777]

As seth has just said, transmission tunnels consume a whole load of space in the interior.Where would you mount the gearbox? On normal RWD cars its behind the engine, or on a transaxle, and with engines that are usually pretty large (nowadays anyway) mounting the engine and gearbox on top of one another would be pretty space consuming to say the least. You mention 4WD cars having transverse engines in the past, all of them were no doubt based on FWD designs.Wouldnt it rough up the weight distribution, and thus the handling with all the weight at one end of the car? Hence why they were 4wd.But i think that cars that were designed to have RWD with the longitudinal layout would not be able to take it transversely, bare in mind that a car is designed with every aspect of weight and component distribution in mind.Im no doubt a tad wrong haha.

[Nervy Si]

I thought the 2.3 and 2.5 displacements used the M20 engine?

I think the 2.5 engine was the M30, with Bosch Motronic injection. The 2.0 and 2.7 (from the 525e) engines were M20, as for the 2.3 you may be right, could be a 2.3 M20 running on Bosch K-Jetronic! Failed cold start valves ahoy

[Dead_E23]

I just had a look at the John Burns (Unix Nerd) BMW site. Turns out you can get a 2.5 in M20, M30, M50, M52 and M54 variants! Learn something new every day.On the subject of transverse engined rear wheel drive, it occurs to me that you could replace the inner CV joints of a fwd car with some sturdy sprockets and have a lovely chain driven rear axle! Now that's gonna be shite. I reckon such a design would tick all the boxes: noisy, inefficient, unreliable and most probably dangerous. I'm surprised some Soviet Bloc manufacturer didn't build one. (Come to think of it, my Range Rover had a chain driven transfer box, which is probably as close as we'll get...)

[brammy777]

Actually the LR2 Freelander is a transverse 4WD and wasnt an FWD design, although i presume it was designed with that in mind.

[chester drawers]

The audi has a huge gap at the front of the engine. I could put a sack of cement in that gap.Very strange given their reputation for very forward mounted engines.

Too right. Bugger all access on a 1.8T; hence my A4 goes to a local independent for pretty much everything.Even lamp replacement is a complete pain in the arse. Extracting the recessed mounting bolt is like playing one of those magnetic fishing games, only with more swearing. You can’t see the bolt and inevitably it drops off the end of the magnetic torx driver into the depths of the Earth's core (under tray). Marvelous.Next time I'm going to see if I can borrow an electromagnet off CERN.