VW V5 engines

[ChinaTom]

What is the score with these? A friend of mine has just bought one in UK (in a Bora no less). Were VW the only V-odd design or were there more that have fallen into obscurity? Sounds to me like a recipe for vibration. What was the perceived benefit of this arrangement?

[Station]

Space I think! It's not V-shaped, the cylinders sit in the same head, so typically, not an actual V engine at all, but the buyers and journalists bought the 'v' thing of course. They're not powerful either.

[Milford Cubicle]

It's not really a V, because that'd be impossible, it's a staggered in-line 5. Think it's basically a VR6 with a cylinder lopped off. They are much more compact than 'V' or in-line engines.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I have a recurring dream about fitting one of these enignes into a NSU Ro80.

[Pete-M]

VR in German vaguely translates as'Inline V'.

 

Well, the words that are missing do.

 

The 5 pot allegedly gives the economy of a 4 wirh the smoothness of a 6. They're close to the smoothness of an ok 6 pot, but they're not that good on fuel. 23ish in town, maybe 30 on a run. So only slightly less juicy than a VR6 and 40 bhp down.

[wuvvum]

Someone once told me that the V5 uses the same block as the V6, but one of the bores is unused. Don't know how true this is - I would have thought this would make for a rather unbalanced crank, but I don't know much about these things.

[Pete-M]

Only using 5 pots out of 6 would be mental. I can't see 'em doing that..

 

Having said that, I know a chap who melted a piston in his GS850 and just took the piston and rod out and blocked off the fuel pipe to the carb for that cylinder.

 

It didn't run well.

[Milford Cubicle]

Here's the V5 head

 

 

and the VR6 block, can't find any pics of the V5 block so maybe wuvvum is right!

 

[Station]

Engines have to work in complete sequence to 'work'! My dad's been driving round with three cylinders out of four working because he can't be bothered changing spark plug lead.

[Rod/b]

I used to have a V5 Toledo, the 170 bhp version. It was a great drive - loads of torque right across the rev range, and resonably quick, but the "economy of a four pot" is a load of bollocks. If I went on an, aherm, "spirited drive" round the lanes I was lucky to see 11mpg. It always felt like it could do with an extra gear at the top end. 130+mph on a derestricted autobahn was more than possible but you always wanted to change up again.

 

They don't really like regular unleaded either; you need to feed them Super to get the best out of them.

 

Beware of clutches though. They don't last particularly long and they're also DMF-tastic. I don't know what the situation is now, but when I had mine SEAT wanted £900+vat just for the flywheel,and it wasn't avaialble aftermarket. Obviously I just shoved a new clutch plate in and sold it.

[Richard]

The water holes on the VR5 head and VR6 block don't seem to match up unfortunately.

 

I know the early Laverda Jota motorbikes had what amounted to a 4 cylinder engine with the fourth cylinder missing, so it is possible to run an "incomplete" engine. British Twins were even worse, they had the middle two cylinders of a four so they would shake themselves to bits.

[gtd2000]

I'd say it's more of a W-5 from the pic

[Richard]

They did a "W12" didn't they?

[myglaren]

They did a "W12" didn't they?

And a W16:

 

[CreepingJesus]

There's been all sorts of formations tried; X's, radials, opposed-piston. All with the hope that getting the cylinder angles and crank bobweights right will make a smooth, powerful, reliable engine. Funny we always come back to the same handful of basic designs.

I remember reading when the VR6 first arrived, that VW were going to create a whole family of odd formation engines.

The VR6/V5 cylinder heads remind me of the old Ariel 'Squariel' square-4 bike engines, with long intake ports running next to long exhaust ports, just to get fuel/air in one side, and exhaust gas out of the other. To get equal lengths all round, you end up with a complicated mish-mash like the Suzuki RG500.

Incidentally, the original Laverda Jota came with a 180 degree crank. And with that, vicious power delivery, and a penchant for making the pistons and rods homeless. They quickly changed it to the 120 degree crank, which solved the issues.