The worlds worst engine award.

[warren t claim]

Please submit your nominations based on fact, experience and bigoted heresay.

 

Obviously I'm expecting the K-Sealries to be a strong contender along with a couple of Triumph designs but please feel free to nominate your least favourite boat anchor.

[Formula Autos]

The NSU Ro80's mill. This one sunk the company.

[ashmicro]

Anything with a Vauxhall badge on it.

[FredTransit]

I don't think I can add anything to this list. I have been quite happy with the engines I have encountered. Maybe not enough shite experience? I don't like points though!

[Albert Ross]

Triumph Slag. Not for the shite head gasket problems, but for the fact that the STEEL head studs corrode into the ALUMINIUM heads..... ergo you can't remove the heads. Knobsticks. Any wonder why the Rover V8 got lobbed in quite often? (Which gets number three in my top 10 of engines)

[pogweasel]

1-litre 3-cylinder thing as utilised in Vauxhall Corsa's.

Horrible.

[Cavcraft]

K-sealies.

 

Ford 1.8 diesels (as fitted to Orions/Escorts etc).

 

Ford Ka (sound like skeleton break dancing on a tin roof and the dubious honour of being fitted into a hateful heap of rusty shit car).

 

Talbot engines (see Ford Ka but slightly less hateful).

[Akron]

Anything 16 valve, no torque give me an 8v any day and modern FIAT/Vauxhall Diseasels.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Anything 16 valve, no torque give me an 8v any day and modern FIAT/Vauxhall Diseasels.

 

My SAAB 9000 has 16 valves, it's quite a torquey thing and a fair bit more pleasant than the 8 valve that was fitted to my 900.

 

Agree with Cavette on the Ford 1.8D, it's the least effective engine I've experienced - gutless and not that fuel efficient, plus you have to change the cambelt every 20k to stop it grenading. I've experienced plenty of other atmo diesels and they've all been a lot better.

[ashmicro]

Indenor 2.3 diseasel as fitted to the earlier Sierra. 'Orrible.

[Timewaster]

 

Ford Ka (sound like skeleton break dancing on a tin roof).

 

Plus Ford made the genius decision to fit platinum plugs at £40 a set which would last 30,000 miles or some huge mileage.

Shame they had welded themselves in the head by the time the car had done 15,000

 

Nurse - fetch the helicoil!

 

*Figures mught not be acurate - I blame my memory

[peter9000uk]

Ford V4

[Alexg]

The K series is a great engine! The HGF issue was a major problem, but now solveable

[pbottomley]

Anything with a Vauxhall badge on it.

 

Ford 1.8 diesels (as fitted to Orions/Escorts etc)

 

Well that's me fucked then,... Vivas and a Mk5 escort 1.8 TDi

[fiatdaft]

Anything with a Vauxhall badge on it.

 

 

what about the opel versions of the same engine?

 

i can only really comment on engines i have experience of.

 

so its a close call between the pinto and cvh.

[Guest]

Oh, that's really too easy.

 

The Ford Pinto.

 

I hate them. Why so, you ask? Because they're ridiculously heavy for their power output and even after spending £2K you're struggling to see 150 brake from one. And far, far, far too many interesting and rare cars get fucked up by the 'I like what I know and I know what I like' brigade stuffing 'cheap as chips' Pintos into them by means of some half arsed and shit conversion. Crossflows I can abide, mainly because MK14Dr's sounded like the ANGRIEST CAR IN THE ENTIRE WORLD and it quite endeared itself to me by doing that.

 

The car I see most often butchered with this pointless lump of shit is the KP60 Starlet. Ah yes, let's lob a deadweight Pinto in there with the heady output of 110 brake when a 4 AGE wouldn't be 5 million times lighter and more powerful. Japanese engines killed my uncle at Iwo Jima.

 

I'm not overly enamoured with the Cologne \ Essex V6 engine either. Why in god's name will they not rev AT ALL? Are their flywheels made of concrete or something? Conversely the BOB Cosworth 24V engines are lovely bits of kit.

In short, there hasn't been a decent Ford engine yet in my opinion that's been made by Ford themselves. The I4 that went into the Mk5 RS2000 was OK I suppose, but everything else halfway acceptable has been developed with another company's help. The Zetec? Yamaha. Ditto for the SHO and Volvo V8s (bollocks to what Ford says, it's a development of the SHO V8). The BOB and YBA \ YBT? Cosworth. Ford can't even build decent diesels - most of their modern range comes from PSA.

 

And although I had a Ford Ka and liked it a lot (sorry Billy), the engine was undoubtedly the worst bit of the car. Whiny, noisy, tappety ('self adjusting' my arse) sullied with a stupid sparkplug \ head design and not even that economical. I never got more than 30 mpg from mine which is piss poor for a car of that size, although the massive lard arsed bulk of the shell might have had something to do with it - dry, my Ka weighed 980 kg. Yes, you read that right, 100 kg shy of my Amazon, which incidentally has a smoother running engine despite sharing the same OHV configuration.

 

I fully expect a chip laden rebuttal from Pete saying I know fuck all and that Volvo B series engines are horseshit. Love you too man

[Skinley]

Worst engine I've ever experienced was the 2.5 diesel in the transit minibus I used to drive, absolutely gutless, 55 mph flat out and 0-55 in about a fortnight.

I've also owned a few Mk3 escorts and a Mk2 fiesta XR2 with the CVH engine, didn't like those much either.

[Guest]

Bit unfair to call the K-series the worst engine ever, when they're not operating like a kettle they're fantastic - the old "R8" 214 16V feels like a right piece of kit compared to its equivalents. I just get the impression they probably weren't meant to be made in bigger sizes than the 1.4.

 

I reckon the worst engine ever is the VW 1.9 TDi, because everyone driving one seems to look really angry.

[Vin]

 

My SAAB 9000 has 16 valves, it's quite a torquey thing and a fair bit more pleasant than the 8 valve that was fitted to my 900.

 

Agree with Cavette on the Ford 1.8D, it's the least effective engine I've experienced - gutless and not that fuel efficient, plus you have to change the cambelt every 20k to stop it grenading. I've experienced plenty of other atmo diesels and they've all been a lot better.

 

My Mum had a K reg Fiesta 1.8 DLX. I must say I found it OK, but boy, it had absolutely no urgency whatsoever. I used to hate having to overtake stuff on the motorway because between 75 and 80 it was flat out, and would take an age to respond.

 

Anything 16 valve, no torque give me an 8v any day and modern FIAT/Vauxhall Diseasels.

 

The Diseasel in my Brava has been excellent. Service every 12k and a cambelt every 50k. It's needed glow plugs, and an air flow meter, but thats it really. It's now on 205k miles and counting.

[Richard]

The CVH for sure. So shit that they had to bring back the OHV engines.

[oldford]

I like simple engines that are easy and cheap to fix such as the Pinto and CVH, which are virtues that I hold more dear than power output and refinement at the shite end of the market.

 

If you want a shite engine look at the VW 1.8 20V turbo, fitted with plastic water pumps, engine mounts that break, complicated variable valve timing, oil pump pick ups that block up (I suppose that extended service intervals don't help), coil packs that regulary break, steel sump plug into an alloy sump (which tthread will strip first?). It won't run without a load of sensors and a computer, you dont even control it - you instruct a computer that may/may not do what you want it to. And to top it all off, it can be usually found packaged in an area not much bigger than it.

[Rusty Pelican]

Oh, that's really too easy.

 

I'm not overly enamoured with the Cologne \ Essex V6 engine either. Why in god's name will they not rev AT ALL? Are their flywheels made of concrete or something?

Totally agree on this , drove a Tranny ambulance for a while , gutless boat anchor , even worst when the overdrive gave up , wouldnt pull the skin of a rice pudding

[Torsten2001]

Anything VAG!

[Station]

K-series is a good torquey engine, the VVC is even better. I can say that after doing three or four head gasket changes in a year (now buying a new engine).

 

I agree with Jon on the Pinto. Mine sat in the corner of my garage because I couldn't move it. It also protested to being left there, by defying physical logic and toppled over in the night, emptying it's contents of oil. When I was doing my kit car, it seemed the obvious choice for my 'BUILD A RACING CAR FOR 50P' and it mated straight to the Type 9, and I caught my shin numerous times on the fan mount, which has an iron heat sink type thing on it - I remember convulsing in agony that had nothing to do with pain, but was to do with it being the 50th time I'd shredded my a cut that had given up trying to heal.

 

 

Observe the fan mount from hell. That's not rust, it's dried blood. (Rust is underneath).

 

 

It has a plastic rocker cover. All the bolts are different sizes, metric, imperial. Even on the rocker cover, there are 12mm, 14mm, 3/4, etc. It's exhaust manifold is square, is cast iron, and has four 90 degree angles 1 inch from the port exit. It also goes straight into a single port a few inches after upsetting itself with bends, without consideration for air flow. It also uses aluminium threaded plugs for pipe unions which go into steel, which break if the engine hasn't been warmed up. I was going to weigh this in, but my car's tyres were bottoming out on the arches, resting on the bump stops. Considering I managed a 1987 Starion engine (complete with all ancilleries and an iron block), and five 16" wheels with tyres without this happening, there shall be no exaggerating that this is a heavy engine.

 

Observe:

 

 

 

I somehow managed to fob the engine off onto some unwitting fellow when he bought some stuff off me! How they engineered this into the Sierra Cosworth 'YB'!

 

I kind've liked the CVH, as I am fond of the death-rattle of a one year old Fiesta/Orion/Escort. Like the Pinto, it was flipping reliable.

[Cavcraft]

Bit unfair to call the K-series the worst engine ever, when they're not operating like a kettle they're fantastic - the old "R8" 214 16V feels like a right piece of kit compared to its equivalents. I just get the impression they probably weren't meant to be made in bigger sizes than the 1.4.

 

I reckon the worst engine ever is the VW 1.9 TDi, because everyone driving one seems to look really angry.

 

There's a good reason for that, they're probably up to their knees in water and awaiting the next thing to go wrong with the fucking useless, over-rated heaps of shit.

 

Forgot about the (CVH?) 1.8 engines as fitted to Sierras. Smoke like a laboratory beagle and only posess enough power to asthmatically wheeze themselves over a speed bump.

 

Oh and whilst I'm here the 4 cyclinder Euro Cargo engine is hopelessly, dangerously underpowered and has an incredible thirst. Absolute pile of fucking rubbish.

[scaryoldcortina]

I quite like pintos. Good reliable early 70's tech. course it's heavy, and tall but hey. It's shorter, lighter, makes more power and more MPG than a land-rover 2 1/4 does, for example... also , Starion.. it's all metric and has a steel cam cover? you are right about the crap exhaust manifold...

 

No, for all their shortcomings, ford tend to make decent engines for the era they were designed for. Mostly though, they continued to use them until either the tooling wore out or they could no longer meet emissions spec.

 

My vote for worst engine ever goes to the hillman imp. no two ways about it, it was a good idea, but it's an underdeveloped POS thats only virtue is that you can take it out yourself in an hour with only a jack for assistance. And you will get plenty of practice.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I liked the n/a 1.9D fitted to my Golf, seemed like a simply but well designed engine and it was surprisingly pokey. Shame about the car surrounding it though.

[M'coli]

My vote for worst engine ever goes to the hillman imp. no two ways about it, it was a good idea, but it's an underdeveloped POS thats only virtue is that you can take it out yourself in an hour with only a jack for assistance. And you will get plenty of practice.

I can see your point, but I believe it's misguided. There were few alterations to the engine during production, it worked well enough, especially when it was in the Talbot Sunbeam. It was the cooling system that was the problem on these. My first Imp had its headgasket fail through being rusty, so we replaced it. Unbeknown to me, the radiator was partially blocked so was well into that area that causes problems, but I didn't know this - it kept boiling. Comined with this the radiator header tank wouldn't stay soldered to the radiator, you could hear the steam whistling out of the joint. So looking at this logically, I reasoned that if the system was marginal for boiling despite the addiation of a VW Polo heater matrix on the bypass pipe, then the solution lay in raising the boiling point of the coolant - 7psi raises the boiling point of water to around 108ËšC.

 

I took the header tank off the radiator, and stuck a Vauxhall tank into the system with a 30psi cap on it after borrowing my mate's chemistry books and working out that at 30psi water should boil at about 127-128ËšC, and ran it like that until I had a driveshaft doughnut break and burst the radiator. It would run about 115-120ËšC on the motorway, and combined with a Fiat 126 windscreen blower, the heater was bloody FANTASTIC!

 

I never again had to replace the head gasket after that first one.

[FredTransit]

Pinto? DI? Somebody call? Leave standing for 2 years, give either one of em a fresh battery, off they go. HGF? Keep putting water in it, do the gasket (one day) and it's fine. None of yer skimming or bin the head. Cam belt gone? On the DI the worst that will happen is a few bent push rods. On the pinto? ER, nothing! What else will do that?

[dollywobbler]

I'll also defend the K-Series. Over 100bhp from a 1.4 with the later ones. Very zingy, shame they didn't design the head gaskets correctly from the start. My contenders are:

 

Ford Sidevalve. Thirties technology that needs a rebuild every five minutes, but Ford built them until about 1962 IIRC. No wonder the Anglebox 105E engine felt so good!

 

Ford TDCi engines. Yes, I know I've said this before and yes, I know some of you like them. I've just found them to be peaky, torque-less with turbo lag to frighten an early Audi Quattro.

 

Suzuki V6. The one fitted to the Vitara. Has none of the benefits (sounds shit, no power) but still drinks like Oli Reed.