Which car would you put this engine in? 🤔Thanks to Flexispot for sponsoring today's video, remember FlexiSpot’s Fall Sale is here, up to 50% OFF! Use my exclusive code "YTE7Q200” to get an extra $200 off on E7Q standing desk!
Honestly if Nissan made a road version, they could make something to compete with the GR Yaris / Corolla. Imagine a Micra with this engine and AWD! It'd be awesome.
That engine alone would cost over twice as much as a GR Yaris. These kinds of performance numbers are only possible from race engines because only race teams can afford them.
@@ChristianStoutI mean the G16E-GTS is a race engine as well if you think about it since it was designed & homologated with Rally2 regulation in mind, but the difference is you can technically bought that engine alone as a crate engine. Hence why the GR Yaris Rally2 is awesome in my eyes since it pretty much kept the engine & turbo from the road car and slightly up-boosted it to make 300hp.
@@ChristianStoutThe cost could be brought down if it was made in assembly lines. The question would be is "by how much?" and that's what I'm interested in.
Lots of people in the comments talking about putting it into a bike or making a sleeper car. Being optimized for racing I think this engine deserves something more like an Ariel Atom chassis.
@@fampic7133 sounds boring but no wasted potential. Or if you want little less boring, then you can put it into the Caterham Seven 160/Kei. One of the smallest Caterhams around.
The unicorn engine I want someone to find (although I think it sadly no longer exists) is the 4.2 litre V10 Cosworth made for Volvo - and which Volvo heat-soak tested by fitting to a couple of 850 mule cars and driving them in Gothenburg rush hour traffic. Who wouldn't want a go in an 850 with a 4.2 litre V10?
@@CaptainHoratioPugwash yeah, as @wobblysauce said, they just used the 850 to do some testing, hence mule cars. There's conflicting info out there, but it seems like they wanted a special engine for the forthcoming S80 big saloon. They were also testing some other variants, including an estate version of the S80 and even very early prototypes of a lifted AWD estate/SUV. All except the S80 would later be dropped, including the big engine, and we would later only get the smaller estate based on the S60. The Yamaha V8 came too late for the original S80, but did end up in the P2 platform it spawned in the form of the XC90. It would also see service in the later P3 S80, whose platform would be used by parent company Ford for many of their global models, including the US version of the Mondeo, which was fitted with Ford's own V8 instead of the Yamaha.
You're referring to the 1996 Cosworth WDA V10. The photo of the engine appears in the Cosworth Search for Power book and the engine is still in the archives.
Have you heard of PGM? They're an Australian group of five who’ve created something incredible-a high-revving V8 monster by combining two Yamaha R1 engines. This beast backspins at 200 km/h, churns out 334 hp, and they've built it into a motorcycle. It’s honestly one of the best-sounding bikes I’ve ever heard in my life. You guys should definitely do a talk on those engines-the internet needs more of this, and the world definitely needs more from PGM!
1:31 I know this isn't the main topic of the video, but the Juke-R is a heck of a rarity. 5 examples were produced, and Nissan has kept 2 of them, meaning that there are only 3 of these to be found around the globe. And yeah, it's literally a Juke with a sportier bodykit, wings and the GT-R's V6 engine chucked in it. RML also contributed to its development.
I was at LeMans in 2014. It was a cool thing to see on track. Their plan was to run a normal stint on the engine near to LMP2 pace and then do a lap on electric only at GT pace. But it had loads of issues all week and didn’t do many laps. The full electric lap they managed was in morning warmup and I’m not sure if it was actually on regen or if they simply charged it in the garage. In the race to the gearbox failed after a very small number of laps and that was it.
Just looking at that crank they took some significant risks... For the engineers this was a dream project for sure. It would have been nice for them to get some more time and money to sort the issues but these things rarely go to plan.
I remember some meeting with race engineers 1 or two years after LM 2014. They said the car woul do a lap of Le Mans at full pace with 3l of fuel close to P2 pace. But a single lap of in EV only would take all the energy in the 150kg of batteries they had at GT pace. Even with all that efficient aero. Kinda interesting how nothing changed in the EV tech (if they need to go fast). I trully miss those days. WEC LMP1H was welcoming Porsche. Best racing regulation ever. Too bad it didn't last long as the money to sustain it was in F1 not in Le Mans. And the world overall was a lot better.
For years I have been wondering why I haven't seen many, or really any, engines that have a one piece block and head. I was following this Nissan project since it came out. I used to read magazine articles about it. Really cool to see that it was using this technology way back then! Nice to have one of my ideas validated, even if I'm far from the first to think of it of course. I'm sure there are other examples in history or recent history, but I figured with all our modern CNC machines this should be very possible.
They can do the difficult machine work. The possible performance or weight improvements are not worth the extra cost in development for a production vehicle. Race parts are very different and cost isn't a big limitation.
@orkin2525 Oh yeah for sure I didn't expect to see it in production vehicles, only areas like aftermarket billet blocks where head gasket failures can lose races for example. Or in some crazy supercar just because.
@802Garage class rules and sponsorships are likely a big reason why. They often pretend to use tech that could possibly be used in production vehicles one day.
This is why the Abarth 500s exist. Cant get to 400hp with the American model. Yet. But the Euro T-Jets can. Here in the USA. 400 ft lbs of torque is about it. But thats gonna cost much more than the cars are worth.
honestly as a budget (for a proper race team) race car engine it would work well every category from single seaters to rally cars and anything in between (city car touring vehicles) reduce the power output accordingly and it would work well and if it needs rebuilding it requires less rods pistons bearings rings everything (almost)
For all those who are remarking about how amazing the engine is with it's lack of a separate cylinder head - this isn't a new concept. Many production cars have used this - all the way back to the early 1900s. Also was common in early aircraft engines. Also interesting this video didn't include any mention of the Deltawings history - and Nissan out of court settling a lawsuit for kinda ripping off the design that was owned/IP of Ganassi Racing / Panoz.
Drivetribe always manages to create videos on awesome topics, meets many interesting people and somehow even gets inside some of the most interesting facilities. But the best part is, that despite all of that they always manage to only scratch the surface and provide us with actually very little information, then they compress everything into 10-15 minutes which includes 2 minutes of adverts. Great job!
Oh, mate, so cool! 🎉 watching your last video on the engine I felt sad that it was lost to time and then you found it! So happy you made this follow up video and introduced us to RML who are still doing cool things!
I loved this video, thank you! I searched for this for years and could never find any info on it. This should be a production crate engine and would make for excellent swaps!
Great presentation! The Headless Block is a cool idea for a boosted engine but you still have to keep the crank in the mains and if you can push them apart you'll lose oil pressure in the big end. Everything has its pros and cons.
So.. the big question I bet most are asking is ... why can't this be made into a production engine? They really broke a lot of engineering tradition, but is the unit and materials cost astronomical? Could you imagine that setup in a Cooper Classic, or an original Cinquecento? Steve Morris engines is working on a 3-cylinder side-by-side engine that's supposedly going to make north of 1,000 hp - but his project could never go mass production, or be cost effective for the masses either.
As the engineer said, this engine is optimized for a purpose. It probably makes 400bhp at 15,000 rpm and peak torque is likely quite low in relation to the bhp. It's built to be a component of a complex hybrid drivetrain, without the electric motors it's a duck out of water. I'd bet the cost of building this engine was a number with 7 or more digits to the left of the decimal. Demand for a production version would be tiny, given it will appeal to a literal handful of people and even fewer will have the dosh to actually buy one even if a production version was priced to achieve break even for a limited run. RML doesn't do production, and Nissan is struggling to retool and keep the lights on right now (Renault hasn't hammered all the nails in the coffin, but they've working hard at it...)
Because it was designed for racing first & foremost. As cool as it is, it's not economically viable turning a race engine to be used for road use. I mean the G16E-GTS inside the GR Yaris is the literal closest thing to the Diglett. 304hp stock from 1.6L 3cyl Turbo, used in competition for GR Yaris Rally2, and if you're doing it right can be tuned to 400-600hp.
@@AbrahamArthemius Yeah, so were Dunlop Disc brakes and overhead cam engines in the 1960's which became commonplace today. The long and short of it is this - Nissan and RML did it for a specific purpose but didn't consider the bigger picture. I guess the Steve Morris version will have to be what the masses can opt in for at a premium option cost. 🤦♂
@@SeanPwnery i mean to be fair, Nissan always seems to be in their kind of inside turmoil especially leadership since the 00s to now so that's probably one of the reason for it. They really don't have that one guy who actually has the vision AND passion to really bring motorsport elements to the masses like Toyota had with Akio Toyoda/Morizo. Their e-Power system for example (think a train's diesel-electric system but for a car) is actually pretty great, they can tinker with it and build a genuinely unique hot hatch product in the market with it, but they won't ever do it.
Seeing the engine and getting a little bit of info was awesome. What would be even more awesome is some of the details in more detail like the fact that the head and block are all 1 piece. How that was done and how much weight etc it saved would be cool. No steel head bolts, no head gasket, no cylinder liners and who knows what other tech went into making this tiny beast.
It's suspicious how many incredible engine technologies just end up sitting on a development shelf while those breakthroughs and improvements never find their way into improving the performance and efficiency of mass produced cars.
Surprised nissan hasn't decided to dedicate a budget to competing with the GR yaris/corolla with a detuned, mass-production ready version of this (minus hybrid setup)
Impressive design details on that engine! And great to finally see a conclusive value on the mystery of the engine's actual weight (what was included in the quoted 40kg).
I think you should do some sort of vid on steam engines as a whole. either trains, tractors, trucks, or cars, doesnt really matter, but in the era we are seeing more and more electric cars bring more and more impressive torque figures to the table, it would be fun to see them compared to one of the oldest engines and, at least to some extent, still the kings of torque that will beat any electric vehicle on the road today. the powers of *external* combustion...
This is what makes TH-cam Journalism - Game Changing. This is what makes the suivalence society so powerful. Because we care, our eyes help you get advertising & support that means that you can effect companies to acknowledge the great work they have done. And now the world knows off this engine, people across the planet will ask for it to be built into specialist tools. Their is nothing wrong with ICE engines as long as we have ways to mitigate their effects. In a future where we mostly run EV's we can afford to run artisal pieces of ICE such as this. This is a thing of utter beauty and I am sure if you ask any real EV Motorhead they would agree!
So who actually made the engine? There is so much mention of "them", "the team" etc. Who made it, who was the actual team? Was it guys at Nissan Japan, at RML? Please give credit to the engineers that made the thing you are presenting!
Probably a lot. They probably only have a few. Plus everything leading up to that. Those engines could be worth millions. If this was a crate engine made for purchase. Its a Lemans racecar in the development class powerplant. Easily 100-300k. Because of exotic materials.
The reason that the carbon valve cover is like that is that is due to it clearly being "tooling carbon". It appears to be the same fabric and plastic combo that they make tooling out of (resistant to numerous heat cycles with minimal delamination risk). It really is not all that light, but it would handle much higher temperatures much better than normal plastics (the epoxy resin substrate is very brittle without the interleave). They actually get the finish that people like to look at for the inside of bonding tools, but it would not be worth the time on something shaped like a valve cover, unless some putz with too much money wants to pay $10K for a valve cover. Rough carbon fiber is actually somewhat affordable, but the shiny perfect weave stuff is where you get into it becoming obscenely expensive.
When I am in actual need of a new desk, I make sure to click on car videos to make sure I see the "best" products at the "best" prices. Why actually go shopping for desks when you need one when you can watch car videos and hope for unrelated ads being pushed there instead?? /s
Who knew that some youtubers need to make a reasonable living from the work they do. Who knew ads and product advertising from the youtuber helps with this. I guess you go to work for free right?
that's fascinating that they built the head into the block. are there any other engines like that? it's such an obvious move, I'd be surprised if nobody else has tried it.
I always wondered what could happen if an engine could be manufactured without a head(s), have everything done from the bottom like this engine has employed. I remember seeing this engine years ago in a magazine but had no idea it was built this way. Awesome to see a concept like that in the flesh.
I hope the Deltawing makes its way to a museum. It self is a great feat of engineering, if a terrible racecar. The engine/motor should be highlighted as well.
They need to create a kei car market in the us. Normal cars are too expensive and this engine would be perfect for a kei sports car. Even 250 hp out of this engine would be phenomenal
I've seen some comments about people wanting this to be put into a production vehicle, akin to the GR Yaris. What people here clearly don't understand, and please go educate yourselves, is that engine performance across the board is about how much air you can flow through the engine, whether that's displacement size, RPM, or boost. 400BHP out of a tiny 1.5L three cylinder? High RPM with insane amounts of boost. You will outright _never_ see this near a production vehicle, cost aside, due to where it actually makes power, which is going to be towards its redline; outside of the insanely high boost, you're also talking about failing emissions if you're wanting to see that power figure. Plus this is meant for racing, where vehicles are extremely light; why, because this thing is anemic at its low-end and you're easily punching it to 4k RPM off the line and rapidly climbing to redline, assuming a realistic race vehicle isn't running a hybrid system to alleviate low-end issues. I wouldn't be surprised if this thing doesn't produce enough torque to even push a production vehicle from a stop until around 4k RPM, almost entirely from weight alone, then you have production vehicle transmissions, etc. I'm not saying the engine isn't impressive, getting something this light that can also handle the high boost pressure is impressive. But the amount of clearly uneducated people that also lack any amount of logical thought is insane.
it would've been such a baller move to sell a slightly detuned engine to racing teams. EVERYONE talked about this engine when it came out, and nissan then decided to do absolutely anything with it and never even elaborated. 😂 sometimes i really do wonder how some companies even stay in business, if this is how they do things generally...
Ive got an NA 11 base mini cooper. Ive opened up the airflow with a homemade CAI and muffler delete, but theres not much more potential in the motor so a swap is the popular way to go beyond 200. Even the turbo S models struggle to go past 300 without become perpetually in the lift for tuning, maintenance and repair. A lot of K swaps exist, a couple of LS swaps sure, but id love to drop a lightweight motor like that 1.5 L 4 cylinder, but being an F1 motor means full circle being too much time and money for daily driving. Fun? Yes. Practical? Only for track day.
Imagine all cars making engines monoblok, no head. All the head gasket problems gone ... Might have to drop engine for service, but it looks so tiny and simple before adding electronics and gearbox. Interesting design ...
I was kinda surprised, but then again nissan makes a lot of great turbo v6 engines, makes sense that they could just cut one in half for a great 3cyl. A roadgoing version could be perfect for a pulsar gtir revival
I remember hearing about this this thing when it was new, and younger me thought it was for a future Nismo Altima or something fun and affordable as i believe the article suggested. Glad to see where it really was usef
What an interesting lightweight little engine. It reminds me of a small version of the Koenigsegg TFG engine. While the TFG is 500cc bigger, it is also 30kg heavier than this engine. But the TFG engine makes 600hp and 601nm of torque from 3 cylinders. But having said all that, the TFG is also an engine built for a road car.
An engine with no head would change everything the amount of horsepower you could put in that thing would be incredible and the lack of maintenance needed It would be a super reliable engine with no head issues whatsoever as it wouldn't have one they should start designing cars like this
It is cool to see very ancient tech, modernized and maximized to peak efficiency. Mono-block engins fell out of favor in the 1920s because they weighed too much, and cost too much. Now with proper engineering and manufacturing, it is the best in both
If you guys want cool small engines, you should really get into motor bikes. Kawasaki's H2R has a supercharged 1.0L i4 that puts out over 300hp. Would be cool to hear from Team Green on the development of that engine.
Of all the potential homes for this engine in my mind a factory version in an iDX detuned to 300 bhp and awd manual getrag 6 makes the most sense. I'm just a Datsun 240 ZX dreamer.
I find it a bit funny that Drive Tribe makes a big deal of this engine in a previous video and RML is like "Oh, that thing? Yeah I think we got it sitting in a closet somewhere."
Which car would you put this engine in? 🤔Thanks to Flexispot for sponsoring today's video, remember FlexiSpot’s Fall Sale is here, up to 50% OFF! Use my exclusive code "YTE7Q200” to get an extra $200 off on E7Q standing desk!
Bmw i8
Oliver!
toyota yaris
Miata
Thanks, Mike. Great video.
13:18 V5? You meant VR5. The only true V5 ICE is the Honda 75.5° V5 RC211V MotoGP racing engine 😉
Honestly if Nissan made a road version, they could make something to compete with the GR Yaris / Corolla. Imagine a Micra with this engine and AWD! It'd be awesome.
Literally the entire video I was like "I want this in my K11"
That engine alone would cost over twice as much as a GR Yaris. These kinds of performance numbers are only possible from race engines because only race teams can afford them.
@@ChristianStoutI mean the G16E-GTS is a race engine as well if you think about it since it was designed & homologated with Rally2 regulation in mind, but the difference is you can technically bought that engine alone as a crate engine.
Hence why the GR Yaris Rally2 is awesome in my eyes since it pretty much kept the engine & turbo from the road car and slightly up-boosted it to make 300hp.
@@ChristianStoutThe cost could be brought down if it was made in assembly lines. The question would be is "by how much?" and that's what I'm interested in.
An engine like this would never go into a road car - it's not made to run thousands of miles like you would expect from your road car engine
0:27 "sir your nissan 1.5 liter turbo 3 cylinder engine is too heavy please take it with your carry-on luggage"
😂
The look of pure joy on Mike's face, holding that crank at about 11:35, yeah they definitely found the right person for this job!
Lots of people in the comments talking about putting it into a bike or making a sleeper car. Being optimized for racing I think this engine deserves something more like an Ariel Atom chassis.
yep sounds great
Nah sounds boring
@@fampic7133 sounds boring but no wasted potential. Or if you want little less boring, then you can put it into the Caterham Seven 160/Kei. One of the smallest Caterhams around.
Or an Exige, would be amazing
Maybe a noble?!?! 🤔
Now we need this to also be installed in a MX5
Probably someone has done it on TH-cam
Yeah if it exists someone's already put it in an mx5
Just like the V10, that was supposed to go into a previous Mazda MX5, which never materialised by Mike and DRIVETRIBE.
Would get zero traction it's to light
Surely a GR86 would be more appropriate?
2:53 It's almost as if the "top pulley" needs to be twice the size of the crank pulley 😆
😂😂😂😂😂 yea
That’s shocking!
😂😂😂😂
no wai
He seriously has no idea
The unicorn engine I want someone to find (although I think it sadly no longer exists) is the 4.2 litre V10 Cosworth made for Volvo - and which Volvo heat-soak tested by fitting to a couple of 850 mule cars and driving them in Gothenburg rush hour traffic. Who wouldn't want a go in an 850 with a 4.2 litre V10?
I'm sorry, did you say Volvo 850 V10??? I've never heard of that project before.
@@CaptainHoratioPugwash That is the idea of a Mule... just a body they had around with minimal custom work to install test parts.
@@CaptainHoratioPugwash yeah, as @wobblysauce said, they just used the 850 to do some testing, hence mule cars. There's conflicting info out there, but it seems like they wanted a special engine for the forthcoming S80 big saloon. They were also testing some other variants, including an estate version of the S80 and even very early prototypes of a lifted AWD estate/SUV. All except the S80 would later be dropped, including the big engine, and we would later only get the smaller estate based on the S60. The Yamaha V8 came too late for the original S80, but did end up in the P2 platform it spawned in the form of the XC90. It would also see service in the later P3 S80, whose platform would be used by parent company Ford for many of their global models, including the US version of the Mondeo, which was fitted with Ford's own V8 instead of the Yamaha.
You're referring to the 1996 Cosworth WDA V10. The photo of the engine appears in the Cosworth Search for Power book and the engine is still in the archives.
@@CaptainHoratioPugwashit was intended for the 960 1998 model year, then Volvo was bought by Ford.
awesome video, i love little 3 cylinder engines, the fact theres road legal GR Yaris with 800hp just bends my mind
Imagine swapping it into s bike💀💀💀
That would be juuuuust amaziiing 😱😱😱😱😱😱
You can just throw a turbo on a busa and get 300hp very easily
@@CS-pl8fc yes true... but that setup would closely weigh 300kg... this setup probably tops out at 150kg I guess... with 100hp more
It would be wild
@@BurnedNerd turbobusa engine pack would be still lighter because there is gearbox integrated in it. Also you can take easy 500hp of that.
Have you heard of PGM? They're an Australian group of five who’ve created something incredible-a high-revving V8 monster by combining two Yamaha R1 engines. This beast backspins at 200 km/h, churns out 334 hp, and they've built it into a motorcycle. It’s honestly one of the best-sounding bikes I’ve ever heard in my life. You guys should definitely do a talk on those engines-the internet needs more of this, and the world definitely needs more from PGM!
There's an Ariel Atom with a V8 made from 2 bike engines too
The Honda S800 sports car is two motorbike engines combined;800 cc and10,000 revs.
@mbardos Yeah I remember that, think it's 2x Hayabusa engines, which are normally 1300cc
The Radical road car does it with two Busa engines
1:31 I know this isn't the main topic of the video, but the Juke-R is a heck of a rarity. 5 examples were produced, and Nissan has kept 2 of them, meaning that there are only 3 of these to be found around the globe.
And yeah, it's literally a Juke with a sportier bodykit, wings and the GT-R's V6 engine chucked in it. RML also contributed to its development.
Which is probably why RML has one. Does it have the AWD system as well or just the engine?
@@Yvolve It had the AWD system from the GTR also. It was a beast!
I paused at 1:29 and had a divine moment looking at that number plate.🙏
It's not just that, it's a GT-R underneath with a Juke shell on it. Shorter propeller shaft and other work to make it fit
All Jukes should be a rarity. Horrible things
I was at LeMans in 2014. It was a cool thing to see on track. Their plan was to run a normal stint on the engine near to LMP2 pace and then do a lap on electric only at GT pace. But it had loads of issues all week and didn’t do many laps.
The full electric lap they managed was in morning warmup and I’m not sure if it was actually on regen or if they simply charged it in the garage. In the race to the gearbox failed after a very small number of laps and that was it.
Now that we know how light everything was built the failures are much less surprising.
Just looking at that crank they took some significant risks... For the engineers this was a dream project for sure. It would have been nice for them to get some more time and money to sort the issues but these things rarely go to plan.
I remember some meeting with race engineers 1 or two years after LM 2014. They said the car woul do a lap of Le Mans at full pace with 3l of fuel close to P2 pace. But a single lap of in EV only would take all the energy in the 150kg of batteries they had at GT pace. Even with all that efficient aero.
Kinda interesting how nothing changed in the EV tech (if they need to go fast).
I trully miss those days. WEC LMP1H was welcoming Porsche. Best racing regulation ever. Too bad it didn't last long as the money to sustain it was in F1 not in Le Mans. And the world overall was a lot better.
For years I have been wondering why I haven't seen many, or really any, engines that have a one piece block and head. I was following this Nissan project since it came out. I used to read magazine articles about it. Really cool to see that it was using this technology way back then! Nice to have one of my ideas validated, even if I'm far from the first to think of it of course. I'm sure there are other examples in history or recent history, but I figured with all our modern CNC machines this should be very possible.
They can do the difficult machine work. The possible performance or weight improvements are not worth the extra cost in development for a production vehicle. Race parts are very different and cost isn't a big limitation.
@orkin2525 Oh yeah for sure I didn't expect to see it in production vehicles, only areas like aftermarket billet blocks where head gasket failures can lose races for example. Or in some crazy supercar just because.
@802Garage class rules and sponsorships are likely a big reason why. They often pretend to use tech that could possibly be used in production vehicles one day.
That engine in a Ford Fiesta and we have something super fun..
Miata.
This is why the Abarth 500s exist. Cant get to 400hp with the American model. Yet. But the Euro T-Jets can. Here in the USA. 400 ft lbs of torque is about it. But thats gonna cost much more than the cars are worth.
@@1320crusier Every single time
Corsa B
Suzuki Cappuccino*
Would love to see you guys have a look round the other projects at RML. Looks like an amazing place!
That could’ve made a Caterham even more bonkers.
honestly as a budget (for a proper race team) race car engine it would work well every category from single seaters to rally cars and anything in between (city car touring vehicles) reduce the power output accordingly and it would work well and if it needs rebuilding it requires less rods pistons bearings rings everything (almost)
Exactly my thoughts.
until it needs a full rebuild after every 1000 miles.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
For all those who are remarking about how amazing the engine is with it's lack of a separate cylinder head - this isn't a new concept. Many production cars have used this - all the way back to the early 1900s. Also was common in early aircraft engines. Also interesting this video didn't include any mention of the Deltawings history - and Nissan out of court settling a lawsuit for kinda ripping off the design that was owned/IP of Ganassi Racing / Panoz.
Nissan seriously needs to mass produce this engine. The demand would be insane 😮
Drivetribe always manages to create videos on awesome topics, meets many interesting people and somehow even gets inside some of the most interesting facilities. But the best part is, that despite all of that they always manage to only scratch the surface and provide us with actually very little information, then they compress everything into 10-15 minutes which includes 2 minutes of adverts. Great job!
Oh, mate, so cool! 🎉 watching your last video on the engine I felt sad that it was lost to time and then you found it! So happy you made this follow up video and introduced us to RML who are still doing cool things!
Get that engine into the next Smallet Cog Racing car. Back on the track where it belongs.
And out of the race already from tech inspection
@@hexgraphica Depends on the series?
I loved this video, thank you! I searched for this for years and could never find any info on it. This should be a production crate engine and would make for excellent swaps!
What a brilliant follow up..!
Great presentation!
The Headless Block is a cool idea for a boosted engine but you still have to keep the crank in the mains and if you can push them apart you'll lose oil pressure in the big end. Everything has its pros and cons.
So.. the big question I bet most are asking is ... why can't this be made into a production engine? They really broke a lot of engineering tradition, but is the unit and materials cost astronomical? Could you imagine that setup in a Cooper Classic, or an original Cinquecento? Steve Morris engines is working on a 3-cylinder side-by-side engine that's supposedly going to make north of 1,000 hp - but his project could never go mass production, or be cost effective for the masses either.
As the engineer said, this engine is optimized for a purpose. It probably makes 400bhp at 15,000 rpm and peak torque is likely quite low in relation to the bhp. It's built to be a component of a complex hybrid drivetrain, without the electric motors it's a duck out of water.
I'd bet the cost of building this engine was a number with 7 or more digits to the left of the decimal. Demand for a production version would be tiny, given it will appeal to a literal handful of people and even fewer will have the dosh to actually buy one even if a production version was priced to achieve break even for a limited run. RML doesn't do production, and Nissan is struggling to retool and keep the lights on right now (Renault hasn't hammered all the nails in the coffin, but they've working hard at it...)
Because it was designed for racing first & foremost.
As cool as it is, it's not economically viable turning a race engine to be used for road use.
I mean the G16E-GTS inside the GR Yaris is the literal closest thing to the Diglett. 304hp stock from 1.6L 3cyl Turbo, used in competition for GR Yaris Rally2, and if you're doing it right can be tuned to 400-600hp.
@@AbrahamArthemius Yeah, so were Dunlop Disc brakes and overhead cam engines in the 1960's which became commonplace today. The long and short of it is this - Nissan and RML did it for a specific purpose but didn't consider the bigger picture. I guess the Steve Morris version will have to be what the masses can opt in for at a premium option cost. 🤦♂
@@SeanPwnery i mean to be fair, Nissan always seems to be in their kind of inside turmoil especially leadership since the 00s to now so that's probably one of the reason for it.
They really don't have that one guy who actually has the vision AND passion to really bring motorsport elements to the masses like Toyota had with Akio Toyoda/Morizo.
Their e-Power system for example (think a train's diesel-electric system but for a car) is actually pretty great, they can tinker with it and build a genuinely unique hot hatch product in the market with it, but they won't ever do it.
@@TonySims888the nissan engine revs to around 7 500 or 8000 rpm, ot 15000
Thanks for the unit conversion. I was about to google it.
I'd love to see a v6 version of that engine.
VR6!
I6, that perfect balance and pushing 800 hp. Yep. 👌🏻🗿
Boxer configuration to go in a wrx....
see F1
Great for a Hybrid 800 hp GTR R36!
Seeing the engine and getting a little bit of info was awesome. What would be even more awesome is some of the details in more detail like the fact that the head and block are all 1 piece. How that was done and how much weight etc it saved would be cool. No steel head bolts, no head gasket, no cylinder liners and who knows what other tech went into making this tiny beast.
I would love to see that engine in a 1980s honda city or a fiat 500
A mini.
I own a 1991 Honda Beat :)
@@darkmugetsu6572 would be an awesome engine for your honda beat
@@darkmugetsu6572 your honda beat would be perfect with that engine
It's suspicious how many incredible engine technologies just end up sitting on a development shelf while those breakthroughs and improvements never find their way into improving the performance and efficiency of mass produced cars.
Fit this to your Mx5
RML is such an interesting company...if only we could see what is hidden behind those walls... Thanks for the glimpse...
Surprised nissan hasn't decided to dedicate a budget to competing with the GR yaris/corolla with a detuned, mass-production ready version of this (minus hybrid setup)
Impressive design details on that engine! And great to finally see a conclusive value on the mystery of the engine's actual weight (what was included in the quoted 40kg).
I think you should do some sort of vid on steam engines as a whole. either trains, tractors, trucks, or cars, doesnt really matter, but in the era we are seeing more and more electric cars bring more and more impressive torque figures to the table, it would be fun to see them compared to one of the oldest engines and, at least to some extent, still the kings of torque that will beat any electric vehicle on the road today. the powers of *external* combustion...
Loving the obsession with unique engines! Cool to learn about secret projects that are assigned to the archives.
@13:51 Every single one you can find!👴🤷♂
Thanks for covering this!
This is what makes TH-cam Journalism - Game Changing.
This is what makes the suivalence society so powerful. Because we care, our eyes help you get advertising & support that means that you can effect companies to acknowledge the great work they have done. And now the world knows off this engine, people across the planet will ask for it to be built into specialist tools. Their is nothing wrong with ICE engines as long as we have ways to mitigate their effects. In a future where we mostly run EV's we can afford to run artisal pieces of ICE such as this.
This is a thing of utter beauty and I am sure if you ask any real EV Motorhead they would agree!
I'm glad to see the R&D personnel come out and present back the fruits they once showed on media years ago.
0:39 Bruce Wayne: Does it come in black?
The Original was Black and a Convertible.
This looks great. I love the 3 cylinder in my GR Yaris. Awesome engine.
v16 Rolls next?
Rowan Atkinson is the man to ask about it. If he convinced BMW/RR once, he can maybe do it twice.
Very interesting, both the engine and the cars stored at RML. Thanks for sharing with us all.
The very thing that gave it power is the thing to make it not work for very long, the turbo.
Gonna make this Engine Tribe at this rate and I'm totally here for it.
Great RX-8 swap!
THEY NEED TO DISPLAY THIS AT GOODWOOD!
So who actually made the engine? There is so much mention of "them", "the team" etc. Who made it, who was the actual team? Was it guys at Nissan Japan, at RML? Please give credit to the engineers that made the thing you are presenting!
I thought it was pretty clear from the answers given by the chief engineer that RML did the lion's share of the work on the drivetrain and chassis.
Literally says in the video, RML made it
RML, they are an engineering firm. Same principle with cosworth and valkyrie and the GMA T50
You know WHO...
Awesome! Thankyou RML ❤
I wonder how much that engine is worth? 🤑
Probably a lot. They probably only have a few. Plus everything leading up to that. Those engines could be worth millions. If this was a crate engine made for purchase. Its a Lemans racecar in the development class powerplant. Easily 100-300k. Because of exotic materials.
The reason that the carbon valve cover is like that is that is due to it clearly being "tooling carbon". It appears to be the same fabric and plastic combo that they make tooling out of (resistant to numerous heat cycles with minimal delamination risk). It really is not all that light, but it would handle much higher temperatures much better than normal plastics (the epoxy resin substrate is very brittle without the interleave). They actually get the finish that people like to look at for the inside of bonding tools, but it would not be worth the time on something shaped like a valve cover, unless some putz with too much money wants to pay $10K for a valve cover. Rough carbon fiber is actually somewhat affordable, but the shiny perfect weave stuff is where you get into it becoming obscenely expensive.
When I am in actual need of a new desk, I make sure to click on car videos to make sure I see the "best" products at the "best" prices. Why actually go shopping for desks when you need one when you can watch car videos and hope for unrelated ads being pushed there instead?? /s
Who knew that some youtubers need to make a reasonable living from the work they do. Who knew ads and product advertising from the youtuber helps with this.
I guess you go to work for free right?
Now we need Mike to look at the Craig Williams custom K24 V8 Honda engine
i hoped this engine would be produced, glad you found it, there is still hope :)
Best video in a very long time. So interesting!
that's fascinating that they built the head into the block. are there any other engines like that? it's such an obvious move, I'd be surprised if nobody else has tried it.
That engine needs to be blueprinted and sold to the public
I always wondered what could happen if an engine could be manufactured without a head(s), have everything done from the bottom like this engine has employed. I remember seeing this engine years ago in a magazine but had no idea it was built this way. Awesome to see a concept like that in the flesh.
The engineer looks like he was about 20 when the lap was fulfilled. Incredible work
Nice to see some proper engineering content. Well done
Love this content!! Always cool to see something new that’s old lol
Koenigsegg also made a 600Hp 3 cylinder engine for the gemera with free valve tech . These both are incredible!
I hope the Deltawing makes its way to a museum. It self is a great feat of engineering, if a terrible racecar. The engine/motor should be highlighted as well.
what a engineering project. that's incredible
They need to create a kei car market in the us. Normal cars are too expensive and this engine would be perfect for a kei sports car. Even 250 hp out of this engine would be phenomenal
Engine I most wanna see on the channel... Definitely the V4, with the runner up being the W12 out of the VW Phaeton!
this thing NEEDS to be a race boat engine , it would eliminate all competition
😂 you should make a habit of snuggling with the engines more often. Was beautiful to watch 😅
This needs to be built all the time.. this will solve the sports car industry
I've seen some comments about people wanting this to be put into a production vehicle, akin to the GR Yaris. What people here clearly don't understand, and please go educate yourselves, is that engine performance across the board is about how much air you can flow through the engine, whether that's displacement size, RPM, or boost. 400BHP out of a tiny 1.5L three cylinder? High RPM with insane amounts of boost. You will outright _never_ see this near a production vehicle, cost aside, due to where it actually makes power, which is going to be towards its redline; outside of the insanely high boost, you're also talking about failing emissions if you're wanting to see that power figure. Plus this is meant for racing, where vehicles are extremely light; why, because this thing is anemic at its low-end and you're easily punching it to 4k RPM off the line and rapidly climbing to redline, assuming a realistic race vehicle isn't running a hybrid system to alleviate low-end issues. I wouldn't be surprised if this thing doesn't produce enough torque to even push a production vehicle from a stop until around 4k RPM, almost entirely from weight alone, then you have production vehicle transmissions, etc.
I'm not saying the engine isn't impressive, getting something this light that can also handle the high boost pressure is impressive. But the amount of clearly uneducated people that also lack any amount of logical thought is insane.
The most remarkable aspect of this engine is the weight...we already have 1.5l making 320hp, its certainly possible to make 400hp.
loved this video - amazing engineering - really it's podcast material i could listen to that story for an hour
it would've been such a baller move to sell a slightly detuned engine to racing teams.
EVERYONE talked about this engine when it came out, and nissan then decided to do absolutely anything with it and never even elaborated.
😂 sometimes i really do wonder how some companies even stay in business, if this is how they do things generally...
This was super fun, I hope you will find connections to other rarities 🙂
given the small volume swapping it into a mk2 MR2 or even the big brother nsx would be sick since it's perfect for mid engine applications.
Ive got an NA 11 base mini cooper. Ive opened up the airflow with a homemade CAI and muffler delete, but theres not much more potential in the motor so a swap is the popular way to go beyond 200. Even the turbo S models struggle to go past 300 without become perpetually in the lift for tuning, maintenance and repair. A lot of K swaps exist, a couple of LS swaps sure, but id love to drop a lightweight motor like that 1.5 L 4 cylinder, but being an F1 motor means full circle being too much time and money for daily driving. Fun? Yes. Practical? Only for track day.
I look forward to your future shows. :)
Imagine all cars making engines monoblok, no head. All the head gasket problems gone ... Might have to drop engine for service, but it looks so tiny and simple before adding electronics and gearbox. Interesting design ...
this will definitely fit in my miata
I was kinda surprised, but then again nissan makes a lot of great turbo v6 engines, makes sense that they could just cut one in half for a great 3cyl. A roadgoing version could be perfect for a pulsar gtir revival
I remember hearing about this this thing when it was new, and younger me thought it was for a future Nismo Altima or something fun and affordable as i believe the article suggested. Glad to see where it really was usef
What an interesting lightweight little engine. It reminds me of a small version of the Koenigsegg TFG engine. While the TFG is 500cc bigger, it is also 30kg heavier than this engine. But the TFG engine makes 600hp and 601nm of torque from 3 cylinders. But having said all that, the TFG is also an engine built for a road car.
So much hidden tech that make our world a better place 😊
An engine with no head would change everything the amount of horsepower you could put in that thing would be incredible and the lack of maintenance needed It would be a super reliable engine with no head issues whatsoever as it wouldn't have one they should start designing cars like this
It is cool to see very ancient tech, modernized and maximized to peak efficiency. Mono-block engins fell out of favor in the 1920s because they weighed too much, and cost too much. Now with proper engineering and manufacturing, it is the best in both
An amazing piece of engineering, but I wonder what the durability would have been like, especially under race conditions
Deltawing the most intriguing race car of the past decades
I happen to know of a few Deltawings over here in the states that are missing some engines so have them send some over here!
If you guys want cool small engines, you should really get into motor bikes. Kawasaki's H2R has a supercharged 1.0L i4 that puts out over 300hp. Would be cool to hear from Team Green on the development of that engine.
There is a hybrid mode, the engine and electric motors working together for total power combined 750 BHP!
Of all the potential homes for this engine in my mind a factory version in an iDX detuned to 300 bhp and awd manual getrag 6 makes the most sense. I'm just a Datsun 240 ZX dreamer.
Talk about building the ultimate go-cart. You could put that engine and drive train into anything.
Flexispot can finally say "Our tables can lift a car engine (please forget the part that the engine weighed 40kg)".
I cant wait for the episodes of you swapping this into a MX-5, only for it to stop and dissapear completely.
I find it a bit funny that Drive Tribe makes a big deal of this engine in a previous video and RML is like "Oh, that thing? Yeah I think we got it sitting in a closet somewhere."
You didn't mention it at the end, but I'd love to see a piece on the dual engines out of Triumph's land speed record bike from the 2010s.
“It’s a race engine not a street engine” is a nice way to say it has a 500mi life expectancy
We need to see more from the RML Group and what other gems they have stored away.