The automotive world is filled with good engines
and bad engines. But, some of them are so reliable and so indestructible that they have reached
legendary status. So, today we're going to look at some of the most indestructible engines
of all time, and this includes engines from GM, Toyota, Jeep, Honda, and more. So, let's get right
into it. All right, before we get into this I want to mention that this list is in no particular
order. There's a lot of good engines out there, there's a lot of bad engines out there, there's
a lot of indestructible engines out there, so if your pick isn't on this list, drop a comment down
below letting me know what it is. That being said, no engine is truly indestructible, as all engines
are mechanical and all mechanical things can fail in one way or another. Okay, so getting straight
into this, what better place to start out a list like this than with the Toyota 22R and 22RE. This
little four-cylinder powered various Toyota models from the late 1970s through the 1990s and gained
quite a reputation for being nearly bulletproof. One of the most important features that gives the
22R its longevity is its lack of features. It's a very uncomplicated design and extremely straight
to the point. Overseas you could most famously find this little engine in the Toyota Hilux, which
if you live here in the US, like I do, pretty much just the Toyota Tacoma or the Toyota pickup
depending how far back you want to go. But, you can also find this little 2.4 liter engine in the
4Runner, the Celica, and the Cressida. It doesn't make a whole lot of power, but it practically
never dies. Like, ever. The only thing you have to do to keep one of these in commission nearly
indefinitely is changing the timing chain every 100,000 miles or so. That's it. And in typical
fashion with Toyota being Toyota, they completely overbuilt both the 22R and the 22RE. They flat
out wanted to deliver the most reliable product possible, even if it meant cutting back on their
profits. Part of the 22R's ridiculous reliability is the fact that it doesn't make a whole lot of
power and the rev limit is very low for a modern four-cylinder engine. It might make vehicles like
the Toyota 4Runner absolutely gutless dogs to drive, but it also makes them nearly unkillable.
Unfortunately, Toyota had to eventually retire the 22RE in 1995 because of its lack of power and
performance, and they wanted to move to larger engines to get things like the 4Runners to not
be as slow. But, to this day, it is one of the toughest engines we've ever seen in any automotive
product ever. All right, moving from one little truck engine to one much larger truck engine,
let's take a look at the Cummins 6BT, which is the next indestructible engine on the list.
And before you get your panties in a bunch, yes, I know, the Cummins 6BT was used in a wide array
of different applications. It's a lot more than just a truck engine, which is partially what makes
it so bulletproof. And before we go further into the 6BT and what makes it such an indestructible
engine, we should mention that it does have one fatal flaw, and that's the killer dowel pin,
also known as KDP. As a quick explanation, KDP is simply a timing cover alignment dowel pin
on the front of the engine. After many many hours of engine run time, vibration and heat allow
the pin to wiggle loose and then fall into the timing gear assembly, which can either result
in the pin falling all the way to the oil pan safely or the pin getting lodged in the gears and
blowing up your entire timing system. Luckily, it's a very well documented and very well known
problem, so it's super easy to fix. There's tons of different solutions on the market, so it's
not a complicated thing to fix. Now, part of what makes the Cummins such an indestructible
engine is the injection system, and if you were to look at the 12 valve, for example, it's a fully
mechanical injection system. Meaning there are no electronics controlling the system whatsoever. It
is 100% mechanical. That means there's no stupid sensors that break, there's no sensors that can
cause the engine to not turn on or to not have the correct fuel delivery or anything like that. It is
completely mechanical, there's no dumb sensors in the way of anything. Now obviously there are some
electronics, there's an electronic starter on it, but you get the point. The later 24 valve
Cummins isn't as blessed with the fully mechanical injection system, but it's still a very
strong and reliable engine. And it's not uncommon to see these things, a 6BT, whether it be a 12
valve or a 24 valve, absolutely blow past 300,000 miles with ease. I've personally seen quite a few
of them well over a million miles. It's flat out one of the most dependable diesel engines of all
time. And I know diesel bros love to argue who has the best engine, whether that's Duramax, Cummins,
or Powerstroke, but it's hard to argue the 6BT being the most reliable of the bunch. Maybe you
could argue the 7.3L Powerstroke, but that's pushing it. Now, I think it's pretty obvious that
if we're talking about a list of indestructible engines that Honda absolutely must be on there
somewhere. But, for this particular video, we went with an engine series from Honda that you
might not expect, and that's the D series. Now, why you might ask? Well, the B series, H Series,
F series, and K series are all incredibly reliable and robust engines, but there is something
that separates the D series from the rest, and that's the fact that it wasn't designed with
performance in mind. The lower power output and more civilian nature of the D series flat out
makes it more indestructible than the B series, H, K, any of them. The D series was designed as
an ultra reliable little commuter engine. All the other engine series I just mentioned a moment ago
had a much larger focus on power and performance, which ultimately does sacrifice on the engine's
reliability. And for those that don't know, the D series is the little single overhead cam commuter
engine that you'll find in Civics like the EG, EF, and EK. The majority of D series engines are
single overhead cam, but Honda did make some dual overhead cam models that had a little bit more of
a focus on performance rather than just being a pure commuter engine. Now, these little turds were
available for quite some time and displacement ranges from 1.2L all the way up to 1.7L. But,
you'll generally find find these as 1.5L or 1.6L engines, as those are incredibly popular here
in the US. And in terms of features, the D series is basically completely void of anything special.
It is as bare bones as you can get, which again, helps to add to the reliability. It's simple, and
simple means indestructible. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard about these little engines
with people boosting them and quite literally trying to kill them, just slamming them off of the
rev limiter, neutral dropping them, you name it; just physically trying to kill the engine, and
they just won't die. That's how tough these little things are. All right, now I know the GM guys out
there are waiting for something in this video that makes them proud to own a GM vehicle, but I hate
to break it to you, it's not going to be a small block of any generation. I hate that I'm about to
say that these engines are reliable, because they sound like absolute turds, but there is no denying
the truth, that GM's toughest engine ever, is the 3800 V6. Now 3800 was officially born in 1988
when GM had a major revision to their existing V6 engine platform, but right off the bat, the
3800 was absolutely nothing special to write home about. It was a little 160 horsepower natural
aspirated turd, but it had a handful of changes and innovations that made it better than GM's
previous V6 engines. The 3800 received a few small upgrades in the early 1990s that bumped power
all the way up to a much more respectable 205 horsepower, but that was only with the addition of
forced induction through a supercharger. Arguably the best version of the 3800 came around in 1995
and it was known as the 3800 Series 2, which had a ton of new changes that made it smoother,
lighter, and produced quite a bit more power, with the naturally aspirated version coming in at 205
horsepower, the exact same amount as the previous supercharged models, and then the new supercharged
models output a much healthier 240 horsepower. And I know that on paper, 240 horsepower out of a
supercharged 3.8 liter V6 sounds pretty weak, and well, it's because it is pretty weak. But, GM
left a ton of power on the table when it comes to those supercharged 3800 V6 engines, there's a lot
of power right on tap with a smaller supercharger pulley and a little bit of tuning, these things
make way more power and a lot of torque. Even if the performance figures weren't particularly
great, it doesn't matter in this context, because it was super tough. I can't tell you how
many of these little engines I've seen chugging along well after they should have been dead, which
is even funnier in something like a Buick Regal, which is the ultimate Grandpa super sleeper sedan
that you would never expect to blow past you on the highway. If you want a sleeper that's stupid
tough and will put up with your terrible tuning skills as you learn HP Tuners after putting on
a smaller pulley and wanting to run ethanol, this is the absolutely perfect engine for the
job at hand. Unfortunately, as we all know, Ford introduced an overhead cam design to their
V8 engines in the 1990s. And unfortunately, that ended up destroying the reliability of their
V8 engine. But, long before they did that to their beloved V8 engines, they offered one of the most
reliable and toughest engines of all time and that's the Ford inline six. Now, this came in
a few different forms throughout the decades, including four different generations with a total
of 11 different displacements spread throughout those various generations. And to give you an idea
of how old these things really are, the very first 226 cubic inch engine was introduced all the way
back back in 1941 and used a flathead design. Now, the two versions that you and I are most likely
to see are the 240 cubic inch version and the 300 cubic inch version, both of which are part of
the fourth generation iteration of Ford's inline six engine. And these weren't designed for big
power and big performance like Ford's V8 engines, rather, these were designed for the complete
opposite. They were designed to not be special and to power basic commuter cars and simply just
be a reliable little engine. And an interesting feature that you'll see on one other engine on
this list, is the cylinder head, which forces both intake and exhaust ports to the same side of
the head. Now, this isn't great for performance, since the intake ports end up receiving a lot
of extra heat, but it's very simple. Eventually, the 240 cubic inch version was phased out entirely
due to its poor performance, which left just the 300 cubic inch model available, and it lasted
for quite a bit longer. The larger 300 cubic inch engines block was quite a bit beefier than the
smaller engine, with seven main bearings down low and up top included an improved cylinder chamber
design to help out with performance. And frankly, part of the reason that this engine is so
reliable, so tough, so indestructible, is the fact that it's not much of a powerhouse at all. This
big ole 4.9L engine only managed to squeeze out anywhere from 100 to 150 horsepower, depending on
the model. On top of that, this engine also ended up in loads of non-automotive style applications,
such as tractors, ski lifts, generators, wood chippers, and so much more. This engine truly
was and is, just about as tough as they come. Now, this next engine we have actually covered on
this channel as one of the weakest engines of all time and arguably one of the worst engines
of all time, and that's a Chevy Iron Duke. But, the reason it was in those videos is because
the horsepower is comically bad, but that same lack of horsepower is what makes this engine
nearly indestructible. Now, this is a little 2.5L four-cylinder GM offered as a fuel efficient
alternative to their larger V8 engines, but the power is comically crappy at just 85 horsepower.
That's just 34 horsepower per liter. Now, to put that into context, if this was a 5.0L engine,
the power output would just be 170 horsepower. It's impressively bad to say the least. But, on
the bright side, this is a very burly engine, with an all cast iron construction and a complete
disregard for weight in the entire design. That, combined with the ultra low power output, combines
for an engine that never experiences any major stress and ultimately never really breaks. And it
doesn't even feature anything fancy, it doesn't even feature overhead cams, instead relying on
the much more traditional cam-in-block design, with push rods to connect everything together.
While it might go down as one of the worst engines ever in terms of performance, it is one of the
most indestructible engines of all time. Now, I saved this one for last, because this is an
engine that's personally my favorite on this list, as I've had a ton of hands-on experience with
these, and that's the Jeep 4.0L. Now don't get me wrong, although this is known as a Jeep engine, at
its core it is an AMC engine, but not just any AMC engine, but an engine that can trace its roots
all the way back to 1964 with the AMC Rambler American. And while the Jeep 4.0L doesn't share
a massive amount with those older AMC engines, they laid the groundwork that the 4.0L was built
on. During the development stage of the 4.0L, AMC wasn't exactly thriving incredibly
well, so to save on development cost, the 4.0L used many of the same parts and
dimensions as other inline 6 engines in the 232ci and 258ci family. And because of the fact
that the Jeep 4.0L has some pretty old roots, it has some pretty odd design features that you
might not expect for a modern inline six engine. For one, the cylinder head only has one side, and
what I mean by this, is that it's the same as the Ford 300 that we looked at earlier, meaning the
intake and exhaust ports go to one side of the head rather than being split, now this isn't
great for performance as I've mentioned before, because it pretty much just heat soaks the intake
ports, but it just helps to show how old and simple this engine design truly is. And unlike the
large majority of modern inline six gas engines, the Jeep 4.0L doesn't feature overhead cams,
instead using an overhead valve design with one camshaft residing in the block with push rods to
activate the rockers. Through and through, this engine is much like a tractor engine and it truly
is nearly impossible to kill. I've personally seen these things run on five cylinders for thousands
of miles, run while overheating for hours on end, run under temperature for hours on end from lack
of thermostat, run on zero oil pressure for hours in a boat. I've seen just about everything with
these and I've only seen about two of them explode ever. If you guys enjoyed the video be sure to
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