rev up your engines, today I'm going to
answer Eddy Vasquez's question, who makes the best v8 engines these days, now to
answer that question I'm only going to be talking about a regular v8 engine,
I'm not going to be talking about supercars that cost hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and to answer correctly we'll get a little bit of
history here, in 1915 Cadillac made the first really mass-produced v8 engine,
which was a 5.4 liter v8 engine, now even though it was sort of mass-produced, it
was still in a luxury car and it was rather expensive car, the first really
mass-produced car that used v8 engines were the Fords,
in 1932 Henry Ford made a flathead v8 and that was the first really
mass-produced v8 used in normal cars, not used in either luxury cars or in trucks
now, Henry discovered how to make them so they worked good, but there are less
expensive to build as an example, those v8's only had three main
bearings on the crank, instead of the usual five main bearings, so it cost less
money to make, so that made it more affordable to put in regular cars, now the
main point of putting a v8 in was for more power, and since it was a v8 there
were four on the left side and four on the right, so that v8 engine could fit in
a vehicle they had a four-cylinder engine because it's basically the same
length of the four-cylinder engine, you couldn't get a big six in there or even
a straight eight, that would require a gigantic hood to fit it into, the V8 fit
into a smaller space, and as it put out more power people like them, you can
always get an option you get a four-cylinder engine or you can get a v8
engine, people who wanted power hey they put in a v8 like Bonnie and Clyde,
they always stole Ford's that had v8 is they could
so you get a lot of power out of a v8, but times are changing as an
example, a modern-day four-cylinder engine, heck it can put out more
horsepower than a v8 engine did just 20 years ago, so you can get a lot of power
out of a four cylinder engine which is making a
lot of these v8 becoming kind of like the dinosaurs, their sort of towards the
edge of extinction, you'll see that a lot of companies including Ford, are going
more toward turbocharged GDI gasoline engines that are v6 instead of v8, they
can still put out a lot of horsepower, but they get a lot better gas mileage
so in modern cars, at least most of the American cars
the v8 engines are becoming more and more specialized, as an example they use
them in all their racing cars, you get a v8 and a Dodge Hellcat, you can get a
v8 in a Mustang, and you can get a v8 in a Corvette, now I know GM is coming up
with I think they call it a zr1 and it's going to have 755 horsepower
but it's going to cost over 120,000 dollars, so I really don't include that
as a normal v8 engine myself, so I'll start with the LS9 which puts out
638 horsepower, it's got a supercharged v8, now I have to say it's a
pretty good engine, it's an old-fashioned design it's still a pushrod engine, it
doesn't have overhead cams, it's pretty much a gigantic gas hog in that kind of
form with the supercharger on it, it's not gonna get very good gas mileage it's
only got the regular valves per cylinder, it doesn't have four
valves per cylinder and it just got push rods in it, it's a pretty old fashioned
design, but it's a pretty strong engine, now let's compare that to the Shelby
gt500 that at least as of this time was the most horsepower that Ford sold out
of the factory, and it was 662 horsepower now the Ford Mustang engine was a much
more modern design, it had quad overhead cams, variable valve timing, and it also
had a supercharger to give it all that power, now the original ones had some
overheating problems, but they figured that out as time went on, it's a more
modern engine, if you drove it not insane you would get better gas mileage than
the GM engine, but I mean really you got to take into consideration people that
buy those kinds of vehicles are driving like
maniacs I had one of the GT's for a while, heck I
was getting like three miles a gallon in the thing because I was driving at
full speed all the time and that's pretty much what you're gonna get in a
race car if you drive it full bore all the time, the Ford engine had insane power
there's no arguing that, I thought hey it's the fastest thing that you're ever
gonna get drive on the street that you can buy out of a factory, but that was
before I drove a Dodge Challenger Hellcat, that thing had even more
horsepower it had 707 horsepower with a
supercharger on it, that's an insane amount of horsepower,
now the Hellcat engine it's like the GM engine it's an old style
it's a pushrod engine, it's not a modern style by any stretch of the imagination,
but I do have to say, they've pretty much perfected that design, if you want
horsepower and speed, say you're building your own vehicle, they set it up that you
can buy what's called a hell crate engine, you can buy just the engine and
put it in the vehicle that you want because they know with that much horsepower
there's guys that want to get their hands on that engine, and I know
people are gonna say, hey your always booing chrysler products, but in
this case I do have to say that the Hellcat engine is the best v8 engine
that's presently being built for normal cars, if you can call that a normal car,
considering the power they put out and the speed that people are driving, them I
personally haven't seen any big serious problems with them, other than people
wrapping the cars around trees and stuff and that's not the engine's fault, remember
we're talking about best v8 engine here because being a pushrod engine, it's a
simpler engine, there's less stuff to break on it, and really as far as I can see
in the future, this is probably the end of the dinosaur age and for most intensive
purposes of mass production v8 engines will probably just start to fade
away, except for crazy gear heads like that new Corvette that they're talking
about bringing out, if it starts at 120,000 dollars then that's becoming an
exotic car and there's lots of exotic cars out there that have v8 engines, v12
engine, but hey for mass-produce engines the v8 engine will
probably be just like in the Road Warrior where Mad Max was driving one and they
said, it's the last of the great v8 because when you really think about it,
hey v8 engines were made originally for extra power, now that even a small
four-cylinder engine could put out a ton of power, the v8 engines really aren't
necessary, yeah I mean you can get them to put out almost 800 horsepower, but
really who needs 800 horsepower if you can get 300 horsepower on a little bitty
four-cylinder engine, hey that's plenty enough to drive us around in our
vehicles, one of the early cars out there, it only had one horsepower it got
people around, so we really don't need 800 horsepower cars to get ourselves from
here to there, and sure I for one will miss the great rumble of the v8, they got
a unique sound to them, but as time moves on I guess we got to move on too, and
since this is the Thursday segment where I answer a viewers question, place your own
question on the YouTube comments below and I'll pick the best ones to make a
single video to answer your questions, and where else can you find a guy with 50
years experience of fixing cars to answer your own question with a video, so
if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to
ring that Bell!
