Pushrod V8 engine

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The renderings were made by our customer Eric Albrecht, a.k.a Blakbird, and are used with his permission.

The moment has come, that both we and you, dear costumers have been waiting for. The ultimate engine configuration is finally here.

We put a lot of effort into designing this engine. We paid special attention to the following details:

• We managed to pack it in only 15 studs of length, while eliminating the crank end-to-end twisting and engine vibration.
• No V8 ever run so smooth on such low rpms, while at the same time offering 1500 rpms on only 4 bars of pressure.
• We managed to integrate a centrally positioned ballance shaft that also acts as a timing distribution gear. It prevents the crank and camshaft from twisting and enables a very precise operation even under great stress. No lego V8 crankshaft has ever been so stiff. The balance shaft is a rigid shaft that runs trough the sections, centraly positioned between the crankshaft and the camshaft with one pinion gear just before the front and rear block end-sections. The crankshaft end-shaft gear drives the camshaft end-shaft gear via the balance shaft pinion gear. In other words, the distribution gears are present from both ends of the engine. All Lego elements have a certain amount of elasticity and especialy the axles that connect each crank piece can easily twist. A balance shaft greatly reduces the torsion of the crankshaft, becuse it rigidly connects both ends of the crank/cam shafts. It is self explanatory how the 'balance' shaft greatly improves the torque output.
• We use only 4 valves in the engine, you might wonder why. It enables us a more balanced distribution of air to the paired cylinders and drastically reduces a lot of friction. Both are the key for such a smooth operation and for high rpms in a V8.
• A proper valvetrain geometry must pass the central point of the valve in as few degrees of the camshaft revolution as possible in order to offer the maximum air flow. During one camshaft revolution each valve spends only ~60° in its central dead point, on the other ~300° it offers full potential air flow to the cylinder.
• The total engine weight is only 410 grams. In lego terms that would equal to an aluminum block and heads of a real V8 engine.
• This engine is actually capable of a much greater speed than 1500 rpms, but we finetuned the timing for the smoothest operation on low rpms and the biggest torque output throughout the entire rev band.

An engine with 8 valves would potentially offer more power and more rpms, but it would be much longer and it would have much more friction and torsion, which in the end might destroy any advantage that would come from the 4 extra valves in the first place.

Since we find it virtually impossible to obtain larger quantities of transparent cylinders for a reasonable price, we decided to go with yellow cylinders, which are slightly easier to obtain, but still come with a "nice" price tag. We still have some stock supply of transparent cylinders for the inline 3 engines, or for any custom engine configuration built to your specifications.

LEGO, please start producing pneumatic parts again!!!!

In the video you can see the engine in action. A video showing the V8 powering Alex' Mustang (btw, the Mustang has officially been designated the test vehicle for the LPEpower engines), will be here soon. It is sheduled to be shot during the coming weekend.

• CLICK FOR IMAGE GALLERY
• HOW THE ENGINE IS PRODUCED
• MORE VIDEOS

Specifications:

The engine ships fully assembled!