Re: 9-main bearing inline eights

Posted by su8overdrive On 2015/10/29 16:11:32

What kind of race car? GP or dirt track recreation?

There's more to it than that. The number of main bearings itself lengthens the crank, and Packard eights, sturdy, well-engineered as they were, were never about high rpm but low-speed torque, smooth tractability.

Duesenberg's Model J/SJ 420-ci dohc straight eight had but five main bearings, but they were wide. Buick's ohv 320-ci straight eights, babbitt bearings aside, were runners, as was Hudson's flathead, splash-oiled 254-ci straight eight, 3 x 4 1/2, hp rated at a very high for the 1940s 4,200 rpm. Both these engines had five mains. The stock Hudson straight eight propelled English Railtons, a sporting car driven in hill climbs and other competition and by the London police as pursuit vehicles. In 1940, Augie Duesenberg was selling a marine version of the Hudson eight.

You might consider finding one of Packard's unsung, woefully underrated but excellent engines, a five-mained 288-ci eight from 1948-on.
The cars weren't much to look at in those years, Packard more interested in their more lucrative jet engine contracts, phoning in increasingly me-too product, no independent able to approach Big Three unit costs, parts buying leverage, or afford the now "necessary" annual model changes and TV advertising.

Packard's 288 has like most Packard eights of the '30s, '40s, a 3 1/2-inch bore, but a mere 3 3/4-inch stroke, same as the 1936-37 Cord's Lycoming V-8 which stood up well to supercharging with only three mains.

Packard's 288 was used in the lower lines 1948-54, and there are plenty of donor cars about otherwise not worth restoring. It's a rugged, husky, well built, trouble-free engine and buying and rebuilding one won't bankrupt you. It shares the same 2.75-inch main journal diameter as all the other Packard straight eights of the '30s and beyond, as well as the Duesenberg J/SJ and long-produced Jaguar XK dohc six.

Keep us posted on your race car. In the days of the Depression Indianapolis 500 stock block "junk formula," a Packard One-Twenty (3 1/4 x 4 1/4, five mains) straight eight did well in the 1937 race 'til its clutch gave out.