Jalopnik
We weren't so sure about this engine's qualifications for WEOTD status, not because it doesn't measure up in the awesomeness department but because it's damn near impossible to figure out whether those perfectionist Porsche engineers have completely blank-sheet-of-paper redesigned the thing repeatedly (keeping only the general layout, mounting hardware, and the bore centers). If we agree that the boxer six-banger from Stuttgart has been essentially the same engine with a constant series of upgrades, then its ancestry stretches all the way back to the early 1960s. We'll let tipster Jason weigh in with his arguments after the jump...
Says Jason: First conceived in 1961 for the T7 prototype, and later installed in a 911 in 1964, the little 2.0L flat six turned out a whooping 130 hp. Fast forward to 1998, and the last air-cooled 911 (turbo) was cranking out 400 hp. The race flat-6 motors in the 935 were cranking out in excess of 950hp with water-cooled heads.
But this motor didn't just power 911s, it covers 914s, 959s, and a slew of race cars... including the 934, 935, 956, 962, and Porsche's first Indy car in the 1970s, along with the 936...
Not only was this motor in a street car for 34 years, it has won races and championships for Porsche for nearly as long... including 24hrs of LeMans, 24hrs of Daytona, 12hrs of Sebring, Targa Florio, MonteCarlo, and Paris-Dakar (Twice).
Does it need mentioning that the 956 with a flat-6 "911" motor currently holds the all-time fastest lap record at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife of 6:11:13?
The 'engine' has been essentially the same... I think the same bore centers based on the research, but the cylinders are external to the block (being air-cooled)... the air-cooled motors have had water-cooled heads, esp. within motorsports, and the cylinders have changed over time to increase displacement... I do know for a fact, that you can take an old 911 'T' beater, strip the 2.2, or 2.4L motor out and drop in a 3.0L or 3.2L with 'ease'... the mounting hardware is very similar.
That being said, Porsche has also changed the casting material, from magnesium to Al because on the 2.7L motor they found the head-studs had a tendency to pull, esp. with the higher temps. from having the thermal reactor installed (for cleaning up emissions).
Porsche as a firm has long since been of mind of reusing parts & technology, putting various motors into the same racing chassis (904 with 4-cam 4-cyl, the 911 6-cyl, and the 8-cyl F1 engine)... initially the 917 motor (called type 912) was started with 2 6-cyl. siamesed...
From that first flat-6 that was installed into a 911 (The T7 had 2 axial fans) the basic layout has not changed until 1994's 996 water-pumper. It had the same type of split-case, crank, dry-sump oiling, cyl. arrangement, (oil) cooling... the heads have changed greatly, esp. with Turbocharging, and later variocam/ram systems to alter valve timing... the 935 had its cooling fan switched from vertical to laying horizontally on-top of the motor, but that came from the prototype racers. (speaking of which, the 956/962C twins gave their motor to the 959... and the only difference between the 956 and 962 is where the front axle was rel. to the driver's feet... BUT the IMSA version of the 962 had a single turbo, vs the twin turbos of the Group C cars...) Also, the first 1970's foray into Indy, Porsche had a 2.86L Turbo flat-6 and then used that motor in the old 936 chassis to create a new 936 that won LeMans... well you get the idea.
Comments
i think the next WEOTD should be the VW flat-4 from the OG beetle
Now that there's a freakin' workhorse engine.
Now if they could only drop the cost down about 1250%
Absolutely. I'm also absolutely biased, but I can live with that.
If memory serves, I think the same basic block has continued to be used in the GT3 variant.
Vizzini is right. This was not discontinued in 1998, its still out there on the street in the GT3s! So 44 years or screaming success, not 34!
No. Any engine that requires the very high level of TLC to keep running and has incredibly expensive parts is not a work horse.
Expensive parts? Yeah, I'll give you that one. I'm not so sure about the "very high level of TLC," though. Anything that has that kind of racing pedigree can't be a hothouse flower. And they are pretty solid in road form.
Gotta be a pretty nice horse of some kind.
@42Fordtrucks: Well, I'm no Porschephile but you can make oodles of power out of these. They also come from the factory making well over 100hp per liter, so that's pretty respectable. Additionally, the handful of owners I personally know have put tons of very hard miles on them with no real signs of wear. Driving them hard and putting them away wet still hasn't produced any serious problems for them. The only issue I know of was on a chipped-Turbo running ~0.3 Bar more boost on an all factory setup, with over 70,000 miles and lots of track use. The problem? A broken coolant pipe joint adapter thing, due to Porsche's seriously idiotic reasoning for soldering the joint. Solder, on the coolant system. Freakin' porsche with their (literally) back-assward ideas.
Hey, I didn't say I think anything else on Porsches are sweet.
Just mainly their engines, and their brakes.
But that is all.
@Vizzini: Totally agree. My dad had one of these is his PA-18 Super Cub. A damn sight less expensive to repair/maintain and more powerful than the "stock" Lycoming mill.
It's amazing that company can get VW Beetles to handle so well and go so fast! :P
Hear hear! Not to mention that if you're a competent VW mechanic, you can pretty much figure out one of these engines in an afternoon. The amounts of power coming out of this aircooled engine in, for example, 959 trim, is absolutely jaw dropping.
Woo HOO! I have two of the workhorse engines this week! FIAT twincam and the 3.6L Flat six here... The 3.6 is like having a benevolent gorilla in the trunk, pushing you along.. like starting a toboggan ride..
There has to be a better animal analogy than workhorse about this engine but I can't think of one.
Anyway, I know ya'll don't really use diesel in the US but VW's 1.9 liter TDI engine would be a great candidate for this title: it's in millions of cars all over the world, easy to maintain, and yes,as loud and smelly as it is dependable.
@tbennett017:
Benevolent gorilla pushing you...I love that! Remember the Grape Ape?
Wonder why a version of this six wasn't offered/standard on Vanagons, they are criminally underpowered and the answer is right in the family.
Great , they got two more cylinders to flop around in the wrong block. I'm with the flat four fans as being a vote for workhorse of the century plus 5 years. Can't they at least make that a 120 degree v and a benz crank, and leave the real work horse alone. Money was the excuse for the flat 6 design flaw, and the morons went with it. Air cooling around cylinders and liquid heads would keep any engine working race hard, and that is the only winner about it's craziness. Even Subaru had a crazy flat six. Much less glorified, that still went the miles, very muych like the vw world, never to catch the real workhorse: the flat four.
@bdon: Huh?RolloGrande: I'm pretty sure that even wholesale the 911 engine costs more than the rest of the vanagon...
@
@bdon: Subie still has a six-cylinder in some models of the Outback.
As for anything being "wrong" with the Porsche motor, the endurance racing record refutes that nicely.
I have seen quite a few vangons with Porsche's flat six stuffed back there... the question is then how do you upgrade the brakes, the handling, and the chassis to deal? (That gets VERY expensive!)
As for the GT cars? yes they have the 'Turbo' style split crank case and dry-sump oiling, but they also use water cooling on the block, no?
(BTW, the Turbo cars use the same block as the GTs and racers)
Still, how could you say no to an engine that you could flog on a track all day, and then drive home and have no issues?
Yes the older motors require more maintence than the newer ones, but show me a 20+yr old motor that doesn't!
And no, I don't own a 911.
@42Fordtrucks: Porsche's flat six is ridiculously reliable and easy to work on. Parts are theoretically more expensive, until you find a discount dealer like Autohaus AZ. I've got 150k on my 3.2 liter and I beat the trash out of that engine. Mechanical simplicity is an understatement, anytime anything goes wrong, which is exactly twice in my ownership history, it's right there in front of you with an obvious solution. Overall, the car is as reliable and easy to work on than anything I've ever owned.
The real workhorse is the VW flat-four, particularly the 1200. You add up all miles ever piled on by the Type 1 and all the Porsche motors in the world put together aren't even in sight.
That said, endurance racing history has no greater engine than a force-fed flat-six.
@jakay11: I tend to think a Subaru engine is a better solution...not as peaky and bit easier to get reasonable parts for. It's been done plenty of times, with 2.2s, 2.5s, turbos, and even the H6s. Funny, I just saw an orange Vanagon syncro on the highway this morning and I was hoping there was WRX plant under there churning away.
While I was on state paid vacation during the great telecom implosion of 2001+, I spend some time wrenching on Porsche's, VWs, and BMWs.
I vividly remembering scouring around for a 1970's 3L Turbo or Carerra block... to which we put a 2L crank in and then with a few 'mild tweeks' we put the 9000rpm 2.8L motor into a '73T chassis... and then added steel RS flares... a few more tricks to the brakes and chassis, and all I can say is... 'wow' what a track/back-road toy that was!
I need a paper towel now... Thank you.
Oh, and that motor now has around 25K of track miles, and has never been apart.
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