Murilee Martin

geeteeoh

Major-General

geeteeoh

zolielo

Ford FE big block. Mostly because they sound so amazing through glasspacks.

But also because they came in the Country Sedan / Squire.

dculberson

Elhigh

rusty68

Really horrible engine: Chevy's 2.5L Iron Duke, with the oil filter inside the oil pan.

JayP71

Tyson

brandonvalentine

brandonvalentine

smokyburnout

FLB

Slant six gets a special merit for the ability to operate with completely f'd up valve lash, and curious procedure for adjusting them (you do it while then engine is running). Bonus points also awarded for low-compression red blocks for non-interefence design.

TurboBrick

I bought a used '90 4Runner in '92 never expecting that 15 years, several hundred thousand miles, one wife, three kids and two dogs later I'd still be tooling around Seattle's hills in a vehicle shaped like a brick with a paltry 116 horsepower. I rev the living hell out of this thing, when I'm on the highway for long periods of time. Will nothing kill it? It could at least have the decency to require me to do something other than change the oil so that I can justify a new, FASTER, car to my wife. I seriously doubt any amount of abuse is excessive.

The 22RE is like the automotive equivalent of herpes.

caractacus69

FuzzyPlushroom

Workhorse nominees are clearly:

Mopar LA Small blocks (1964-2003) with that basic design still being made with the current Viper's 8.3 V10

Anyone who ever had a 318 or 360 knows how durable they are. A friend of mine has a Dodge Warlock with an original 360 with 400,000miles on it.

When I used to work in a garage, we had a customer with a 318 delivery van with 750,000 miles on the motor.

A college professor of mine drove a really long Dodge passenger van with 500,000 miles on it, it just kept goin (eventho you could hear those pistons slappin'!)

I myself have a smog vintage 360 with (home made) high compression, hot cam, single plane, that (has) seen nitrous, that regularly run well >6000 rpm on a never touched bottom end. It hasnt complained once in 4 seasons of racing.

From my experience, some of the best engines around, and they built em for almost half a decade.

I also vote 225/170 slant six, but most of the time, they just didnt have the grunt to get anything done besides get grandma to the grocery store.

danio3834

Should-be-working

MikeHerbst

clashtastic

The Offenhauser (competitive in various forms for over 40 years);
The Cosworth DFV (which spawned a whole lot of engines, won in F1, won Le Mans in 3.3l form, won the Indy 500 as the DFX and is STILL being manufactured for vintage racing...)

FLB

Oh, and BMW M10/12.

FLB

Murilee Martin

cyclopticgaze

im a amc six guy, and ive seen first hand well maintained 4.0L's go 300k without ever having the head or oilpan off.

streetpirate

Meat Farley

There might be one somewhere in the ignition, I'm not sure.

My wife had an even older one before we met. She bought it used at around 150K miles, drove it to 378K, and sold it for her original purchase price. Not bad. Saw it around town for the next ten years.

22R for the win, baby! After the apocalypse, Toy 22R-powered vehicles will be what all the radioactive mutant cockroaches drive.

Elhigh

maybe just splitting it pre-smog and post-smog? that'll allow some of the newer kings to emerge for their proper place in history.

BTW, i drive a Honda D-series within an inch of it's life every day. yay!

T-Comm

SRekauqh

skaz

If 20 years is your constraint then I pare my list to:

AMC I-6 1964-2006
GM 3800 1962-present
Honda D 1984-2005
GM Small Block Gen 1 1969-2005
Chrysler G 1960-1986

geeteeoh

If you want another unappreciated, but nice engine, how about the Hyundai Beta series of engines? They are know to outlive the cars (or trucks) they are attached to, and make tons of power and torque.

Whoever nominated the ford CVT engine though, should know that I've owned two cars which featured that engine, and neither made it to 200,000 km. The one in my old ford focus was particularily poor, breaking a connecting rod at 164,000 km (completely un-boosted and well oiled if you were wondering.) And breaking my heart in the process.

Evil-Jeremy

@elwood: Actually, the 2XR series never made it to the Taco. On the Toy Truck-with-no-name (Hilux everywhere else).

They switched to the 2 and 3RZ for the 4 banger. It's completely different, and really hard to swap (the intake/exhaust are switched).

I had 1 great 22RE that overheated it in a big way 2x from a failing temp gauge that kept reading in the middle...then immediately jumped to pegged-in-the-red. It kept on tickin just fine, even though it had 170k on a rebuild, and 270k total.

I had another 22RE that was an absolute nightmare, but that was because it had been cared for by the same people that kept that one girl in a crib until she was confiscated at 12 years old.

Not really, but there were stripped holes and crappy parts all throughout the engine. Ended up paying a ton of cash to get it re-done properly...and then the car got stolen 2 months later.

Mad_Science

dculberson

the bmw M30 l6's are awesome too. 320000 miles on mine and still going.

larsenf

beercheck

for the L series

[en.wikipedia.org]

Vintage Racer is out taking pictures

SonOfSlam

Murilee Martin

geeteeoh

Reliability? Yeah. I just did the timing belt/water pump/etc on one with 230,000 miles. I checked the impeller on the water pump, and it had the same date code as the car: it was the original water pump and timing belt at 230k!

Replaced pump, belt, idler pulleys, put it back together, and it runs like a top. No ticking, no nothing.

-Non-interference engine means no valve problems if a belt does break!
-Unique gear-driven cams means only two cam pulleys for all four cams
-6-bolt mains
-Those forged internals can stand up to 700hp readily, supposedly even 1000hp, stock!
-Later models got 300hp from the factory via VVTi. Those are interference engines, though.

It's certainly no 100+hp/liter monster, but it'll outlive them long enough to laugh at their ground-up chaff in the recycling bin.

Sadly, mating a manual transmission to them is a bit of an expensive exercise.

dculberson

reefer

a small part of me wants to do a honerable mention of the 2JZ... 700-800hp on stock boosted internals, whats not to love?

reefer

Dr. Spaceman, Esq.

The Porsche boxer, air or water cooled in my opinion.

The VW air-cooled flat four.

The last two I'll argue over, but the XK is a no brainer.

b.borrman

BTW, this is as good of a recuuring feature as DOTS! Awesome topic IMHO.

geeteeoh

The six cylinder XK DOHC featured in yesterday's FG is another obvious candidate.

etang

Turkina

Murilee Martin

Saab B20 I-4
GM LS V-8
Honda D1 I-4
Honda J3 V-6
Toyota UZ V-8
GM L (Ecotec)I-4
GM 3800 V-6
Nissan VQ V-6
AMC 199/232 I-6
Chrysler G I-6

Anyone care to add to that?

geeteeoh

Joe_Bloe

And for workhorse engines, I vote 4G63T and LS1, in addition to the aforementioned B-series.

elwood

my ex had a thrashed '80 Celica with a 20R that he ran out of oil one night and it'd seized. I refilled the oil, let it cool, and that thing bump-started right away and ran for another few years til he wrecked it.

the R engines have to be amongst the toughest 4-pots on the planet.

geeniusatwrok

dylanseals

Nissan's VQ comes to mind.

The Toyota R is amazing. An engine that you can run with kerosene and replace the oil with sand and it'll still go.

JayP71

T-Comm

but after spending some time wrist-deep in the engine and having to take it damn near all apart to change belt tensioners, i was really, really regretting not snagging a more user-friendly 22R 4-banger.

live and learn, i guess. more torque isn't always worth it. but that damn truck will climb a wall in 4-low.

T-Comm

Meat Farley

snep

LT1

Also indestructible.

Hurrah for the inline 6!

skaz

Murilee Martin

Vintage Racer is out taking pictures

well done.

harumph

Fitty7lax

pjsammy