These Are The Best Production Engines Ever Made

An engine is more than a lump of metal. The engine adds character and even some emotion to a car. Many cars are loved not just for phenomenal style but a powerplant that makes your heart race.

It's no secret that diesels top my list of best engines. A good chunk of my fleet is powered by diesel, including my two highest-mileage vehicles. My 2002 Nova Bus RTS has a massive 8.5-liter inline-four Detroit Diesel Series 50 turbodiesel taking up the rear that shows no signs of stopping with 380,000 miles.

Meanwhile, my 2012 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Sportwagen with its 2-liter CJAA turbodiesel is still chugging away with over 350,000 miles with its emissions equipment intact.

An engine can be the best for its reliability, its power or its versatility. Maybe even for it's aesthetics? There are a number of answers, here!

We asked our lovely readers about the best engines ever to enter production. These are their answers.

It's hard to fault fans of GM's venerable LS engine when they provide can cheap, reliable power for just about anything with wheels.

GM LS-series.

Suggested by: jumpjet

Here's an engine that will happily take any torture you put it through. It may not produce huge power numbers, but the engine will outlast the body of the truck it's mounted in.

The Ford 300 Straight 6. Jalopnik's own David Tracy did an entire piece on it.

https://jalopnik.com/heres-why-the-ford-300-inline-six-is-one-of-the-greates-1795351528

Suggested by: Satalac

I love when a reader lays down an epic, informative comment. Indeed, the Cummins B series of diesel engines are so durable that it's not uncommon to see them rolling around with eye-popping mileage.

In terms of legendary large engines that did make it into the passenger vehicles, it's the Cummins B series(6BT, ISB, B6.7). These are engines that hit 7 digit mileage with ease in hot shot applications. Even the modern CM2350b engine can have the DPF and other emission equipment surpass 500k without issues.

There's a massive presence of these engines in off road applications. One of the most impressive is the GMK 7550 crane with a lifting capacity surpassing 1 million pounds. A larger semi truck engine is used to move the crane, but a 6.7 is used for the lifting operations. Typically, these engines sit at WOT for hours on end, and yet they consistently push 10k hours before hitting the rebuild interval.

They're also used often in fire suppression systems as a pump engine in buildings like factories, and some high rises. For these applications they're often proof tested monthly and sit at WOT for 24 hours. When these things start up, there's no warmup time, they hit WOT in a few seconds with the EGT often surpassing 1400-1600 degrees. These engines are usually guaranteed for 10 years.

I've seen some of the older generation 12 valve 6BT still used in irrigation systems for farms. With their lower power output, they'll sit at WOT and hit 10-15k hours. Just change the bearings, send off the injectors to be rebuilt, and sometimes run the dingleberry through the bores and off they go for another 10k.

With all that said, it's important to remember that the CM2350b of the 2013-2018 era was able to be that reliable and CARB year after year found that the PM emission output rivaled that of a Prius. In the 2017 model year it actually was tested as having lower PM emission than the newer hybrids. The certification paperwork is public record and under CARB's website.

For an example of how the CM2350b performs in hot shot application, check out PD Diesel on YouTube. He has a mess of trucks hitting more than 300k with factory emissions in place. He mentions all the issues he runs into with his trucks.

Suggested by: D Flower

Ferrari isn't the only automaker that turns engines into functional art pieces, just take a gander at this beauty!

The old Alfa Romeo V6 looks similarly amazing when you pop the hood.

This guy!? Nice!

Suggested by: COMTNDRVR and 3PedalsOrNothing

These diesels predate Dieselgate and it's not uncommon to see them with odometer readings that you'd normally think are reserved for big truck diesels. These little 1.9-liter fours are easy to tune, too!

Volkswagen's ALH code 1.9L TDI, produced from 1998 through 2003 for Mk4 platform cars (PQ34?). Do your timing belts every 100k miles, fuel filters every 20k, they just kind of keep on going.

Variable geometry turbo might cause boost control problems with high miles (the most recent ALH-powered car I bought is just starting to give me overboost codes in certain situations with 300,000 miles on it—also, it still doesn't consume any oil through a 10,000 mile oil change).

The injection pump in the longer time scale of things will likely eventually leak, but it's sub $25 for the seal kit and they're not that hard to re-seal yourself.

Compared to more modern diesels, these are stone simple and pretty easy to work on and return phenomenal fuel economy, have decent aftermarket support for easy upgrades to get more power out of them, too... which I do recommend, because you're only starting with 90 hp and 155 ft-lbs. Simply installing bigger injector nozzles and a tune can bump that to around 130 hp and 220 ft lbs... Anything much more than that requires a turbo upgrade... and clutch upgrade.

ong after I did that timing belt at 621k miles, his odometer stopped counting. lolI had a customer a number of years ago that had 621,000 miles on his, never changed anything. Never touched the pump, the clutch or the turbo, just drove it on the highway for huge long stretches at a time from Bay Area to L.A. and to Colorado. It turns out the VDO instrument clusters in that generation of A platform VWs stop counting miles after 999,999 km, no matter if it's displaying in miles or km. So, not long after I did that timing belt at 621k miles, his odometer stopped counting. lol

Suggested by: Dieseldub

Now this reader is following the spirit of the question. The Viper's V10 employs sophisticated technology for its time and produces more power than many drivers can handle. All that aside, it also makes some of the best exhaust notes.

Viper V10.

It loves to rev, it loves to make big torque, and it's utterly simple. It's an engine that helped to take lap times from supercars with more sophisticated technologies in them like DOHC's, Direct Injection, and turbo's, to name a few.

It's an American big block that acts very differently than a normal big block: also, because no body wants to call coupe utilities "pick-up trucks", the Viper V10 made some Ram 1500's "the fastest pick-up truck" ever.

Take track times in a sports/supercar, or have one hella fast Lowes vehicle.

Only the supercharged 5.4 shares that idea, and you had to get it in different power levels depending on what you wanted. You didn't get 550hp in a Lightning or Mustang, but you did get that in the GT.

Suggested by: T2400

A surprising number of you suggested this engine.

Jeep 4.0. A dependable ol' lump of an engine that made good power and found its way into some of the most iconic and well loved SUVs.

Suggested by: If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent (and many others)

It's hard to beat so few moving parts, small packaging and addictive power. We're only beginning to see the awesome stuff that you can do with an electric motor.

I suggest the simple electric motor as the greatest car engine ever.

Why? You say.

Few moving parts. Simple. Decent reliability. Universal fitment.

For us gearheads the electric motor offers maximum torque immediately.

There, I said it.

The electric motor is the greatest automotive engine ever.

Suggested by: v8corvairpickup

This straight-six engine can be found powering Toyota Land Cruisers and forklifts. But this engine is so durable that it's also used for drag cars, too!

I don't care that it's probably not, the Toyota 1FZ never gets its dues in these lists.

5 Ton fork lift

or 7 second drag car

Easily one of the most durable gas engines ever built. It was short lived and aftermarket support sucks but it can dish it out. It was even designed to be overbored 2x to keep it going for a long long time.

Im at 330,000 miles on mine and its running like a top.

Suggested by: Hammerheadfistpunch

This little engine taught generations of car enthusiasts how to wrench and its simplicity meant that anyone could repair it. You may not see one of these with multi-million miles, but you can pretty much repair it with duct tape and a hammer.

Volkswagen's air-cooled flat-four. In production from pre-WWII till 2003. Maybe not as much in the public consciousness these days—hell, air cooled VWs in general aren't, now they've shifted from cheap transportation to classic cars. Incredibly easy to remove and rebuild, powered everything from cars to boats, industrial equipment and lord-knows what other things people have stuck them in. Not necessarily known for racking up high miles, but the lack of a real oil filter (seriously it looks like a kitchen strainer) will do that. Parts are plentiful and compared to a lot of other classic cars, inexpensive. I rebuilt the engine in mine a few years ago, first time ever tearing an engine down and I did it with no special tools other than a piston ring compressor and a torque multiplier to get the flywheel nut off.

Suggested by: Clark_B