If you grew up before high gas prices and strict emission control regulations, you probably had — or wanted — a car with a V8 engine. An engineering masterpiece created in France, it would define automotive power for the best part of a century. Of course, you can still get them, but the realities of our day make them a luxury. [Vlad] shows us his latest Christmas list addition: a fully-functioning but tiny V8 — the Toyan FS-V800 that has a displacement of two centiliters.
It runs on R/C nitro fuel and is claimed to be the world’s smallest production V8. You can buy the thing built or as a kit and we suggest to protect your street cred, you claim you bought the kit even if you go for the assembled version. The cylinder bores are 17 mm and 16 tiny valves regulate the flow. There are even tiny mufflers for the manifold exhaust. [Dennis] has a video of his operating that you can see below, and his YouTube channel has a lot of information on building the kit and some modifications, too.
Cooling? Water-cooled, of course. The manufacturer claims the engine can rev to 12,500 RPM and can produce over four horsepower. The total size would allow it to fit easily in a five inch cubical volume. You could build it into something, or just display it as a conversation piece. Be prepared for sticker shock, though. We hear the going price for these is about $1,500.
If you’re a bit short on cash or would rather just play with some pretend ponies, this impressive open source engine simulator might be just what you’re looking for.
Aaah, Ad-a-Day, my favourite place to learn about new products!
Why settle for a V8, when you can get a V12 along with the rest of the car. It only takws about 15 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDZICiGmDxs
Really impressive, and his french accent really cracked me up !
I… did now know… that I needed to build a tiny V8 engine… until a few minutes ago.
Cool!
And for the record my truck has a V-8 , and most of the trucks at work are all V8s….. My son’s truck is a bigger Ford V-8 from the 80s as his is a 3/4 Ton. Now in cars … different story, although I saw a new Corvette today … assume their isn’t a sewing machine engine under its hood.
It would, however, be interesting to run a sewing machine on a full size V8 engine.
The gauntlet has been dropped. Sewing machine powered by a V8 to embroider all of Wikipedia. Go!
I think they mentioned in the advertisement (oops, article) that the V8 still lives on in “luxury” vehicles. I realize that trucks aren’t always luxury vehicles but they often come with a comparable price tag (when new). There are probably a few vehicles with a V8 in the middle price ranges of new vehicles, but, they are far from common outside of work trucks (which don’t really give that same sexy appeal that the author is referring to).
P.S. I’d personally classify the Corvette as luxury or equivalent as far as being financially viable. And, with all the sports cars that have speakers playing engine noise to make the car seem more powerful, I wouldn’t put the sewing machine motor idea past them.
“a fully-functioning but tiny V8 — the Toyan FS-V800 that has a displacement of two centiliters.”
It’s 28 cc. Pretty sure the “0.02 liter” comes from conversions and poor rounding.
Also, “centiliters”? Seriously? What’s next, decagrams and hectojoules? Even if 0.02 liters was right, just say 20 mL.
A 1l V8 would seriously interest me (even a V6/V10/V12) but when you’re down to 28cc, it wouldn’t move a moped.
According to google, at 4HP, it’s about as strong as a 3kw brushless drone motor (granted, torque and rpm are massively different between the two).
True, but if you did strap this on a moped you would have the coolest moped in the world, still not very cool, but something.
28 cc is apropos for a weed whacked.
A V8 made of eight of those could move a moped,
Oh, silly of me! Some mopeds have 50 cc engines!
That’s a V2!
^whacker!
(Stupid auto correct!)
Well, the first Columbo V12 that Ferrari made was 1.5 liters, back in 1958, so there’s your 1 liter V8 with an extra four cylinders for, uh, reliability.
Thank you… I thought something was a bit funny when they claimed that a V8 had about the same volume as a pair of Cox .049s!
Perfect for a lawn mower.
Nah… at 4 HP, an equivalent of around 3 kW, portable power pack. Bonus for putting this and a generator into one appropriate sized ammo can, another for the power converter for various voltage outputs, and a third to house the nitro fuel.
Not a bad idea, but I think a 4-cylinder boxer, or even 2-cylinder opposed configuration would be much better, from both cost and compactness factors. Tech Ingredients (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yB49G756OI) did a series where he attempted to build a power pack for a big drone, to take advantage of the high energy density of hydrocarbon fuels as a way to get long duration drone flights. He used two model airplane engines coupled together to get the desired power output. This video shows the bench setup; I don’t recall him ever building a flyable version, as I recall the numbers just didn’t work out to make it practical.
I wonder of the smoother torque of the inline six would be better for a generator? Many people prefer the old Toyota (Ford) straight six in their off-road rigs.
th problem with Vs, boxers, and opposed, is that they need twice as many heads
Ecclesiastes, 4:9 may disagree here,<|8-)
one of my engineer friends purchased one of these to play with. power output is extremely low, the cooling system has one side of the engine running significantly hotter than the other side, and several of the cylinders run lean. i’d not bother with this toy of an engine.
https://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/engine-conversions-92/11701654-next-conversion-toyan-fs-v800-v-8-a.html
I don’t think the design shortcomings of the engine are much deterrent for RC hobbyists, they’ll likely tune and modify the engine anyway if they want to use it in competitions.
Sometimes you want more scale accuracy than performance, because for some hobbyists it’s more important to look good than go fast. Engineering can be art, too, and that’s why we have hot rod and tuner culture, as well as all types of conventions and gatherings to show off our artfully crafted and decorated machines.
Conley precision engines in Glen Ellyn Il. USA has been building tiny v-8 engines for over 30 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA8jPjjPwkk I used to live in Glen Ellyn and would walk by his house. Only house in the whole town with 3 phase power running to it! Sometimes he would be outside running various RC cars and the whole neighborhood would come out and watch. Tiny v-8’s are cooool!
“Only house in the whole town with 3 phase power running to it!”
That earns you a “Huh? What?”
@I alone possess the truth In the USA most homes have what could be called 2 phase power going to them. That being 2 seperate 120 VAC lines that are 180 degrees out of phase giving you 240 VAC if measured between the lines and 1 neutral. This particular house has 3 conductors and 1 neutral which is typically seen in industrial applications not on houses.
The US way of doing residential electrical power is only partially weird. There is an arguable safety advantage that the live conductors are never more than 177 V peak with respect to neutral earth ground. The down side is not many residential appliances take advantage of the fact they could operate at 240 volts. It is mostly stoves, clothes dryers, water heaters and car chargers which are 240 volts while lighting and just about all small appliances operate at 120 volts. In days of yore in the early 20th century, using fat copper wiring was not a big deal in the US.
V8s don’t necessarily need to die. You could run them on hydrogen if manufacturers really wanted to keep making them.
But they will die because they’re overly complex compared to an electric motor, and are rapidly falling behind in terms of performance. This engine is a good case in point, being tenfold the cost of a normal competition RC motor and a fraction of the performance of a modern electric motor.
This is pretty much just for the looks and nostalgia. Great work though.
There are a whole bunch of these types of engine kits available in any configuration you please. I’m kind of torn because they are inherently awesome but, as mentioned above, may have manufacturing/design issues. Classic “practical vs awesome” trade off. Previously, only way to get something like this was professional machinist with a side hobby. But, for the record, I come down on side of awesome.