Take The American Engine Quiz!

Mr_Shiftright

Let us know how you did and what tripped you up.

http://www.americantorque.com/game/engine-id/

bumpy

8 of 17, and most of those were lucky guesses. I think I'd have done a lot better on a '70s-'90s Japanese version.

andre1969

I got 14 out of 17.

I missed #3, #4, and #6. Honestly though, I wouldn't have guessed some of them if it wasn't multiple choice, so you at least know one of the four choices is correct. Fill-in-the-blank, and I would've done a lot worse.

fintail

I got the first 4 wrong, so I gave up :P :sick:

I think I am ok at relating engine sizes to manufacturers, but when it comes to pictures, I'm not so good...many of them I have never really examined before in person.

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah I scored the same as you. I got the obvious ones but really I'm not into rods all that much.

One thing I noticed. Most American engines are not that attractive. They are very agricultural and they sort of blend together in my mind.

texases

10/17 with several guesses - yes, a v8's a v8, unless it's a hemi...it's ironic that modern US engines, now with all the DOHC neat stuff, are covered with all those plastic sound reducers. Not much to look at.

bumpy

The only ones I actually knew and got right were the two small-block Chevys toward the end, and only because I recognized the butterfly exhaust manifold from the LMC catalog. :P

lemmer

Andre is clearly the winner here. Has anyone ever sent you the chest shots where you have to determine real or silicon? I am really good at that one.

explorerx4

i got 11 out of 17, but like you, my score would have been lower if not multiple choice.
over the weekend i saw a big old merc on a trailer with a y block magazine sticker on the side. if i had checked it out, i might have gotten 1 more.

isellhondas

Just showing my age I suppose.

joe29001

16/17. Couldn't tell a 348 from a 409 (even with the dipstick clue).

Mr_Shiftright

Me neither. I never liked either of those engines. They belong in trucks and I don't care if the Beach Boys wrote a song about one of them.

andre1969

I answered the 348 question correctly, purely on a hunch. They had already showed a 409 in an earlier question, and at first that one looked like another 409. So I figured it must be a trick question, and 348 was one of the answers, so I picked it.

joe29001

Not very attractive? Blend together?

It's hard to believe, really. These engines (IMHO) have far more style than any OHC 4 cylinder covered in plastic.

If the quiz included a bunch of modern powerplants, I think we'd see that (much like the cars) they all look quite similar, so much that (like the cars) they'd be hard to identify.

Mr_Shiftright

I didn't say plastic covered engines were attractive either. American V8s look like something out of a tractor to me. Very heavy, crude castings, wiring, hoses, cabling all askew, etc. I mean, they GET THE JOB DONE, don't get me wrong, but compared to engines of that era from around the world, they seem like clumps of iron to me anyway.

texases

I guess my problem is, I remember hemis, small and big block Chevys, the 409/348, and a couple of Fords, but the buick/olds/pontiacs all blend together (ignoring the paint job).

Mr_Shiftright

When you're pumping out millions of engines, you don't have much time for artwork. I can't recall a truly beautiful American engine of any kind since the 1930s. I mean, you can glitz them up with chrome nuts and paint 'em pretty colors but the shapes and forms are pretty agricultural. Even a Packard straight-8 is like a log of iron. Maybe some of the Ford overhead cammers aren't too bad.

joe29001

I actually enjoy looking at agricultural engines (the old ones, anyways). Perhaps that's why I like these engines.

andre1969

but the buick/olds/pontiacs all blend together

there's a couple tricks I learned with these engines, although it may not apply to older ones. For one, Buick engines tend to have the distributor up front. Olds and Pontiac engines have it in the back. The Olds V-8 has a really tall oil filler tube mounted at the front of the engine, making it easy to add oil, while the Pontiac's oil filler is in the valve cover. The Pontiac V-8 also has a reaaaally long upper radiator hose.

One thing I can't remember...back when they used to paint the engines different colors, what color were the Olds engines? I remember Chevy engines being sort of an orange-red, Buicks more of a blood-red, and Pontiacs being light blue. I can't recall the Olds color, though. I guess at some point in the 70's they all just went to black, which is what my '76 LeMans 350 is.

joe29001

Buick distributors weren't always in the front. Check the nailhead in this quiz. Only the 'modern' Buick V-8s and the older small V-8s (215, 300) had the distributor up front.

Olds engines have been red, blue, green, different shades of gold, black. They've been lots of colors, depending on the model and vintage. Most-recently they've been black and corporate blue. Before that they were gold (small blocks) and blue metallic (big blocks). Before that they were red, bronze, green, among other colors.

wevk

Yikes 15/17 (winning coin flip on 348/409) Talk about a hed full of useless knowledge!

WVK.

Mr_Shiftright

Who knows? It might turn into a survival skill someday.

"We could get off this island if someone knew the difference between the 348 and 409 engines in our boat!!"

explorerx4

not the parts you can see

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah Yamaha engine isn't it, built by Mercury Marine for Ford? Did I get that right?

texases

I'd heard about Yamaha building the engine for the Taurus SHO, but not Mercury Marine...didn't they build the engine for the ZR-1 Corvette?

Mr_Shiftright

Oh yeah...could it have been Yamaha Marine and that's why I got it mixed up?

Anyway, doesn't sound very American to me :P

bumpy

These engines (IMHO) have far more style than any OHC 4 cylinder covered in plastic.

Eye of the beholder, and all that.

Okay, I'm going to make that Japanese engine quiz. Just have to find suitable pics and black out all the incriminating details. :P

explorerx4

i wrote 'SEMI' american. the dashboard redline was 7200 rpm. can't quite remember how i know that. honest, i never took it over 6500 in 5 gear :surprise:

Mr_Shiftright

Okay okay...engineering by Yamaha, badge by Ford. Glad we settled that! :P

explorerx4

maybe it is just the badge. porsche was involved in the the design of the duratec. obviously they put the rookies on the job.
i think the tundra engine has a bunch of yamaha engineering in it.

Kirksjohnson

Got 16 out of 17, didn't get the 455 buick one right. No flatheads

Mr_Shiftright

YEAH, let's bring back the flathead!!!