rev up your engines, today I'm going to answer Eddy Vasquez's question, who makes
the best v8 engines these days, now to answer that question I'm only going to
be talking about a regular v8 engine, I'm not going to be talking about
supercars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and to answer
correctly we'll get a little bit of history here, in 1915 Cadillac made the
first really mass-produced v8 engine, which was a 5.4 liter v8 engine, now even
though it was sort of mass-produced, it was still in a luxury car and it was
rather expensive car, the first really mass-produced car that used v8 engines
were the Fords, in 1932 Henry Ford made a flathead v8
and that was the first really mass-produced v8 used in normal cars, not
used in either luxury cars or in trucks now, Henry discovered how to make them so
they worked good, but there are less expensive to build as an example, those
v8's only had three main bearings on the crank, instead of the
usual five main bearings, so it cost less money to make, so that made it more
affordable to put in regular cars, now the main point of putting a v8 in was for
more power, and since it was a v8 there were four on the left side and four on
the right, so that v8 engine could fit in a vehicle they had a four-cylinder
engine because it's basically the same length of the four-cylinder engine, you
couldn't get a big six in there or even a straight eight, that would require a
gigantic hood to fit it into, the V8 fit into a smaller space, and as it put out
more power people like them, you can always get an option you get a
four-cylinder engine or you can get a v8 engine, people who wanted power hey they put
in a v8 like Bonnie and Clyde, they always stole Ford's that had v8 is they
could so you get a lot of power
out of a v8, but times are changing as an example, a modern-day four-cylinder
engine, heck it can put out more horsepower than a v8 engine did just 20
years ago, so you can get a lot of power out of
a four cylinder engine which is making a lot of these v8 becoming kind of like
the dinosaurs, their sort of towards the edge of extinction, you'll see that a lot
of companies including Ford, are going more toward turbocharged GDI gasoline
engines that are v6 instead of v8, they can still put out a lot of horsepower,
but they get a lot better gas mileage so in modern cars, at least most of the
American cars the v8 engines are becoming more and
more specialized, as an example they use them in all their racing cars, you get a
v8 and a Dodge Hellcat, you can get a v8 in a Mustang, and you can get a v8 in
a Corvette, now I know GM is coming up with I think they call it a zr1
and it's going to have 755 horsepower but it's going to cost over 120,000
dollars, so I really don't include that as a normal v8 engine myself, so I'll
start with the LS9 which puts out 638 horsepower, it's got a supercharged
v8, now I have to say it's a pretty good engine, it's an old-fashioned
design it's still a pushrod engine, it doesn't have overhead cams, it's pretty
much a gigantic gas hog in that kind of form with the supercharger on it, it's
not gonna get very good gas mileage it's only got the regular valves
per cylinder, it doesn't have four valves per cylinder and it just got push
rods in it, it's a pretty old fashioned design, but it's a pretty strong engine,
now let's compare that to the Shelby gt500 that at least as of this time was
the most horsepower that Ford sold out of the factory, and it was 662 horsepower
now the Ford Mustang engine was a much more modern design, it had quad overhead
cams, variable valve timing, and it also had a supercharger to give it all that
power, now the original ones had some overheating problems, but they figured
that out as time went on, it's a more modern engine, if you drove it not insane
you would get better gas mileage than the GM engine, but I mean really you
got to take into consideration people that buy
those kinds of vehicles are driving like maniacs
I had one of the GT's for a while, heck I was getting like three miles a gallon
in the thing because I was driving at full speed all the time and that's
pretty much what you're gonna get in a race car if you drive it full bore all
the time, the Ford engine had insane power there's no arguing that, I thought hey
it's the fastest thing that you're ever gonna get drive on the street that you
can buy out of a factory, but that was before I drove a Dodge Challenger
Hellcat, that thing had even more horsepower
it had 707 horsepower with a supercharger on it, that's an insane
amount of horsepower, now the Hellcat engine it's like the GM
engine it's an old style it's a pushrod engine, it's not a modern
style by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have to say, they've pretty much
perfected that design, if you want horsepower and speed, say you're building
your own vehicle, they set it up that you can buy what's called a hell crate
engine, you can buy just the engine and put it in the vehicle that you want
because they know with that much horsepower there's guys that want to get their
hands on that engine, and I know people are gonna say, hey your always
booing chrysler products, but in this case I do have to say that the
Hellcat engine is the best v8 engine that's presently being built for normal
cars, if you can call that a normal car, considering the power they put out and
the speed that people are driving, them I personally haven't seen any big serious
problems with them, other than people wrapping the cars around trees and stuff
and that's not the engine's fault, remember we're talking about best v8 engine here
because being a pushrod engine, it's a simpler engine, there's less stuff to
break on it, and really as far as I can see in the future, this is probably the end
of the dinosaur age and for most intensive purposes of mass production v8
engines will probably just start to fade away, except for crazy gear heads like
that new Corvette that they're talking about bringing out, if it starts at
120,000 dollars then that's becoming an exotic car and there's lots of exotic
cars out there that have v8 engines, v12 engine, but hey for mass-produce engines
the v8 engine will probably be just like in the Road Warrior
where Mad Max was driving one and they said, it's the last of the great v8
because when you really think about it, hey v8 engines were made originally for
extra power, now that even a small four-cylinder engine could put out a ton
of power, the v8 engines really aren't necessary, yeah I mean you can get them
to put out almost 800 horsepower, but really who needs 800 horsepower if you
can get 300 horsepower on a little bitty four-cylinder engine, hey that's plenty
enough to drive us around in our vehicles, one of the early cars out
there, it only had one horsepower it got people around, so we really don't need
800 horsepower cars to get ourselves from here to there, and sure I for one will
miss the great rumble of the v8, they got a unique sound to them, but as time moves
on I guess we got to move on too, and since this is the Thursday segment where I
answer a viewers question, place your own question on the YouTube comments below
and I'll pick the best ones to make a single video to answer your questions, and
where else can you find a guy with 50 years experience of fixing cars to
answer your own question with a video, so if you never want to miss another one of
my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!