Flathead Engines vs. Overhead Valves

[Bud Tierney]

Can't resist joining in om the Cadillac-Packard question...

Packard was far and away the car of choice for the old-money type people---quiet, reserved people with  inner self confidence, who didn't feel any need to advertise their good fortune,  who preferred quiet quality, in everything,  to flash and glitz...to be honest, flash and glitz were considered a little beyond the pale...

Cadillac, conversely, was loved by those who'd hit it big, one way or the other, and wanted everyone to know it, to proclaim their good fortune to the world, perhaps even revel inwardly in the envy of the Ford-Chev drivers...

I'm not from old money (or new!!); semi-skilled family, working class, semi-professional white collar myself, so didn't pick up that feeling from anywhere upscale, it's just what most people i knew felt...adult years in the NMex, AZ, , Riverside, Santa Cruz, Cal, got to Oregon (ran out of money) still here...

[Su8overdrive]

Just tripped over this terrific thread, but some of you did not carefully read Rusty O'Toole's (or is it Barney Oldfield or Russell Crowe?)  knowledgeable, reasoned posts, since you continued to compare much later ohv engines using vastly higher octane fuel, ignoring his facts.   

  O'Toole's remark about Cadillacs avoided like the plague in many well off realms is true.   Much of my boyhood in Myers Park section of Charlotte, NC,  and the successful souls in our neighborhood, if they felt a need to put on the dog,  did so with an Olds,  tho' a local judge was happy with his '55 Roadmaster convertible, top never down.  A friend's father was president of Harris-Teeter supermarket chain in the days before CEOs received 500-1,000 times as much as their employees, and he was happy with a well-tended late model Pontiac Catalina--- not even a Bonneville.  My father drove Chryslers, and a '50s New Yorker was a better road car than a Cadillac-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack (thank you, Billy Joel, Moving Out, which further sums the view of Cadillac to many folk),  faster steering, better shocks and brakes, superior engine, if only other than their hemi head added to the '49 Cad engine design.

   The strong showing of the smaller displacement Chryslers against the Stutzes and Bentleys at LeMans O'Toole cites says much.   Maurice Hendry,  with an engineering background as well as being an automotive historian, writer,  remarked that most dohc 420-ci Duesenberg Model Js in road trim were good for 105 mph,  only 10 mph faster than a well-tuned 385-ci Chrysler Imperial.  The Model J gave you, for the price of five arguably better looking Imperials,  only twin cams and a cuckoo clock that flashed lights at intervals telling you to check oil, battery, and that the proprietary Bijur automatic chassis oiling system was working.  As for the J's enameled and polished aluminum engine components,  look at an original or faithfully restored top-line Massey Ferguson tractor of the era, when manufacturers often went all out to entice what money remained.

   The dohc Model J was obsolete shortly after being introduced, and it took 8 years and several iterations to dispatch but 480 of them,  strictly to look at me types.

Fred Duesenberg wanted to build something the size of his earlier Model A and X,  but E. L. Cord insisted on an ultimate car,  which is why the J advertised 265 hp since an extremely limited production Mercedes SSK advertised 250 hp, itself inflated a bit.  For such ridiculous price, the J  should've been impressive.   Much more of interest to most of us are fine cars that fiscal mortals might own.

  Later, in high school in Westchester County, just up the lazy river from Manhattan, we rarely saw Cadillacs.  Anyone in Dobbs Ferry or Hastings-on-the-Hudson bombing around in such would've been laughed at no end, and these were bedroom communities for Mad Men, Wall Streeters, tenured NYU and Columbia profs, theater and TV folk among others.   Now Bronxville and Scarsdale,  that might've been another story,  but we never ventured there and even our cross country team never ran against them.

    Meanwhile, a refined L-head engine making smooth power through an overdrive was not a bad way to go in the day.  Nor a couple times a year if you can find a break in the traffic in our overpopulated present.    A years-belated thanks for this novel, refreshing thread.

  

[keithb7]

See this video I made  here. At about the 4:25 mark I start taking about the combustion chamber design and the Ricardo improvements:

 

 

[58L-Y8]

I find it useful to think of engine design divided into the flathead, under-square, small bore/long stroke, high torque at low rpm, low compression/low octane era that transitioned in the 1945-'55 years to OHV, over-square, large bore/short stroke, high torque at high rpm, high compression/high octane era.    Each was a result of the realities of fuel development, manufacturing and material capabilities, the intended and expected demands of a vehicle to suitably fulfill its intended job.   Before higher speeds became a greater consideration, smoothness, durability, quiet operation from the force of torque doing the job were paramount.   Appreciating an engine type for what it was designed to do in the context of its time is what AACA preservation is at its core.

 

If you have a car from the pre-high compression era that can demonstrate its low rpm/high torque capabilities to younger people who have never experienced it, give them an opportunity to experience it directly.  It might change some attitudes to understand these cars were and are quite capable without modifications.    

[Ed Luddy]

On 8/23/2011 at 11:51 PM, Bleach said:

Dodge and Plymouth offered a flathead 6 until 1959 and Rambler/AMC until 1965.

I remember opening the hood on a 63 Rambler and there was a flathead 6. I thought it was a backyard cheapo swap at 1st.

[trini]

Recently I saw a 1917 Buick McLaughlin with an OHV. engine  Under the bonnet was an oilcan. Every day before stating the driver had to oil the valve train. Same with the Chevrolet.

In sometime 1980 Oldsmobile developed a diesel engine with 20:1 ratio . Talk about trouble.

[PFitz]

Franklins were OHV, right from start in 1902 through to end of production in 1934.  

 

Paul

[Pfeil]

23 hours ago, trini said:

Recently I saw a 1917 Buick McLaughlin with an OHV. engine  Under the bonnet was an oilcan. Every day before stating the driver had to oil the valve train. Same with the Chevrolet.

In sometime 1980 Oldsmobile developed a diesel engine with 20:1 ratio . Talk about trouble.

 

The Oldsmobile LF9 350" Engine was developed in the early -mid 70's released in 1978 with 22.5 to 1 compression

[Frank DuVal]

And in 1981 it became the DX block with many improvements, including steel crank. That steel crank with the 3" main journals (as used on big block Olds) made the bottom end about indestructible. Unlike the 78 to 80 cast iron cranks that cracked.....😉

 

Oldsmobile sold more than 1 million of these diesel engines.😯

 

BTW, IIRC, the minimum compression reading when testing compression on these was 275 psi! Not the normal gauge.....😁

Edited December 31, 2019 by Frank DuVal (see edit history)