After many nights of staying up past my curfew silently picking out parts, and a long month of it just sitting I finally finished my car engine!
(Did you like that clickbaity headline? I picked the ability up from reading the front page)
Anyway, back to the point. As I am 15, and live in a state where I can not drive yet, sooo my technic car is pretty much the closest thing I have to a real car. And this car is a lot of firsts for me: first technic, first big Lego that I built along, first big Lego that actually worked properly, and the first big project I built without an instruction book.
This technic car is also motorized, and allows me to basically manipulate the spoiler, both doors, and the hood through a clever system that I think is similar to a dog-clutch transmission, in the middle disguised as the shifter. However, it doesn't actually drive the car, and the steering is controlled by a tiny black gear in the back.
I built this thing in a day during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, when we had no power for a week. Only way I would've gotten this done.
I also happen to have this fascination with horizontally opposed engines. You see where this is going? That and I thought my car was a little to American/Japanese with the muscle car front, and LFA back. Needed a bit more German.
[LFA rear, with the battery pack]
So instead of letting my car just sit around and collecting dust on my shelf, much like a garage queen (except its more like a shelf queen), decided to build transform the boring V8, to a H8 engine.
[shown above, boring V6 style engine with stupid blower on it... Representing old V8]
[Shown above: super kickass new... Um... 180* V8]
Of course, you super-experts out there would realize this is actually a 180* V8. Yeah I just figured that out recently, and I'm disappointed BUT there is no way in hell I'm ripping the engine out again to do it properly, considering the engine is connected directly to the shocks (you can see that below). Not only that but I doubt just don't have the parts to do the camshaft properly, or the space to connect the Pistons of the camshaft together without a ridiculous offset. (But one day...)
It was not easy considering everything. Primarily the lack of parts. The gears used to connect it the back wheels? Taken from an airliner.
The L pieces used to actually hold the engine together? Those came from my motorized AT-AT. Which can no longer stand. (Not that it matters, it never walked right as I built it when I was 12, and it was 16+ I think, and it's been falling apart for a while)
Literally, this engine put a massive drain on my Lego supplies of those O type strip things. And part of the reason it took so damn long to make was because I had to work with such a limited amount of parts. So some of the parts don't color match. That and I wanted to see if I could install a turbocharger or turbocharger, a cam system, a carburetor system, and/or velocity stacks. None of which I did because I thought it either took away from camshaft, the Lego non-realism, or made the bay look cluttered.
Anyway, even after I had built and installed the engine for the final time (I had to reinstall it about 3-5 times) this is where everything went to really went to hell. Because I had to connect the camshaft to the rear wheel assembly, without moving it. Pain. In. The. Ass.
Basically I ripped the dash out, and tried all my loose gears to get it to spin freely. Even now if the bottom gear isn't perfectly balanced it's all finky and locks up. Which I think I know how to fix, but I don't have the parts, will get in the way of the others, and I won't have the space to secure it to make sure it doesn't move. So no.
[The gears in question are the top 2 in picture; the bottom one connects to a dark grey gear of the same shape which spins freely, but doesn't show up in the picture; The actual drive gear is inbetween, shown below]
While I had the dash out I made it right hand drive. Not because I'm British, but because I could. And I needed a break from the insanity of the gears. I like it, the position is closer to the gearshift.
[not to mention a "classy" new gear shift handle]
Now if you were looking at the dash and you have this set you'll realise it's been modified. Which it has. While I was doing the gears the pesky dash got in the way. So I basically rebuilt it, with the middle part upside down and the dash one O closer to center. That and the thing it's mounted on is completely different, and you can see them on the picture above of the gear system with the removed gear.
But here's a picture of the dash.
As you can tell I did a little mod to the middle. I figured the middle looked a bit like a vent, and the right looked like a ignition switch. The green thing... Yeah I figured it looked like a start light... Or something...
Overall I'm a tad disappointed because the engine technically isn't a flat-8. And the front support blocks the view of the first piston and half of the second. And some of the parts aren't color matched. And the gear system is still finky. But besides those minor grievences, I'm extremely happy with how it came out considering my lack of expirence. Not to mention all of the stickers on it say V8... Which is technically correct... Except... Damn...
[You can see that it's connected directly to the shocks here]
For the future, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do. I would like to make it an actual H8, or upgrade it to a H10/180* H10. On top of that, because the engine is higher, I think I might be able to squeeze another electric engine to drive the actual car... However, I would need to make a switch between the engine and the battery pack ALL THE WAY in the back. I'd also like to permanently fix the gear system, and get rid of, or find a use for the rear L-pieces of the engine, which... Really don't serve a purpose.
The most immediate upgrade I would like to make is a supercharger or (possibly two) turbochargers.
Probably a supercharger, because I took some bands from my X-wing, and I could make a belt system mounted from one of the L-pieces... Sorry, I'm rambling. I'll just finish before I start writing things that only make sense to me...
[How to the pictures look on PC guys? Im writing this from my iPhone]