By Douglas Flint @ Car ConnectionDotCom
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I was looking at a copy of Ward's Auto World, probably the best and
most respected auto industry trade publication. They were doing their
usual yearly Top Ten Engines pick. Although there were some good and
unexpected picks (the Ford 4.6-liter SOHC V-8 was in the top five),
they tend toward sophisticated European engines and high-end Japanese
engines, which is all good and fine for the high-end crowd but I live
on the ground floor, as do most of my customers.

My top ten list will have the following requirements: a) the engine
must have been in use for a substantial number of years over the past
ten years and have been in mass use (hundreds of thousands of units in
service) and b) it has to have been used in a successful car or truck.

Since different engines have different uses I will not rate them from
top to bottom. In 1942 the North American Aircraft Company developed a
lovely airframe, but the plane was cursed with a dog of an Allison
engine. Since its performance was poor over ten thousand feet where
most air-to-air combat took place, it was pushed into service in the
ground attack roll where it performed mediocre at best. Then someone
had the idea of mating the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine from the vaunted
British Spitfire into the airframe. The result was the P-51 Mustang,
which exceeded all its contemporary aircraft in speed, climb, range,
maneuverability and, most of all, range, and within a year had swept
the Luftwaffe from the skies over Europe .

In 1984 Chrysler had a wonderful idea: a small van or minivan based on
their front-wheel-drive K-car platform. When they introduced it, it
caused quite a stir, but the engines used were the same four-cylinder
engines used to drive the car variant and could be described as barely
adequate in a car. In the van, especially if it was loaded with a
family, they were total dogs. Then in 1987 they installed a Mitsubishi
3.0-liter fuel-injected overhead-cam V-6. The minivan revolution was
on. With a smooth powerful engine sales soared, and even when Chrysler
installed a horridly defective transmission two years later they
couldn't kill the sales.

The minivan is now a staple of the American automotive diet, but
without the Mitsubishi V-6 it might not have been. The Mitsubishi V-6
served in various Chrysler products until phased out by less
sophisticated home-grown engines in the year 2000. Although the early
production run suffered from excessive smoking due to faulty valve
guide seals, it proved to be the engine that could. Although the
horsepower (145) is not spectacular by today's standards, all 173
pounds of torque seemed available all the time - and I have never found
myself wishing for more power in either my '89 Caravan or '91 Le Baron
Convertible. Which brings up another good point. The convertible which
Chrysler revived as a species in '82 came into its own in '87, also
with new sharp styling and a Mitsubishi V-6. Not bad for one little
V-6.

The Honda fours: four engines, two cars that set the standard for small
cars and midsize sedans. The Honda 2.2-liter four-cylinder used in the
Accord models from 1991 and up set the standard by which all
four-cylinder engines are measured: a simply designed single overhead
cam engine, but with four valves per cylinder and a balance shaft for
smoothness. It's hard to put my finger on, but having worked on and
driven hundreds of these cars, the Honda four is somehow superior to
its contemporary Toyota Camry four-cylinder engine (though both are
very good).

I have many customers with 200-, 300-, 450,000 miles on those Honda
engines and they don't just run. They run like they are new - smooth
and quiet. Later Honda introduced its VTEC four, slightly larger and
more powerful but along the same lines. They carried the Honda line to
2003 and were never second best. In small cars, the Honda Civic with
the 1.5 and 1.6 single overhead cam 16-valve engines not only saved
fuel but were quite peppy and as long-lived as their big brother
Accord's engines.

These cars with these engines - combined with Toyota's cars - drove
Detroit from the battlefield of bread-and-butter sedans and relegated
them to sell on low price because they couldn't compete.

American cars and trucks have always been about the smooth abundant
power provided by V-8 engines. In the late Eighties it would have been
easy for Ford Motor to sit pat on the engines they had. GM wasn't
building anything that wasn't based on late Fifties technology.
Chrysler was winding down its V-8 car business and hadn't been a
serious contender in the truck market for over a decade. I'm sure the
accountants fought it all the way, but somehow Ford produced the first
modern overhead cam V-8. The 4.6-liter single overhead cam V-8 was
introduced in 1991, not as an option, but as the standard engine in a
'91 Lincoln Town Car.

What a statement of confidence to put it as the only engine in their
flagship car! It was a winner: smoother and more powerful and more fuel
efficient than the old 5.0-liter pushrod V-8. No major recalls or
defects or teething problems. It was right from day one. And did
Lincoln begin to eat Cadillac's lunch! The next year the 4.6 became
standard in the Ford Crown Victoria and the Mercury Grand Marquis, two
very successful cars that became even more so. By the mid-Nineties,
Ford had the sole surviving rear-wheel-drive full-size cars wildly
popular amongst older (wealthier) buyers, and the only car really
suitable for police, limousine, and fleet use. Then the 4.6 and a
heftier cousin, the 5.4 Triton engine, moved into the Ford truck line,
giving them an advantage over the competition there too. The 4.6 is
still in service and probably will be for many years to come.

Ford gets credit for foresight - and for not playing it safe - and for
producing a modern V-8 every bit as trustworthy as the old V-8s.

The Eighties were a time of growth and renewal. America was back. The
mighty battleships were back in service, and America needed a good
little truck to go to work in. It was Toyota that built the best small
pickup truck and at its heart was the 2.4-liter 22R engine introduced
sometime in the Seventies (in the rear-wheel-drive Celica I think). The
base design was an eight-valve single overhead cam engine which
outwardly seemed rather nondescript. It utilized a chain system rather
than a belt to drive the cam (it was so far behind the times it was
ahead). But it just went and went and went and then went some more.

Most were sold with manual transmissions, which meant more of the power
actually got to the wheels and there was no complex auto trans to fail
at 200,000 miles, taking the vehicle out of service. Nope, just a
clutch every five years. Actual mileage was never a factor when buying
or selling a Toyota pickup. The truck's body was more likely to rust
out than the engine fail. It remained a carbureted vehicle right up to
1991 when electronic fuel injection became standard. (The carburetors
were remarkably trouble-free).

With electronic fuel injection it remained the base engine in Toyota
trucks right up through 2004. With horsepower at 100 to 110 and torque
at 130 to 140, it seems like an underachiever - but every bit of
horsepower and torque was available when you needed it, so it never
felt underpowered. A little noisy and crude with the timing chain
rattling for the first 30 seconds on a cold start and the mechanically
actuated valves ticking all the time, it has proven to be a little work
mule still in service years after its contemporaries (Ranger, S-10s,
Nissans, and Mazdas) have gone to their grave.

Well I'm out of space, and if we count the Honda fours as four, I'm
only up to seven in my Top Ten countdown. I guess this will have to be
continued because I have four engines left to go which will take me to
Eleven. I like that.

Doug Flint owns and operates Tune-Up Technology, a garage in
Alexandria, Va.
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Kinda intresting, huh?

Patrick
'93 Cobra