Big-mama-blackbird !

[Marius]

I was always a fan of the Caterham Blackbird and cheered them at 24 hours on the Nuerburgring but these already stunning machines seem to become tiny when you take a look at what german Peter Koester has build in his workshop: a selfmade bike-engine V8 with more than 350BHP at 9.800 in a 7, total engine weight just 104kg. Mario Illien helped him in some stages of the building-process so it must be somehow a serious piece of alloy. I just added the pictures onto my website www.mospeed.de, section NEWS. Can´t wait to see that thing on the track.

[John Richens]

What a Beast !!! The sound of the other V8 engine in his site is something special too...will this engine be for sale ? and what sort of gearbox does he use ?

My German is not gut I'm afraid blush.gif

 

Edited by - john richens on 12 Dec 2000 13:52:45

[Peter Carmichael]

Steady on!

 

He only claims 203KW, which is 270 bhp, not 350 bhp. It looks pretty peaky too. The VE is not so good (torque per litre) if it is having to rev that high to get the power. It is a typical revvy short stroker. Must sound like an absolute scream, but it isn't 350 bhp.

 

On Peter's website, he explains that the engine has a primary drive reduction which makes the torque figure 'at the flywheel' rather more useful and coming in at lower rpm.

 

He has two graphs with an x-axis scaling difference between them.

 

One shows 203kW (270 bhp) @ 9820 and 217 Nm @8000 rpm.

The other shows 203kW @ 7178 rpm and 297 Nm @5850 rpm.

 

Same engine, same power, but the reduction makes it easier to find a gearbox to suit. The original, ungeared figure is equivalent to 159 lbft which is poor for a 2 litre, but reflects the short stroke nature of the engine. My engine makes 167 lbft from 1.8 litres.

 

Magic engines don't exist. The laws of physics apply to us all.

 

[sorry to poop the party]

[Marius]

Ooops, Peter, you´re right, I think I messed something up here. To get to BHP or PS you to multiply the KW-figure by 1.36, I multiplied it by about 1.7, that´s the figure to get from mph to kmh. Sorry for that, but still impressive enough I think ´cause he buildt the damn whole engine by his own and did not use existing parts, including the main-block. And the weight isn´t still too bad....

John, the V8 sound you heard is in fact the one of the above mentioned engine. I don´t think he will sell these engines, as far as I know he build it for himself and ´cause he was bored some time ago.