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The Last GM Big-Block V-8 Rolls Off the Line
DesScorp writes "It's the end of an era in auto technology, as the very last big block V-8 engine from GM has rolled off the production line. The L18 engine was the last variant of an engine that had been in continuous production for over 50 years. The big blocks powered everything from the classic muscle cars of the '60s and '70s to heavy-duty trucks today. From the Buffalo News: 'When GM said last June the L18 would be eliminated by year's end, the announcement triggered another show of devotion to the product. Some customers ordered two years' worth of L18s, to put on the shelf for future use.' More than 5 million big blocks have been produced over the engine's history. The final big block engine to come off the line in Tonawanda, NY is headed for the GM Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, MI."
Screw V-6's. Inline 6's have more power and better reliability. Inline engines always do.
Shoehorn anyone? Inline V-8(or God forbid I-10 or 12) tends to be a bit of a reach for real estate under the hood.
Regardless of "better" designs, we're witnessing an end of an era here, considering this format has survived for 50 out of the last 100 years of the automobile. A sad day indeed.
You want an IT analogy? Fine. Sometimes it's about the finesse and raw power coming from a 1000W system with dual graphics cards and 15K RPM drives, and not always about "green" designs or overall reliability. Sometimes you want your machine to haul ass and look good no matter the cost.
"It sounds like this is the result of innovation?"
More like the rise in fuel costs coupled with the recession.
The big block Chevrolet is a simple, tough engine that produces excellent torque, is durable, very easy to work on and inexpensive to repair. Aftermarket support is excellent and one can build complete engines without using a single GM part.
The powerplant of choice that replaced big block gas engines is the diesel, which is vastly more complex, brutally expensive to repair, difficult to work on even for well-equipped shops, and burdened with complex emission systems. Diesel fuel quality is always a concern, especially with low-sulfur diesel. They make great power, but you pay dearly for it.
I'll be hunting more of them for spares (I just rebuilt a 366 for my C30 wrecker). Like the small block Chevrolet, these adaptable engines will be working for many decades to come.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"Now they can finally join the 80's and work on getting rid of leaf springs next."
Leaves are versatile, easily stacked to suit intended use, and tough.
If you want an F1 car by all means buy one, but leaf springs work very well on trucks and other applications where coil spring towers would be awkward (and coils risk coil bind when overloaded).
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Er, inline V8? I do not think that means what you think it means...
While diesels do have their own problems, I've never seen a big block with over a million miles on it.
Sent from my PDP-11
I'm old enough to appreciate the value of a piece of tech that has served so well for so long. Likewise, I have a soft spot for the land-line and the command line. But there are pleasurable vices that we simply can't afford to cling to, and the big petrol-burning engine is one of them.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
So obsolete that people went on a buying frenzy when they announced they were stopping production, because there was such a demand for them...
Consumers kept buying them.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
That happens with anything nowadays that they discontinue, or people THINK will be discontinued. See, there's this idea that's been driven into people's heads over the past 20 years or so that getting your hands on anything that's scarce will be an easy road to riches. The old "money for nothing" ploy.
If it's even remotely rare, some greedy, bottom feeding, unethical scumbag will buy the last of them, then put them back on sale at an inflated price, demanding huge profits while adding zero value.
It's all part of today's get-rich-quick society. Nobody wants to work anymore, they want a scheme that extracts money from others and puts it into their pockets with no effort at all. The housing bubble was a result of this and also reinforced this notion.
Really, because I don't see many soccer mom's with 8100's, more like farmers, construction crews, and race car drivers with towing loads of 7,000+ pounds. Oh and commercial trucks for intracity delivery and tow trucks.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The reason GM needed to get bailed out by the government is because they ignored the evidence of every other country on earth and presumed US gas prices would always stay the same. If they'd produced the last of these ten years ago and started making cars which actually have something remotely resembling fuel efficiency, good design, or low carbon emissions, then American cars might not be a global joke, the government might be a couple of billion dollars less in debt, and a whole lot of Americans who used to work in the auto industry would still have their jobs.
It took near bankruptcy to finally get GM to acknowledge that they had to actually innovate(or at least copy everyone else) rather than continuing with a technology which is 50 years old.
But a V8 turbo can sure as hell kick a straight six turbo in the ass. If your after HP and torque, the ol adage still holds true. There is no replacement for displacement.
Life is not for the lazy.
Newsflash: people who race cars on public roads are brainless tards and I pray that they die roasting in fiery crashes. Crashes with large inanimate objects, of course.
much like a line can't be straight and curved at the same time.
The Equator is both straight and curved.
Get your own free personal location tracker
This is a big sign of the end of the era of user-maintainable cars.
Almost as sad as when the last VW Beetle rolled off the line in 2003 (after more than 60 years).
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
If a diesel makes it to 500k it will have saved you so much in fuel costs compared to gasoline that you can afford to throw it away and still make a massive profit.
Plus I'm not so sure the difference "complexity" is anything like you claim. Modern diesels are computer controlled so they're a lot cleaner then the old ones and don't need anywhere near as much extra hardware to meet smog standards.
Diesels are perfect for American SUVs. American drivers are conditioned to expect grunt at low revs, which gasoline engines are terrible at delivering (you need a big thirsty V8 to do it). Diesel engines are much more suited to American expectations so you can have a smaller engine ans get double the savings in economy.
If you start extracting diesel from Algae then it will be much cleaner and more consistent than petroleum-diesel and you can probably get rid of all the emissions-control junk which is needed for diesel engines today.
No sig today...
Oh, right, because almost everybody likes to work on their own car.
fm6 does not like to work on his own car; therefore, powerful, easily-serviceable engines should not exist. You can't argue with logic like that.