Porsche 753 engine

Background

This allowed Porsche to use their F2 cars almost unchanged in F1. A second car with the same engine placed 10th and 11th in the Dutch Grand Prix, but lack of power and poor handling led Ferry Porsche to retire the model. Porsche then focused on building a new competitive car with an eight-cylinder engine.

Engine history

Hans Hönick and Hans Mezger designed the engine, Porsche's first flat-eight.

Features

The magnesium crankcase is cast in two halves split vertically along the crankshaft centre-line, carrying a one-piece crankshaft in nine main bearings. Eight aluminum cylinder barrels have bores treated with a spray-on molybdenum/steel coating called Ferral. Each finned cylinder has its own aluminum head, held to the crankcase by four studs per cylinder; a single-piece aluminum valve-gear cover stabilizes the four cylinders on each side. Cams are driven by shafts, not gears or chains, with separate cam lobes keyed onto the shaft.

A short vertical shaft from the right-hand inlet camshaft drives the axial cooling fan at 0.92x crankshaft speed. A dry sump system with a separate oil tank is used, along with Bosch dual ignition (four coils, two distributors) firing two spark plugs per cylinder. Four 38 mm Weber double downdraft carburetors deliver the air-fuel mixture.