Darracq V8 engine - first attempt to start the engine in 97 years

The Darracq V8 world land speed engine has been rebuilt, and the first attempt to fire it up took place in Worcestershire on Saturday 11th March 2006. We did not quite achieve it.
Lortim Consultants

[@elonmust7470]

The cylinders have a meeting before deciding to run. Then they have another meeting on which one of them will start firing first, & second, & so on.

[@douro20]

This engine makes its peak horsepower at 1200 rpm. It displaces over 25 litres.

[@benters3509]

Runs nicely on one!

[@Hopeless_and_Forlorn]

At some point, a mechanic would stop grinding on the starter, pull the plugs, recheck valve and ignition timing, inspect everything again, and have a discussion with other knowledgeable people before trying again. As usual, we see a beautiful engine being abused with no mechanic in sight.

[@oigeeeni]

+Hopelessand Forlorn spot on!!

[@MrWayneJohn1]

You obviously have never rebuilt an engine in your lifetime, especially one of this age where there is likely no repair manual nor spare parts readily available. A bit more than a 2 minute attempt to start is no where near abuse. Perhaps some education might change your opinion. Try it sometime.

[@Hopeless_and_Forlorn]

Education? I earned my A&P mechanic's license in 1965, years after I repaired a 29 Model A engine and rebuilt a 1951 Chevy six. The years between 1964 and 2009 were spent learning and teaching aviation technical subjects, including the R-1830 and R-2800 radials for starters, if antique engines are of interest. I don't like what I saw in that video, education or no.

[@MrWayneJohn1]

2 issues with your original comment that strike me as uneducated: 1) "...stop grinding on the starter..." There is no starter. There is a belt running from a tractor pto pulley to the flywheel of the engine. These engines were hand-crank to start when designed 100 years ago. No one but Hercules would try hand-cranking this motor after a fresh rebuild. 2) "...no mechanic in sight." Whom do you suppose the man is who is leaning over the engine making fine adjustments? You did see the same video the rest of us observed, yes?

[@Hopeless_and_Forlorn]

It does not matter what is turning the engine over. If it does not star immediately, something is not right. If something is not right, continuing to turn it may, or may not, cause damage with every rotation. A MECHANIC will act accordingly, as did nobody in the video. BTW, the last engine I rebuilt completely, a 1300 VW, started on the first turn of the key, as I expected it to do.

[@whalesong999]

Glad to read you eventually got it running. On this video, sounded like a bit too much throttle opening - it was hitting so hard when it did take off, no criticism, just observation.

[@boblolo3977]

Hasn't started, wasn't starting a century ago. Time to give up.

[@Jazzybreaks]

instead of a timing belt does this thing have a metronome?

[@koitorob]

Is that a comment on how much shorter people were back in the day?

[@dominik7014]

True engine

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Wow. Before all that ya should've just waited 3 more years to make it an even *century*!

[@TheAndreas1969]

Der kann nie laufen, da er nur auf zwei Zylinder Kompression hat!!!

[@harpomarx7777]

There's another engine running in the background .. so you can't really hear THIS engine. FAIL

[@bonkeydollocks1879]

You need to crank it faster

[@MarkiusFox]

I know I would not want to see it runaway.

[@rexluminus9867]

Markius Fox. I would on the open field with no one on it.

[@bikejunk1]

to all the armchair tuners how is your 100 year old V8 running? hu hu no ansers. I get this all the time with my antique motorcycles too you try it see if you can even get it to cough!

[@warmfreeze]

@ 1:27 for imperial death march..

[@VehicularBrit]

+warmfreeze Thank you.

[@brianshoubert7803]

)))

[@penclaw]

so that was inspiration for the SW soundtrack

[@RockeyDAproductions]

WOW

[@therobloxcrew3552]

Lol how did u find that it sounds just like it

[@homefront3162]

They Should have adjusted the mapping on the fuel injection computer, lol

[@choppergirl]

Hey don't slam this car. When you get to be about 97, and you try to knocking the boots with your old lady in bed, that's about how good your engine is going to be firing on one cylinder...

[@DanielTseng100]

OMFG 🤣🤣🤣🤣💀

[@Hurileno]

well its 100 years now :/

[@KindaLeon]

Waiting for 200.

[@mats_vlogs6943]

@Flake I just had to do it

[@butre.]

timing is way wrong, easy fix

[@Shitbird3249]

Wow thx

[@johnharrison2466]

They can't make today's piece of shit engines last 97 days gotta love antique tech they made em to last

[@limabravo6065]

Yeah, 97 years from now this could still be running, but a 2007 Chevy cobalt can’t crack 200k mi

[@Rocketninja200]

COOOL I love these old engines! I like looking at the exposed push rods and rockers. Thanks for staring.

[@jamesbradley1695]

It would have been interesting to see what you are using to turn over the engine!

[@JW0149]

farm tractor with belt on power takeoff, no health and safety here I'm afraid. That was 2005/6. Now that carbs sorted, it can be started by hand using crank handle. The problem in the video is that the magneto kept slipping, taken off a pre-WW1 plane and running the reverse rotation too.

[@jamesbradley1695]

JW0149 Ok, Thanks. Interesting video, anyway.

[@tanis143]

+JW0149 I was going to say that the timing sounded way off and was firing at the end of the 4th stroke instead of at the end of the 2nd.

[@justforever96]

+tanis143 What are you talking about? "Firing at the end of the 4th stroke"? If it doesn't fire on the second stroke, then at the end of the forth stroke, the unburnt fuel-air mixture has just been expelled out into the exhaust manifold and the spark would be hitting on an empty cylinder. How does that work?

[@tanis143]

You know, looking back at it, I'm not sure what I meant lol. I think I meant it was firing during the 4th stroke instead of at the end of the 2nd stroke/start of the 3rd stroke and my brain was thinking ahead of my typing.

[@cakelesscoder9562]

expected willy wonka to come in at some point, that timing don't sound happy!

[@charlescrisp2814]

Mark Walker is a great friend of mine.I am so glad he has put this awesome machine back on the road

[@mschnur]

That engine looks just huge! I love unusual antique veteran car engines

[@kev8943]

its 25 L's of course it's gonna be huge

[@JW0149]

you can see lots of the Darracq now in full flight at VSCC meetings in the new hands of Mark Walker, setting Edwardian records all over the place. I have hours *and hours* of unseen footage and I was indeed wondering whether I would post a set of 10 x 10 mns videos to fill the gap. Maybe this autumn .....

[@thatguy_jose]

Sounds Like Timing needs adjusted. Engine won't start until timing is right

[@andrewgillis8572]

Thanks. You will be interested to know that GM had not solved this slippage problem as of 1962 - and Ralph Nader missed the fact. Although my 1962 Corvair does have tail lights which won Le Mans outright in1967, in theGT40 mk IV; and a miniature automatic transmission which won Brands Hatch and Nurburgring, for Jim Hall - it also has a distributor clamp which will leave you stalled from 70 mph and coasting for the side of the road. Today I understand GM has again produced vehicles which will propel you toward other objects and then turn themselves off. Unlike the Corvair, the control of these vehicles goes dead-stick

[@benvolio1987]

pretty sure that engine isn't 97 years old...

[@jacariw15]

Listen to that camshaft lope LOL jk sounds like you got some timing work to figure out goodluck and at least it sounds like 2-3 cylinders are working and the rest only work when the chain reaches a certain degree easy fix on an old engine keep your head up

[@JW0149]

No chains on this motor, all gear drives to cams and magneto, but it was a challenge to get started read all about it www.villiers.info/Darracq/

[@sigmaprojects]

+JW0149 oo gear driven, like F1 cars XD

[@ostlandr]

My old '74 Pontiac with the 400 engine started like that on really cold mornings. Once it was turning over, the rest of them would follow.

[@yahatinda]

Beautiful piece machinery. I think Id be lubing it with Mobil ONE 20/50 air cooled Twin motorcycle oil.... its got terrific film strentgh.

[@nichevl]

Hope they put oil in each chamber first & cycled it a few times before trying to fire it, didnt sound like it had good oil pressure, cringed at the grating sounds !

[@JW0149]

oil pressure? In 1905????? You have to be joking. The conrod ends dip into the wet sump and splash whatever is nearby. I did fit an oil pump for the start up but it only amounted to dripping oil into the top of the engine. The new owner uses the original system - splash. Stickler for accuracy. I did squirt in some hot R40 before we started it the first time. Oil level is critical and that is why there is so much smoke on some videos. So, you are right, there is no oil pressure.

[@prairiewanderer5040]

+JW0149 Oil level is critical indeed. When the oil level is correct, the dipper makes a fog of oil in the crankcase. When the level is too high the oil droplets, and not a fog is the result and won't properly lube the internals. Very interesting project!

[@nichevl]

Sure, what I was getting at though is, given the engine had not been run for a long time there would be negligible oil film at all remaining where its most critical ie The ring to bore interface. So along with making sure there is plenty of clean fresh oil in their (ie remove decomposed/agglomerated oil & flush), its a good idea as a pre-emptive step to avoid heaps of friction scrape by removing spark plugs, pour in at least a teaspoon of low viscosity clean oil directly into each cylinder and slowly crank engine over manually a few times to distribute the oil around the piston to ring to bore etc and also let it sit for several minutes for capillary action to do its thing. These days you can get a cheap camera/ph/laptop endoscope & see its well distributed, maybe spray in some mist as well if you have an oil atomiser. Then re-insert spark plugs and fire up the engine. This will dramatically reduce metal to metal contact on an engine that has been left idle for a while. I've read that even as little as a month and its worth doing especially if you value long life of your engine...

[@JW0149]

+nichevl The engine had been rebuilt from scratch including a crank rebuild with race oil added at every stage, and a good amount of oil in the sump, too much in fat since it smoked very heavily. In later runs we reduced the oil level considerably. The right hand bank of cylinders smoke more than the left, and did even back in 1906. The Darracq uses even less oil now that it is being raced in the VSCC, the new owner understands Edwardian cars much better than I, hence he uses the original carbs whereas I used large SU's just to reduce unknowns, of which there were a lot. My biggest trouble was a slipping magneto in the early tests.

[@johnhull6363]

distributor is 180 out

[@michaelluciano7774]

Dang, wouldn't want to be stalled out during rush hour traffic

[@donrosscojoe5014]

That one cylinder in the left bank was the only one willing to do any work, I know how it feels, when I'm at workyou can bet it will be me busting my ass while everyone else is walking around playing with their balls😧

[@brandonhowarth2402]

running a v6 or v8 engine on a bike motorbike or running a lawn mower engine on a motorbike has that been on top gear. ruuning a lawn mower engine on a plane or spacecraft or a cartoon version of a flying whipper snipper. or a flying submarine that flys like a helicopter underwater lawn mowers and lawn mowers that cut grass in space- well in possible future- my funny jokes of the day

[@Derek-b8q]

It didn't run worth crap.

[@Chickenassable]

Each compression was shaking the body that's insane

[@Yahgiggle]

shity shity bang bang

[@thinkformyself69]

Timing off a bit…..maybe.I would like to hear it run.

[@andrewgillis8572]

i do hate to say this but there must be too much advance in this ignition timing - and there has to be timing adjustment, no matter how early the car

[@JW0149]

The magneto was continually slipping on its taper as the shaft was not in great shape. What you hear is the result. Got it fixed eventually. The car is now seen at some VSCC meetings, and is usually driven to the meeting on public roads as it is road legal.

[@MC-gp9ke]

JW0149 thats amazing news ,good work..those magnetos on any type engine are usally an issue.. thanks for the upload and bring the ole girl back to life.. thank you from canada.

[@tomview1]

JW0149 Awesome - just awesome.

[@sparkyy0007]

Fuel injectors 3,4 and 7 seem plugged and the crank shaft hall position sensor ground lug likely corroded causing the misfiring. After 97 years, the computers eeprom factory calibration values for the map servo loop would be gone, check the engine light just to be sure guys.

[@kewra7962]

do i smell popcorn?

[@joachimdartson7313]

Why do foreigners always comment in their own dialect. Most don't have a clue what folks are saying 😂.

[@pacocruzmolina4977]

No estoy seguro si entiendo bien, que lo están intentando arrancar 97 años después de la última vez. Si es así, Chapó

[@gregoryholliday3806]

The starter motor fitted to this car is better than a modern one.!!!! 15 years as a RAC man i have heard this *im not going to start noise* several thousand times...

[@Mechknight73]

Would have been nice to hear it running properly, but the rhythm it was beating out could have been a drum solo lol

[@twcaldwell1951]

even though the belt is turning the engine, it is preventing the engine from reving up after it fires.

[@rexluminus9867]

twcaldwell1951. Yes . the belt is not fast enough . Brake fluid is too thick.

[@shootingsportstransparency7461]

Sound like they still be used in American cars

[@bigrigJim]

There is no point in trying to continue turning it over. If it doesn't fire right away something is off , why continue cranking it ?

[@ramairgto72]

That seating lol.... I would take it on I95 in rush hour!

[@rexluminus9867]

ramairgto72. Those " seats" are like mini benches. No support.Great for off roading. Hehehe !

[@milojanis4901]

Not for very far, or "Florida Man" will getcha!!

[@Jukebocks]

Huh they didn't even show it starting u- oooh boy right that engine in the background certainly isn't the Darracq

[@wstew1947]

Guess it doesn't like this crappy unleaded ethanol gas we use nowadays....

[@brandonhowarth2402]

do you know what would be cool running an old engine in a new car but what's even funnier is running a Holden commodore 2015 v8 engine on a carriage or car i never heard it on top gear but running a lawn mower engine on car sounds funny to me.

[@djaydeved]

have you ever heard of a pickup truck with a predator 212? bc those do exist

[@enhancesoutheast5964]

Eight years later... Is it running? Sounds like the timing is a bit advanced..

[@pacocruzmolina4977]

Todo el mundo empieza por algún sitio y estoy seguro que esos motores mejorarían con el estudio. Enhorabuena por el video.

[@teckeleddie]

Wow. That car is almost 80 percent engine. Now that engine has got some beat on starting.

[@billab0ng83]

were does the petrol tank sit? what type of fuel does this chew? interesting vid.

[@carlthornton8706]

Great!... 176 🐄🦉🏴‍☠✝

[@nitetrane98]

I gave a 7. It had a good beat and was easy to dance to.

[@tharii314]

Flat plane, right?

[@JW0149]

Yes, and too heavy for one person to lift. Took two and we struggled.

[@1258-Eckhart]

That'd make me late for work.

[@joachimdartson7313]

Save the sparkplugs and use Ether. Common mistake.

[@chesterfinecat7588]

Forget to install the deframulater. Obviously.

[@DaBoogie049]

Thumbs up, it did run!😜

[@hoost3056]

How often did the exposed valvegear have to be lubricated?

[@3melendr]

Nice vid JW0149! Bet she sounds wicked when running!

[@kenney5454]

Close but No Wee-Oh!

[@zorpit]

Timing is way out.

[@oigeeeni]

+None lol , yeah you would think he coulda figured that out by the 3rd pop?

[@piratecrane54]

la voiture faut poubelle cause trop vieux lol

[@centaurus777]

Well I can see why they gave up 97 years ago.....

[@rexluminus9867]

centaurus777. OOOHHH ! That is a deep comment but love it. Hahaha ! * 97 years !

[@ericeaklor1300]

Did it ever start

[@j-es4868]

That thng sounds like it runs on gunpowder. :D

[@joachimdartson7313]

POS.

[@mikecorleone6797]

Sounds like the compression is low in cylinder 3

[@sparkimoto]

I think I have an idea for a new drum beat!

[@glennsinner2618]

It need more fuel to start. Now it needs a starter.

[@gardnersmith3580]

Good enough for the FAA. Take 'er up.

[@vroum68]

COME ON, GRAN' MA.....WAKE UP !!!!!

[@PiotrTester]

real flames:-)

[@Commodore-dr6oj]

might need new spark plugs

[@christian82339]

puro chisss pass pafff

[@arynschroeder4059]

DID YOU GUYS EVER GET IT TO START AND RUN ON IT'S OWN? I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A VIDEO OF IT RUNNING ON IT'S OWN.

[@JW0149]

search "Walker Darracq" to see much footage of car in action with VSCC

[@usbserverchile]

Genial! Saludos desde viña del mar Chile

[@bonytarnes8535]

sounds like ignition timing is too far advanced? cool vid though and cool car!

[@hazysativa3045]

Sounds like Lars Ulrich trying to play drums

[@Journeyman-Fixit]

Some serious hardware going on!

[@TheSchmed]

Jay Leno did not give an offer ?

[@zjuan1921]

Ajusta ese motor !!

[@tyrssen1]

So close! Thoroughly enjoyable.

[@rexluminus9867]

Seth Tyrssen. That's what she said .hahaha ! *

[@detectivefroggy5965]

looks like a good family vehicle

[@elisicamost5959]

ever heard of ear protection?

[@Edenssunlight]

Fail.....

[@davepeterson271]

500th like you deserved it

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

+Dave Peterson Huhh?

[@davepeterson271]

+MaxxFordham I like the video and I was the 500th comment this video deserved that like because I like the video. Jesus christ

[@ferriotjosette1908]

IMPRESIONANT J ADORRE

[@Monz-jy9hl]

its TFD..hahahah😜😜😜

[@milojanis4901]

Damn-WHATTA CAM!!!

[@brandonhowarth2402]

a boat with a lawn mower engine in it

[@brandonhowarth2402]

i was using my laptop the other night and i didn't have enough time to sign out for the day i was thinking all night about if i didn't sign out i couldn't sign back in due to blackout power strike where we are in town i turn my laptop on use internet on 30% battery power it said 30 mins remaining turned of in 10 mins then it should shouldn't. not sure i always worry that if i don't access KZbin or this site within 1 week or 2 weeks they mite thinks its inactive and mite think im not using it anymore. but i am if your wondering. can be any reason laptop out of charge it had its day mean computers don't last weather. if you wondering why? i didn't sign out for the day because i was short of time.

[@Flies2FLL]

And that means what?

[@martynmcflay2701]

Ooo!! :-P