When Jaguar's engineers were plotting a new engine for the up-and-coming MkVII saloon in the late Forties, they agreed that a conventional push-rod, overhead-valve engine would do the trick. To make this task less irksome, Jaguar styled its twin-cam XK engine to delight the eye. Yet, every day, the oil and coolant needed to be checked and topped up if necessary, and a beady eye cast over rubber seals designed to keep oil and coolant flowing in their proper channels and to check for leaks. It was fundamentally reliable, deep-down powerful and made a glorious noise. Now this engine was a magnificent device, the same in fact that had powered Jaguar to victory several times at Le Mans in the 50s.
#Raging thunder 2 layout secret roads manual
The 'maintenance' section of the driver's manual of my old 1962 3.8-litre Mk2 Jaguar opened with the word 'daily'. This 'because-you-have-to-see-it, we'll-make-sure-it's-worth-seeing' attitude to the design of engines lasted until they be could be all but ignored. It had to be easy to get at and, because it was so much on show, it was very often a thing of substantial and gleaming copper, brass and shining steel. Without constant attention, the engine of even a Rolls-Royce might shudder to some untimely halt. Not only were early motorists proud of them, but they needed to be groomed and cosseted as much as a prized hunter. And yet, engines were once something to show and see. Save for unrepentant petrol-heads, such celebration must seem arcane in an age when not only does it seem somehow morally wrong to sing the virtues of power generated by internal-combustion, but when it's a fact that most mass-production car engines can now be left to their own devices - unseen and as far as possible unheard - for up to 12,000 miles, or a year's motoring. It sounds good when you say it, and when you hear one - that great woolla-woolla-woolla rumble - you don't have to look to know that a Big Yank is heading your way. The V8 is the legendary arrangement of nearly all great US engines. We're not talking vegetable juice, but the juice or gas (petrol) that pumps through this Chevrolet's 'fuelie heads' and so into each of its eight mighty cylinders.
We also know, because this is the way a transatlantic 396 is, that this is a V8. This is the 'three-ninety-six' or 396 cubic inches, for which read BIG. We knows its size, or cubic capacity (the swept volume of its cylinders). Springsteen's song leaps out of the speakers with a tautly accurate description of a big, powerful General Motors engine.
0 kommentar(er)
