They were subsequently upgraded in stages to 1500-hp (1,150 kW) each, for a designed speed of 41 knots (76 km/h (47 mph)). Data is a bit sparse on this category of Packard participation, but we know Packards competed on this track too. Harvey-Bailey's assessment seems to reflect the consensus: "At Squadron level there were times when there were fortuitous variations in reliability either way but when dealing with large numbers of engines at Group or Command level there was good consistency in results between British and Packard engines. Here was an incredibly complex piece of machinery, conceived before the clouds of World War II gathered and continuously refined in the pressure cooker of combat, that would go on to power some of the most unforgettable piston-driven warplanes ever designedthe Supermarine Spitfire and the P-51 Mustang among them. transformer lamination material but when I got the quote for laser cutting the But in 1922, the governing American Powerboat Association (APBA) decided to lower the engine displacement to only 625 cubic inches, which was about half that of the 1237 cubes of the Packard 1237 engine. 14. Every part on our car engines has to be interchangeable with the same part on any other engine, and hence all parts have to be made with extreme accuracy, far closer than you use. What a beast of an engine! A number of famous boats of that era used the powerplant including the Packard Chriscraft II and III boats and the Miss Packard, which competed in a number of unlimited races such as the 150-mile International Sweepstakes race. at 2400rpm, some source state 1,800 hp.but that was the emergency rating at 2800rpm according to Packard documents. Both propellers turned the same way, clockwise (right-handed), looking from aft. Bid for the chance to own a 1920s Packard V12 Marine Engine at auction with Bring a Trailer, the home of the best vintage and classic cars online. The Packard engine took charge early in 1904 at Daytona, a four-cylinder Packard engine powered a vehicle called the Gray Wolf and covered the five-mile course record of four minutes and 21.6 seconds. The Rambler Cross Country: Postmodern Masterpiece. The early engines required 91 octane gas, but the early W7-W8models were up to 100 octane and toward the end of production,serveral Korean War veteransstate thatthe model W14 required 115/135 octane (green avgas), although the Operators Manual, located in the Manuals & Publicationssection does not specify anything higher than 100 octane. But it's even tougher to prove conclusively, especially (as Neal notes, regretfully, in Master Motor Builders) given that so many Packard records were destroyed when the company folded. The Packard 4M 2500 engine powered most, if not all, of the US built PT Boats. The WW I-vintage Packard V12 Liberty engine brought forth a significant increase in speed in 1919. 4M engine serial numbers range from 701 to 13,400, and the seller states this unit was likely built during the early portion of US involvement in World War II. Copyright 1995-2023 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. Lot #37,084. To keep things simple there was a clutch or gearbox with just a fixed rearend ratio. This is perhaps where historians like Neal acquired the notion that Rolls-Royce did not supply tolerances for Merlin component production; small batches of parts and pieces could have, conceivably, been fettled to meet specified tolerances by skilled laborers on the bench before assembly, at least in the early days. I Can't remember where I got this photo (below) from but I Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the United States' declaration of war on the Axis powers, civilian automobile production quickly ceased; by early 1942, Packard was free to focus all of its effort on military engine production. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. adding armor to the parts of the bombers with, third-angle projection to the first-angle projection, The Packard Merlin: How Detroit Mass-Produced Britains Hand-Built Powerhouse. These engines were built by the Packard Motor Car Company, and were a modified design of the 3A-2500 V-12 liquid-cooled aircraft engine. Rolls-Royce was crafting Swiss watches; Ford was cranking out Timexes. The Packard V-12 PT Boat Engine (audio fixed) Les Sharp 3.85K subscribers Subscribe 26K views 9 months ago PHILIPPINES Everyone knows the WW2 PT boat was a rocketship, and that it was. . For some perspective here, note that total Rolls-Royce automobile production from 1936-1939 totaled 6,244 (and that includes 3,824 units of 20/25 production, which spanned 1929-1937; thanks to Mark Lizewskie of the Rolls-Royce Foundation for the information). Ultimately, workers on both sides of the Atlantic were able to build an engine for the ages, flown to victory in all of the major theaters of combat. This is a little misleading: The Merlin II service manual, released May 1938 (you can get a PDF copy here), lists exacting fits and tolerances for the engine and every subsystem on it. These beasts will propel the 50 ton boat at speeds up to 50 knots. and a 6.50-inch stroke, which brought it to 2,490 cubic inches. And to give a sense of how thoroughly this largely parallel, if somewhat staggered, transatlantic development effort has clouded the record, Neal states that Packard modified the design two-piece block to better facilitate production; when Rolls-Royce eventually implemented a slightly different two-part block, Packard subsequently adopted the Rolls-Royce design. The engineswere dry sump with an external oil tank which had special baffles to reduce foaming. Today, modern engine builders are building more Merlin horsepower with Allison V-1710 engines, connecting rods and replacement of the intercooler with an ADI injection system (half alcohol and half distilled water). should give it tremendous torque. There is a PT boat with a Packard engine undergoing restoration here in Portland, OR. In the end, the mass-produced Ford & Packard upgrades resulted in the Merlin becoming a very dependable engine with longer service and rebuild intervals than the R-R designed and craft-produced engines. cast the engine housing once it's finished. Packard built over 50,000 Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engines before the war was overa stellar achievement given the technology of the day. These engines have dual ignition and if the two points were not in exact sync you ended up being the slow poat. . FrozenMerc, Nov 11, 2011. [1] Five aero variants were produced, of which the 3A-2500 was the most numerous. The initial Merlin engines may well have had a large number of hand-fitted components; the first generations, after all, were borderline-experimental. Blueprinted, handmade and expertly tuned Merlins might have been nice to have under ideal circumstances, but WWII demanded materiel in almost unfathomable quantities. . In early 1941 the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships (BuShips) lent Packard engines to both Huckins and Higgins, which wanted to build competitive boats at their own expense. A Holley 1685FR downdraft carburetor, crank-driven centrifugal supercharger, and Delco-Remy 841 electric starter motor are retained. Its factories may not have looked exactly like the clean, ultra-modern Merlin production facility Packard constructed at its East Grand Boulevard plant, as period footage shows: But the storied marque, or at least the aircraft engine-building portion of it, evolved to meet the demands of wartime. Packard sold 98,000 units in 1940 alone. Rolls-Royce vs. Packard: Who Built a Better Merlin? It was offered in four models, the Standard Eight, Custom Eight, Deluxe Eight, and the Speedster. That designation was V12. Packard built the Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engine under license alongside the 4M-2500, but with the exception of the PT-9 prototype boat brought from England for Elco to examine and copy, the Merlin was never used in PTs. Look at the size of those pistons - 6 1/2" diameter. gearbox which then drove the wing propshafts back down under each engines. I get much less oil in the spray washer this way. Hunt The Frontmulti-car dirt late model team and one of the most successful content creation organizationshas announced a new regional tour called the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series presented by Sweet Victory Apparel. Packard built Graham Kozak has been fascinated with cars for as long as he can remember (probably before that, too). Instead, Vincent, Packards lead engineer, started with a clean sheet and designed a If so please use the bidding box above. I have seen daylight under the hull of our companion boat many times. off. And that meant taking the craftsman out of the equation to whatever extent possibleor in other words, embracing mass production. neodymium magnet based crankshaft, 6 sets of coil 'C' cores which fit in the produced by Packard until well into the war years. Peso . "Know Your PT Boat," July 1945, was created very near the end of WW II to use as an introduction to PT Boats for crews' in training. Packard, you see, was a lot more than just Knudsen's Plan B after Ford rejected the Merlin contract. That Packard name. As part of the acquisition, officials announced the structuring of a brand-new desert off-road racing organization called Unlimited Off-Road Racing, which will include the Mint 400, the California 300, Content for engine professionals and enthusiasts, Speed Density vs Alpha-N Tuning Strategies, Solving Engine Bearing Fatigue Failures with Silver Based Materials, Choosing the Correct Block for Your LS Engine Build, Hunt the Front Launches Super Dirt Series Under DIRTcar Sanction, Gold Eagle Co. Brands to Sponsor GRIDLIFE Festival Tour, Martelli Brothers Acquire Parker 400 and Announce New Off-Road Series. Packard marine engine, initially tagged the 4M-2500, was anything but a While some people will say that the PT boats used Merlin engines, they would be wrong. It is larger, lighter-per-horsepower and has more parts than the automobile engine. What many are unclear on is exactly what they were, and where they came from. engine "pot" area and other bits and pieces out of Silicon steel If there's any truth underlying the mythos, it's likely to be in the somewhat incongruous comparison of the early Rolls-Royce Merlins and later mass-produced American Merlinsand it would still hold true if you stacked the earlier engines up against those Rolls-Royce itself would construct in great quantities once it began employing unskilled labor and modern production methods. I can only imagine Rolls-Royce owners look back on this period of history with equal admiration. The war was over, and the shortage of Packard engines for the PT boats never materialized. 3 5M-2500 Packard-Marine V12 Engines. That last factory began churning out engines in mid-1941, but not before Ford, like Packard, overcame a few hurdles. a Veedrive These engines were built by the Packard Motor Car Company, and were a modified design of the 3A-2500 V-12 liquid-cooled aircraft engine. Rolls-Royce manufactures a 'fitters' engine with parts being brought to the unit under construction on a bench. four-stroke, 60-degree V-12 with an aluminum block with a bore of 6.04 inches Simple! The Packard Motor Co. is best known for its "super-luxury" cars. Packard had investigated the prospect of building Merlins under license as early as 1938. The detail is amazing, I didn't expect them to come out so well, the rings Find them Robert. The right hand picture If you win the auction, your card will be charged for the service fee and you pay the seller directly for the vehicle. Four years earlier, the 1919 race was led to the starting line by a Packard Pace Car and reportedly two Packard Indy Cars attempted to make the race. commercial ferrite coils (or chokes) for now, just to try out the idea, later I these photo's were sent to me by John and Michael of J and M. So if you are And sometimes, the occasion calls for a Timex. That is the only way we can achieve mass production.'". other side of the planet, so the freight would have been ridiculous. The license built Merlin engines were not produced by Packard until well into the war years and were of smaller displacement (1670 CID). Taking some of those ideas and the basic platform as inspiration, Packard built upon it. Remember, Packard, and for that matter, Ford of Britain, were able to jump more or less into mass production of the Merlin, while Rolls-Royce took the engine from a blank sheet of paper to eventual mass production at its three facilities. This particular Liberty was modified with four Zenith carburetors and custom-designed pistons. engine, note the two bolted access panels on the side of each muffler rather Powered by three Packard 5M-2500 V12 Gasoline engines rated at 1850 horsepower each! These modifications have been mentioned by several sources but specifics remain elusive. Here is the sheet of silicon steel crankshaft laminations The Packard V-12 PT Boat Engine. There are many variations on this basic storyline, more than a few of which are contradictory. The Vosper 71-foot Motor Torpedo Boat PT-728 in 2015: In looking at the disposition column in the Tables 2, 3, 4 . As Robert J. Neal writes in Master Motor Builders, a tome documenting Packard's non-automotive engines: "This was but the beginning of a monumental task of redesigning an engine which was not originally designed for mass production so that it could indeed be made by American mass-production methods, and so that it could be fitted with American fittings and accessories as mentioned above [for example, carburetors, fuel pumps, generators and so on] or British accessories and fittings, depending upon which government the engine was intended for. , of the US built PT Boats never materialized have seen daylight the... Find them Robert over 50,000 rolls-royce Merlin aircraft engines before the war was over, and were modified! Forth a significant increase in speed in 1919 rings Find them Robert, like Packard overcame... Exactly what they were, and were a modified design of the US built PT Boats never materialized engine. Not before Ford, like Packard, overcame a few hurdles boat a! 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