5 Of The Largest 4-Cylinder Engines Ever Made (Ranked By Displacement)
You may be saying to yourself, “Here comes the Porsche 3.0-liter inline-four.” Sure, it’ll be on this list, but Porsche’s uber-four is a weed-whacker compared to top-displacement fours. Spoiler alert: One of the engines here has more displacement than the Dodge Viper, Bugatti Chiron, Bentley Continental GT W12 and Mustang GT combined.
Why are the big four so rare? Let’s think like engineers and consider the pros and cons of four-cylinder engines. Manufacturers find quads attractive because they can be built with fewer parts and get better efficiency than, say, a V12 or V8. They are also lighter and take up less space. The problem is that inline fours are prone to vibrating like washing machines washing a cinder block on the spin cycle. You need balance shafts and/or crankshaft counterweights to keep all four legs aligned – or, like Subaru, you can use two rows of 180-degree pistons to cancel out some of the vibration. But of course everything grows with displacement, and once a four-cylinder gets big enough, it loses its size advantage. As a result, manufacturers prefer to turbocharge small and manageable four-bangers to produce the power needed. But to hell with turbos, the engines on this list decided there was no substitute for displacement. Just forewarning you, we’re not giving up on quads powering cars or car-like things. Sorry, 172-litre Fairbanks Morse 32D fans, but these engines have spent their lives powering mills and rock crushing plants rather than scorching tires with sickly burns.
Read more: Why Did Formula 1 Engines Switch from V12s to V6s?
The smallest giant: 3.0-litre Porsche M44/41 and M44/43
Close-up of the fully restored Porsche M44/41 3-litre four-cylinder engine from the Porsche 944 S2 on a multi-coloured carpet in a workshop – Only A Roadtrip Away/YouTube
This 182-cubic-inch four-cylinder engine is actually half of a Porsche 928 V8. Rather than being an economical four-cylinder, the M44/41 3-litre engine fitted to Porsche 944 S2s uses aluminium-silicon alloy blocks, forged crankshafts, double overhead cams and Mitsubishi’s balancer shaft technology. The M44/43 in Porsche 968s got 236 hp thanks to VarioCam (variable valve timing) and a slight increase in compression from 10.9:1 to 11:1. Certainly, Porsche 968 parts availability and short service intervals annoying, but it’s a four-cylinder with twice the displacement of the BRM 1.5-litre V16!
944 S2s had 0-60 times of just under 7 seconds, and 968s did the same run in just 6.1 seconds. As is often the case with fancy, high-performance versions of cars, turbocharged 968s were not sold new in the United States. Porsche built 14 examples of the 305-hp 968 Turbo S (or 13 or 15 or some other number, depending on how much you like the argument). It kept the same displacement but added forced induction and replaced the 16-valve head with an 8-valve from the old 944 Turbo. This car was good for a smoking hot 4.9-second 0-60 time in 1994. But the final boss of the 968s is the 350 hp 968 Turbo RS, born for Germany’s ADAC GT racing series. Porsche only managed to sell four of these, reaching 60 in just 4.4 seconds.
Not even on the podium yet: 3.2-liter Pontiac Trophy 4
Close-up view of blue-painted 3.2-liter Pontiac Trophy 4 four-cylinder engine equipped with four-cylinder carburetor – Lafontaine Classic Cars/YouTube
Like Porsche’s M44, Pontiac’s Trophy 4 is basically half of an existing engine. Pontiac engineer Malcolm McKellar ran the 389 V8 on four pistons and found there was enough power remaining while providing good fuel economy, proving the concept was feasible. After the physical removal of a cluster of cylinders, Trophy 4 was born. It produced 166 horsepower with 10.25:1 compression and four-barrel carbs. To isolate their vibrations, the Trophy 4s are held in place by the driveshaft and transaxle in the rear and by marshmallow rubber mounts in the front. Nowadays you can find 1962 Pontiac Storms under 7k It’s a four-cylinder that vibrates like a massage chair and weighs as much as a small-block Chevy V8.
If you’ve read NASCAR legend Smokey Yunick’s memoir “The Best Garage in Town: The World According to Smokey,” you were probably expecting me to say that Smokey claimed to have designed the Trophy 4 as a favor to Pontiac assistant chief engineer John Z. DeLorean. This must have occurred between racing at the Indy 500 and gold panning in Ecuador (no, this is not a joke). It was certainly mechanically excellent, and the four-cylinder “hot steam” version of the Iron Duke was apparently capable of up to 250 hp and 51 mpg, so it had that capability. But how much of Trophy 4 belongs to Smokey and how much belongs to McKellar is probably a “he said/she said” debate.
Almost three liters per cylinder: 11.1 liters Simplex Model 90
Simplex 90 racing in the Vanderbilt Cup in 1910, black and white photo with two dirt-covered men behind the wheel as the car races across the finish line – Bain News Service/Wikimedia Commons
You have to be careful when looking for Simplex cars. A. 1903 Mercedes-Simplex sold for $12 millionBut this is not the Simplex we are looking for. There is also American Simplex from Mishwaka, Indiana, but that’s not the Simplex we want either. In fact, American Simplex renamed itself Amplex because there was already a Simplex in New York, which was the Simplex we talked about. More specifically, we focus on the engine powering the Simplex 90 in the photo above from the 1910 Vanderbilt Cup.
AD Proctor Smith and Carleton R. Mabley introduced the Smith and Mabley Simplex in 1904, offering 18 hp or 30 hp versions. The duo imported Mercedes, Renault, Fiat and Panhard, so they knew what a quality car was. In fact, Smith and Mabley appear to have based their car on the 18/22 hp Mercedes Simplex and even used Mercedes’ suppliers on the sly.
In 1907 the 9.8-litre 50 hp Model 50 arrived, followed by the 75 hp Model 75 with the same displacement but larger valves. Then there was the 1909-1913 Model 90, which according to the model setup was supposed to produce 90 hp, right? Well, Hemmings He spoke with a Simplex 90 owner named Joel Finn, who threw his Pace Car, powered by the Simplex’s 677.7 cubic inch/11.1-liter four-cylinder engine, on a dyno and made 172 horsepower. “I don’t know of any older car with more horsepower,” he enthused. “It takes off like a rocket.”
Paint buckets for pistons: 21.5 liter Blitzen-Benz
Blitzen Benz’s 21.5-liter four-cylinder engine is about to hit the road at Pebble Beach Concours – EarthAdvocate/YouTube
To be clear, the Blitzen-Benz wasn’t the fastest car in the world when it was released. It was the fastest thing in the world. In 1909 it reached a speed of 202.6 km or 124 miles per hour, making it faster than trains and even airplanes! This was not only a land speed record, but an absolute record and probably the fastest speed anyone had ever experienced at the time. The fastest human speed we can drop to before air resistance cancels out gravity is about 190 mph, but you could go head-on and probably hit 200 mph, which would be necessary to surpass Blitzen-Benz. Later, in 1911, it reached 228.1 km/h (137 mph), twice the speed of the fastest airplane. It lives up to its name as the German word “blitzen” means “flash”.
Blitzen-Benz’s 21.5-liter four is larger than most studio flats, at 1,312 cubic inches, and produces 200 horsepower and nearly 1,000 pound-feet of torque. The block is not even one casting, but two! Each features a reinforced pair of pistons under cooling jackets and holds the crankcase in place with 12 large studs. Five main bearings hold the crankshaft, which is the size and shape of San Francisco’s Lombard Street. This horizontal skyscraper can outpace any vehicle on the planet and is the forerunner of all fast Mercedes-Benzes, from super sedans like the 300SEL 6.3 or 450SEL 6.9 to later cars like the pre-merger one. 6-litre Mercedes AMG Hammer coupes.
Number of the beast: 28.4-litre Fiat S76 Torino Monster
Fiat S76 Torino Monster passes through hay bales and grass on a racetrack with white umbrellas and trees in the background – Sarnia/Shutterstock
Better known as the “Monster of Turin” or “Mephistopheles”, the Fiat S76 produces 300 hp and 2,000 lb-ft of torque from a 28.4-liter four-cylinder engine. It’s not a car, it’s an engine with a body wrapped in Saran. The weak clutch, which is responsible for transmitting the power of the engine, has 90 plates. No, not nine, but 90. Each cylinder displaces 7.1 liters, which is more than the 426 Hemi V8. At 300 rpm, Mephistopheles is at highway speed. Just 1,000 rpm is enough to reach a top speed of almost 130 mph. This is also a rare antique engine; What I mean by that is there is one. The only other S76 engine produced is no longer available.
Belgian driver Arthur Duray attempted to break the speed record in 1913, but mechanical problems prevented the required two-way meandering trip. As shared by Fiat Club America“I was using all my years of experience to drive the Fiat all the way in third gear. I would need the courage of a thousand men to drive it all the way in fourth gear.” Then, in July 1924, Ernest Eldridge, the British driver who actually designed this beast, accelerated the Mephistopheles to 146 mph and set a new land speed record. Somehow this was accomplished on public roads and everyone involved survived. God bless Duncan Pittway, who spearheaded the restoration of the Monster of Turin and drove in the rain at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Seriously, God, watch out for it, this thing is scary.
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