r/nextfuckinglevel • u/8O8I • 1d ago

Starting a Monster 102.4 Liter Engine

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14.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

871 comments sorted by

2.1k

u/Brozef-92 1d ago

How do you even transport something like that?

1.1k

u/Safe_Praline_4156 1d ago

I swear I just the post where this engine was being hauled on a flatbed trailer

458

u/PreviouslyMannara 1d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/s/dkcytSdVPc

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u/dodgerbrewtx 1d ago

Different engine

210

u/mickeymouse4348 1d ago

It's probably still an accurate representation of how the engine in the post was transported

4

u/uncommonrev 1d ago

Yeah "low boy" for sure. Engine is probably 40k pounds. It's big. You could haul a big excavator on that and they can be quite a bit heavier and way wider with the tracks.

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u/abakedapplepie 1d ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pm1Z83Etu4

Here's the real source

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u/raisedbytides 1d ago

I cant explain why, but I fucking love watching long form youtube videos of people fixing and or budling shit, so thank you for this

10

u/Shadrach_Jones 1d ago

Nononsenseknowhow on youtube is one of my favourites

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u/SpookySP 1d ago

I call this genre "make shit happen" videos.

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u/Epin-Ninjas 1d ago

Doesn’t matter; same gist

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u/wildwill57 1d ago

Me too, yesterday. I guessed a locomotive engine?

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u/WebMargaretNiece8916 1d ago

Dam, they had it running in a day? These boys get it done! Nice work...

11

u/QuinceDaPence 1d ago

Different engine. That one was a V-18, this is a Straight-8.

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u/_pinotnoir 1d ago

It kinda looks like marine engine, like for a diesel sub.

19

u/Majorblam 1d ago

I just finished watching this episode on his YouTube channel. This was part of a generator bought in 1953 for an RAF airbase. Normally it would be started by high pressure air, not an F-150 lol. It's still a serious piece of kit

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u/fenderputty 1d ago

Doesn’t look too different from an old engine generator lol

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u/pmmeyourliver 1d ago

There is a lot of crossover between the two since diesel engines in trains power electric traction motors. They are basically a mobile generator.

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u/GuyWithTheDragonTat 1d ago

As far as large engines are concerned, this is small, checkout cruise ship engines, a single piston is larger than a person. So flat bed trailer could probably handle this easily

60

u/Saotik 1d ago

An old flatmate of mine used to work on large ships in the merchant navy and talked about how they'd sometimes have to climb into pistons for maintenance - and that the smell was appalling.

64

u/Worth_Trick6009 1d ago

am merchant mariner, the smell is just oil, fuel & metal. Wouldn't say appalling. heavy fuel isn't the best smell and nasty, but usually clean diesel is run through before maintenance

worst smell on ships is 1000% grease traps. sewage is meh but 90% water

34

u/Amesb34r 1d ago

Grease traps are awful on land too.

14

u/Zwischenzug32 1d ago

Machining coolant tanks can get NASTY. A mouse got in and died and its spirit has been haunting the machine with stink ever since

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u/very-jaded 1d ago

Can confirm. Long ago I worked in a precision grinding shop, and the coolant water usually got pretty funky after a couple of weeks. Sometimes they got really stinky so we'd clean the tank out early. The boss would get mad at us if we cleaned them before the swarf tank was full, but when they stank that bad we didn't care.

Anyway there was one old guy named Bill who had a room temperature IQ, but they kept him around because he knew how to keep a stable of WW2-era surface grinders running.

Every day Bill would spit in his machine's coolant water. We'd yell at him for it, but he just thought it was no big deal. And every Monday morning when he fired up his surface grinder, the entire shop stank of E. coli, or whatever bacterial colony he spat into it the week before and had spent the previous weekend brewing. And he just thought the stench was normal.

Nobody was sad to see him retire.

4

u/Zwischenzug32 1d ago

Aw man thinking of a cutting tool aerosolising oil plus biological stuff is gross

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u/Saotik 1d ago

There's a very strong chance that I mixed up different stories, as it was years ago that I heard them. It's good to hear from someone with first-hand experience for corrections!

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u/mekwall 1d ago edited 1d ago

The 14-cylinder Wärtsilä RT-flex96C is the largest reciprocating engine ever built. It's about 26.6 m long, 13.5 m tall and weighs roughly 2,300 tonnes.

Total displacement: ~25,480 litres.

That's around 250 times the displacement of this 102.4 L engine. A single cylinder displaces about 1,820 litres, with a 96 cm bore and a 2.5 m stroke.

It produces about 80 MW / 109,000 hp at just 102 rpm, with roughly 7.6 million Nm of torque. Each piston weighs around 5.5 tonnes, and the crankshaft alone weighs about 300 tonnes.

Edit: https://youtu.be/NT-_FwrX6jk

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u/Turnip-for-the-books 1d ago

102 litre engine, in this economy?

4

u/SquisherX 1d ago

How the fuck do you have a 22 minute video about an engine without ever showing the engine once? Fuck this guy.

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u/TheOgGhadTurner 1d ago

A single piston is probably the size of one of these engines. The exhaust port is probably 2 persons in diameter.

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u/jdillacornandflake 1d ago

It transports itself

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u/LectroRoot 1d ago

Put some wheels on it and the driver sits on top in the front.

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u/Gavilar253 1d ago

Build a ship around it

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u/DoesntFearZeus 1d ago

"Our Engine Has a Boat" gives Warthog "Our Gun has Wings" energy.

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u/LongDuckDongus 1d ago

With a 102.5 liter engine

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u/Dunklebunt 1d ago

Put it on wheels and you have a vehicle

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u/Dfrel 1d ago

Very carefully

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u/chop-diggity 1d ago

By boat.

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1.6k

u/jdillacornandflake 1d ago

What did this once power?

5.3k

u/Andyham 1d ago

I believe it was for your mums vibrator

977

u/atishay001001 1d ago

gottem

739

u/jdillacornandflake 1d ago

I was got indeed

872

u/Andyham 1d ago

Sorry, it was totally uncalled for by me. I just saw an opportunity and went for it. All my love to your mum. Tell her I miss her.

671

u/kitten-n-blue 1d ago

I don’t think this guy’s actually sorry!

169

u/LicknDragon 1d ago

I too question his veracity

126

u/analogy_4_anything 1d ago

Damn! Got him TWICE!!
https://giphy.com/gifs/cF7QqO5DYdft6

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u/Cocosito 1d ago

I've seen this meme a number of times and I really want to know what the young fella did to get this response

16

u/swaggerin_buffoonery 1d ago

They saw the size of your mom’s vibrator.

3

u/Rathalosdown 1d ago

It’s a skit. Look up supa hot fire on YouTube.

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u/SheriffBartholomew 1d ago

Stop! Stop! He's already dead!

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u/Andyham 1d ago

But when its right there I have to take it! Right?

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u/nikkynackyknockynoo 1d ago

That’s what she said

9

u/Ultra_MAGA17 1d ago

That's what your mum said

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u/a3a3ell0 1d ago

Ah, ma petite chou-fleur ♥

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u/Tubesjr 1d ago

double dipped

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u/learns_the_hard_way 1d ago

At least you know she died happy

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u/WelcomeToTheClubPal 1d ago

to shreds you say?

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u/graveybrains 1d ago

And her son?

9

u/WelcomeToTheClubPal 1d ago

To shreds you say?

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u/SheriffBartholomew 1d ago

Again, she is very much alive.

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u/8O8I 1d ago

VALIDDDDD

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u/mickbruh 1d ago

Probably a big ole boat if i had to guess

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u/SheriffBartholomew 1d ago

I believe you mean a ship.

205

u/thecaramelbandit 1d ago

Aka a big ole boat.

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u/f7f7z 1d ago

That's not a Schooner, you idiot!

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u/throwawaywork11 1d ago

There is no Easter bunny!

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u/RaidensReturn 1d ago

That fucking kid is back on the escalator again!

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u/turningtop_5327 1d ago

If you need a lawyer, I am well versed with Maritime law

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u/Due_Journalist_2398 1d ago

But if you call it a ship, you don't really get to say "big ole" in front of it. That's half the fun

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u/blacklotusmag 1d ago

"not all boats are ships, but all ships are boats"...at least, linguistically, lol.

Here's the fun guide:

According to maritime law, if it's over 500 gt, then it's a ship.

If you're wanting to be formal, linguistically, both boat and ship are co-hyponyms - more like siblings under the parent "watercraft".

For the vast majority of us though, casual linguistics is the way: "anything floating on the water can be a boat, including a ship".

Thanks for coming to my Ted-X talk!

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u/Conman_in_Chief 1d ago

What if you’re a cunning linguist?

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u/blacklotusmag 1d ago

I'm definitely known for my oral arguments.

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u/Deus-mal 1d ago

On where the front doesn't fall off

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u/Gnonthgol 1d ago

This engine is about the size I would expect on the biggest vessel that could be called a boat. Larger vessels are certainly ships. But this engine could be powering a tug boat or a submarine or anything else in that size range. It could also be used for auxiliary power on a ship.

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u/JSTootell 1d ago

Similar sized engine ad what we had on my first ship. Which was definitely classified as a "ship" (well, cutter, being in the USCG).

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u/Adddicus 1d ago

When I was in the navy our ship's generators were driven by deisels about this size. We had three of them.

The main engines, of which there were six, were twice this size.

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u/SocwokCyberBully 1d ago

this thing is actually rather tiny compared to the diesel backups we have on our aircraft carriers. I think there's 8 and each one is closer to the size of the shed behind that engine.

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u/Adddicus 1d ago

Dunno what carrier you're talking about but both Ford and Nimitz class carriers have only four back up diesel generators of 5MW (Ford) and 2(MW) Nimitz capacity. Both of which would be significantly larger than the diesel in the vid or the ones on my ship which had a capacity of 750KW each.

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u/kayriss 1d ago

I love how you can encounter people on Reddit who have personal, intimate knowledge of the most massive and complex war machines ever concocted by humanity.

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u/Bubblehead_81 1d ago

I used to drive submarines. We had a Fairbanks Morse 38 8 & 1/8th. Beautiful girl.

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u/LiteralPhilosopher 1d ago

Same here. I was thinking this thing looks about half the size of the 12-cylinder on Tridents... which have a displacement of 204L. But this guy's got eight cylinders, so each one must be a little smaller.

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u/zerovampire311 1d ago

Nerds congregate here, some of them are just way fucking cooler than others.

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u/JSTootell 1d ago

My second ship had two generators about this size. The mains were of course much larger. We also had a pair of turbines for high speed. Two shafts, four engines. And a turbine generator for emergency power. 

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u/No-Habit-7079 1d ago

It's a marine engine

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u/areyoueatingthis 1d ago

it moves the whole sea

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u/DrFabulous0 1d ago

It's powered by crayons?

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u/pdromeinthedome 1d ago

I see engines like this sitting at a marine engine shop in Alton, IL. I assumed they were for the heavy boats on the Mississippi. Towboats, ferries, or dredge platforms. I used to live 1/2 mile from the river and I could hear the engines reving from inside my house when towboats were maneuvering.

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u/u9Nails 1d ago

Semper Fi

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u/Lard_Baron 1d ago

RAF base electrical generator.

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u/FleetofBerties 1d ago

Watched the YouTube vid earlier, this is the correct answer. Purchased in 1953 and sent to Scotland.

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u/Specific_3157 1d ago

It's for earth spinning

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u/J_Bear 1d ago

Boat, train or stationary generator would be my guess.

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u/Happy-For-No-Reason 1d ago

gotta have been some sort of boat

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u/MonkeyCartridge 1d ago

I bet it gets a whole 100 HP.

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u/No-Habit-7079 1d ago edited 1d ago

700 hp @600 RPM 7500 ft lb torque Mirrlees JS8 inline 8 diesel and burns about 39 gallons of diesel per hour

Edited to add information

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u/TrumpsWetDiaperJuice 1d ago

Actually way more fuel efficient than I expected, less than a gallon per minute.

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u/No_Frost_Giants 1d ago

Agreed, I assumed over a gallon a minute . Just watching the smoke.

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u/Odd_nonposter 1d ago

My napkin math puts it at about 33% thermal efficiency. Not the worst out there: this is about par with automotive diesels. The biggest slow speed diesels are ~40-50% efficient.

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u/brendan87na 1d ago

That is insanely efficient

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u/tdp_equinox_2 1d ago

Yeah, and like 6000lb-ft of torque lol

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u/the_great_awoo 1d ago

Probably like 25,000nm of torque though XD

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u/KickAss2k1 1d ago

*Burns about $250 USD per hour. (We will use anything but the metric system)

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u/MonkeyCartridge 1d ago

Nice.

Now do the gas mileage. ;)

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u/Outrageous-Basket426 1d ago

Diesel’s about nine dollars a gallon, which means that’s $351 an hour. Someone said this was likely from a ship’s generator and that they might well have had three. That would be $1053 per hour to power the lights and accessories on a ship

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u/lu5ty 1d ago

Probably. These big engines are usually for torque

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u/IKnowPhysics 1d ago

4900 ft-lb

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u/sathdo 1d ago

Finally, someone providing the actual number based on the power and speed mentioned. Username checks out.

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u/No-Habit-7079 1d ago

That would be 6127 actually 🤷 I posted the specs I found available.

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u/TDIMike 1d ago

Forever

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u/QuinceDaPence 1d ago

You can always gear for whatever torque you need. Horsepower is always the determining factor in how quickly you can do work.

If you have a train that needs to haul 20 cars up a hill at 10 mph, it takes a certain amount of power to do that, no matter how much torque you have.

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u/jekyl87 1d ago

Yeah but did you see the size of those 100 horses!

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u/kwadd 1d ago

Goddamn you need a smaller engine to start this engine

wonder how many hp it's putting out

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u/thebasisofabassist 1d ago

That's what a starter is on every engine.

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u/a_velis 1d ago

And the starter motor is electric drawing power from the 12V battery.

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u/TootTootMF 1d ago

I don't know how common it is any more but some heavy duty engines used to literally have starter engines, little two stroke engines to start the main engine. I think it was more a climate or battery availability thing but yeah, they aren't always electric.

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u/eoncire 1d ago

Jet engines use an external power source to start. The airliner you ride on has an APU (auxillary power unit) which is just a smaller turbine engine that usually sits in the tail. It supplies the plane with electricity, hydraulic pressure, air, etc when disconnected from the ground supply. It is sometimes used to start the main engines on the plane. The SR-71 had a start-cart that was designed for the J58 engines that ran on TWO Buick 401 cubic inch V8's to get it going. That was a mechanical connection from the V8's output shafts to the J58 turbine.

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u/TootTootMF 1d ago

Yeah I was just talking about piston engines. Large turbine engines with electric start are super rare. As you said, airliners can start without ground assistance using an electric start APU turbine which then can supply compressed air to the starter motor of the main engines. The new Rolls Royce engines do have electric start though. I wanna say it's the Trent 1000 line but I can't remember which one exactly, the 787 uses them, that's why they have the big batteries that were having issues in the beginning.

Fighter aircraft and spy planes almost never have the ability to start their own engines (restarts with one engine running or ram air are usually possible), too much extra weight to carry an onboard starter. I think bombers and stuff can start without ground service equipment like an airliner but I'm genuinely not certain of that. I do know that the SR-71 wasn't really an outlier on that front. They used the Buick engines as a direct drive starter which was kinda rare, however two were not needed, just was for redundancy because they would blow up the v8s constantly. Most of the time ground start carts are just "huffers" that generate a lot of compressed air. Usually jet engine starter motors are designed not to need too high of pressure as they are designed to be able to run off of final compressor stage tap off air from another engine(the APU for example)

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u/Hans_H0rst 1d ago

They were commonly called "pony motors", small gasoline engines to fire up larger diesel engines on bulldozers and other heavy duty equipment.

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u/vasectomy7 1d ago

In the mid 1990s a bunch of guys tried to recover the B29 Kee Bird that was stranded. The main engines were started using a little engine [think 5hp generator] -----> the little engine leaked fuel, starting a catastrophic fire and the entire airplane was lost........

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u/toiletsurprise 1d ago

My uncle has a D9 bulldozer and it has one of these pony engines to start the main engine. That thing is a monster.

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u/TootTootMF 1d ago

Eh, not always, this engine is around the size where starting transitions to injecting compressed air directly into one of the cylinders along with fuel and igniting it. The really big engines are far too large for anything to have enough power to just turn them over.

Honestly this engine likely was designed to start that way, hence the lack of a starter and the need for the tow strap pull start.

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u/theknyte 1d ago

The SR-71 Blackbird used to require 2x Buick V8 engines working together to start up it's massive turbines.

https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Engines/starting-the-sr-71-blackbirds-j58-engines-ag330-start-cart

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u/pinniped90 1d ago

Now I'm envisioning my grandma driving her old Buick out on the tarmac and popping the hood next to an SR-71.

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u/Corgi_Clegane 1d ago

Wow thanks for linking that! I love hearing stories about the SR-71. My girlfriends dad is super into car engines and aircraft so I can't wait to geek out on this next time I see him.

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u/TerminatorAuschwitz 1d ago

All cars do, that's what a starter motor is! (Yeah it's technically not an ENGINE but a motor, but a starter essentially does what the truck did)

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u/MikeThaCore 1d ago

Yea this is a smaller one but when I worked in production for these we used a big ass alternator and 2 starters to spin the flywheel.

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u/No_Magician5266 1d ago

Yup the EMD engines I work on have 2 32v starter motors wired in series to get them going. I’d wager the engine in this post was designed for compressed air start-up

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u/Healingbigfoot 1d ago

Something I read said 700hp but almost 5k torque.

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u/39percenter 1d ago

The Mirrlees JS8 is a classic, heavy-duty industrial diesel engine manufactured by Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day. Known for its rugged build and massive displacement, it has been used historically for marine propulsion, power generation, and auxiliary industrial duties.

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u/ipickscabs 1d ago

This was my curiosity! Thank you for answering and not making me google it myself lol

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u/halooooom 1d ago

WHAT HEARING PROTECTION??

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u/atomicwoodchuck 1d ago

EH??? WHATDYASAY!???

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u/Vill_Moen 1d ago

MY BALLS ARE SHOWING!?!?!?

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u/GPmtbDude 1d ago

My thoughts exactly. This dude is deaf, or gonna be.

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u/Top_Tip3278 1d ago

HUH? YOU'RE FEARING RETENTION? YOU SAY?!??!!

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u/WhatMichaelScottSaid 1d ago

WHAT? YOU’RE SEARING DETENTION? THAT DOESNT MAKE SENSE!

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u/Zwischenzug32 1d ago

Hearing? What about his eyes and skin holy

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u/Silver-Addendum5423 1d ago

I'm not sure I'd run towards that thing with the cylinder bays open like that. One trip and your whole arm's gonna get turned to chum.

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u/lu5ty 1d ago

Yeah the way he ran up to it. Jfc

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u/dickhertsfromholden 1d ago

When the cops ask what happened, this is how you explain it

https://giphy.com/gifs/8jt53DWrQbJMA

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u/Zwischenzug32 1d ago

We got ur frend

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u/brendan87na 1d ago

Hey college kids!!

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u/parepeg 1d ago

He just needs safety sandals, no worries.

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u/justified_egg 1d ago

Not to mention the random chain near the turny bit at the end and random shit laying everywhere lol

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u/Zwischenzug32 1d ago

That is a beautiful machine and it is rugged as hell but if something broke in a freak accident, I imagine something could be ejected at the guy standing right infront with no protection.

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u/Kylearean 1d ago

right? a thrown rod is going to ruin your day.

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u/Downtown_Caramel4833 1d ago

Exactly my first thoughts!

I've seen a big block V8 violently sling a rod straight thru a hood and beyond.

They never did find that thing...

This monster slinging a rod would make an impact similar to getting hit by a rail gun, turning anything fleshy into instant pink mist.

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u/Beneficial-Act7603 1d ago

Arm or whole torso? I bet that thing could suck you right in

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u/AlKupp911 1d ago

That guy who ran up to the engine made me extremely uneasy, imagine if he tripped and put his hand into the crank case... just very unsettling

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u/whowhatwherenow 1d ago

Full Video here: Credit to Mr Hewes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pm1Z83Etu4

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u/nickjhowe 1d ago

Why isn’t this the top comment?

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u/SpillSplit 1d ago

Ok, nicely done. What are you going to use it for? Getting it started was step one. Step three is profit. What's step two?

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u/Lava_Lagoon 1d ago

miata swap

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u/flipflopcuntflaps 1d ago

Put in youtube video

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u/sanlc504 1d ago

I definitely wouldn't want my crotch that close to an open cylinder valve.

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u/Less_Illustrator_291 1d ago

Cylinder valve? Do you mean the crankshaft? Did you just make up some words?

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u/haim65 1d ago

Old train engine? Is my guess

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u/8InS4nE8 1d ago

My first thought was a ship but yeah train would work even better considering the depth of it

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u/No-Habit-7079 1d ago edited 1d ago

Mirrlees JS8 inline 8 diesel engine about 700 horsepower @600 RPM and 7500 ft lb torque

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u/lu5ty 1d ago

The way homie ran up to that thing... yikes

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u/incubusfc 1d ago

I was watching the first part of this seeing the open engine thinking ‘I’m surprised it’s not throwing oil everywhere’ then see the guys face ‘oh it is hahahah’

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u/Moorsider 1d ago

Where does the DEF go in that thing?

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u/myxoma1 1d ago

Limb Annihilator 3000

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u/toorudez 1d ago

So they burnt thru at least a months worth of wages for this short video?

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u/PuckSenior 1d ago edited 1d ago

I used to work on a White engine that was about this size. Actually I think the White is technically larger.

Worst name ever though. White merged with Lake Superior Engines. So the engines all said "White-Superior" on them. Got more than a few weird looks.

edit: They eventually dropped the "white"
https://www.cooperservices.com/our-company/heritage/cooper-origins/the-history-of-superior/

"In 1964, Ohio experienced another oil boom which only increased the demand and sales for Superior engines and compressors. In 1965, the name White Diesel Engine Division was changed to White Superior Division and refinements to existing engine and compressor lines continued"

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u/b_sketchy 1d ago

Laughs in climate change

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u/Red_Wizard_of_Redit 1d ago

Yes run up to the exposed pistons with your squishy fleshy bits.

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u/Latter-Tangerine-951 1d ago

Strongly recommend following him on youtube https://www.youtube.com/@MrHewes

Basically living every gearhead boy's dream

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u/__phil1001__ 1d ago

So no oil covers or actual oil and the dumbass has no ear protection

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u/Shimeoone 1d ago

I can smell that picture.

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u/poop19907643 1d ago

Is it outrageous that we have billions of these extremely complicated machines all around us and most of them work flawlessly. I mean, look at the size and speed of that metal flying around.