It’s that time of the year again when we look back at what we’ve achieved over the last 12 months. And in the case of the folks over from Garage54, they’ve done a lot - from a Lada engine spinning at 10,000 rpm, to welding two Ladas together, to a wooden clutch, and many more. But their holiday episode beats all previous experiments by a wide margin.
The 15-minute video attached at the top of this page shows us the team building an inline-six engine out of two four-cylinder Lada engines. Why not a V8? “It wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting,” the guys explain and show the two mills they will use as a base. These are two inline-four units sourced from Lada 2021 cars.
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So, what’s the actual plan? The mechanics simply cut the block of one of the engines and turned it into a two-cylinder unit. They then welded it to the unmodified motor and did basically the same with the crankshaft. The welds were then processed and polished so that everything looks like (nearly) from the factory. A larger crankcase was also fabricated for the needs of the inline-six engine.
There were other problems, of course. How is that engine going to distribute the spark? How are the two carburettors going to be synchronised? Is the starter motor going to do the job with two extra cylinders? Too many questions with difficult answers. However, the team managed to fix most of the issues and even got the inline-six-cylinder engine running. Well, it was not running smoothly, but that’s a different story.
What’s next? The Garage54 team will further optimise the work of the new engine and will eventually install it into a car. Is everything going to work as it should? We’ll see in the next episodes.