Posted by jack cain on Thursday, March 03, 2005 at 2:22PM :
In Reply to: A hot rod like this? posted by Don in Missouri on Wednesday, March 02, 2005 at 3:56PM :
I remember reading several years ago in Popular Mechanics that Ford was exploring a new tranverse mounted straight eight.
It was basically 2 inline fours that were mounted back to back. The flexing that is inherent in a long crankshaft was eliminated by what was described as a "T-Drive", which was essentially a type of specially designed flywheel mounted between the two engine halves to transmit power to the drivetrain.
I suppose that the idea was too radical though as it never got beyond the technical planning stages.
Same thing with the 1995 Chrysler Atlantic. They took two inline fours and made it into a straight eight. The concept car was actually a driveable functioning vehicle and went home with Bob Lutz when he retired from Chrysler.