Renault straight eight engine anyone..?

56 Fregate

56 Fregate

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Lot No. 142

Estimate: €3,000 - €4,000 Selling costs
Engine untouched since the 1930s. The Reinastella's mission is to succeed the prestigious 40 hp. Presented in 1929, it is equipped with a magnificent eight-cylinder in-line engine with more than seven liters of displacement. Equipped with a two-barrel carburettor, the engine develops 130 hp. The Reinastella will be a very high-end Renault, produced at the time in dribs and drabs (a few dozen cars a year) for a wealthy, very demanding clientele. At the dawn of the 1930s, a wealthy Grenoble industrialist crashed his almost new Reinastella in Vizille. The repair was taken care of by the representative of the brand in the city, who dismantled the mechanics to entrust the chassis to the nearby bodybuilder for repair. Unfortunately the body shop fell victim to a fire and the chassis of the Reinastella destroyed. The majestic eight-cylinder as well as some parts of the car therefore slept in the reserves of a garage for almost a century. - The engine we are presenting has therefore been stored in a dry place and has remained untouched since the 1930s. It is sold as is, cylinder headed, without carburettor, with its distributor removed. It is a particularly rare and imposing piece. Exhibition: Monday, September 26 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 52 PLACE STALINGRAD 38220 VIZILLE with its igniter removed. It is a particularly rare and imposing piece. Exhibition: Monday, September 26 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 52 PLACE STALINGRAD 38220 VIZILLE with its igniter removed. It is a particularly rare and imposing piece. Exhibition: Monday, September 26 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 52 PLACE STALINGRAD 38220 VIZILLE

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56 Fregate said:

Lot No. 142

Estimate: €3,000 - €4,000 Selling costs
Engine untouched since the 1930s. The Reinastella's mission is to succeed the prestigious 40 hp. Presented in 1929, it is equipped with a magnificent eight-cylinder in-line engine with more than seven liters of displacement. Equipped with a two-barrel carburettor, the engine develops 130 hp. The Reinastella will be a very high-end Renault, produced at the time in dribs and drabs (a few dozen cars a year) for a wealthy, very demanding clientele. At the dawn of the 1930s, a wealthy Grenoble industrialist crashed his almost new Reinastella in Vizille. The repair was taken care of by the representative of the brand in the city, who dismantled the mechanics to entrust the chassis to the nearby bodybuilder for repair. Unfortunately the body shop fell victim to a fire and the chassis of the Reinastella destroyed. The majestic eight-cylinder as well as some parts of the car therefore slept in the reserves of a garage for almost a century. - The engine we are presenting has therefore been stored in a dry place and has remained untouched since the 1930s. It is sold as is, cylinder headed, without carburettor, with its distributor removed. It is a particularly rare and imposing piece. Exhibition: Monday, September 26 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 52 PLACE STALINGRAD 38220 VIZILLE with its igniter removed. It is a particularly rare and imposing piece. Exhibition: Monday, September 26 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 52 PLACE STALINGRAD 38220 VIZILLE with its igniter removed. It is a particularly rare and imposing piece. Exhibition: Monday, September 26 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 52 PLACE STALINGRAD 38220 VIZILLE

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Not a bad price..... Surely someone has a project for an engine like that. Pretty rare! I've heard the one in Renault's replica of the record breaking car - quite a modern-sounding engine, so I'm guessing a light flywheel.
 
Over a decade or so Renault made about 6 different versions of the straight eight and each new iteration was naturally more modern and of different cubic capacity than the last. The astute observer will of course have noticed that this engine has not only a split crankcase but a split sump design, pretty primitive really, I think the above was version 2 of about 1929/1930. By 1934 they were producing a one-piece cast iron block like the Americans. See the first two images below of a 1934 Renault straight eight block all cast as one part. I believe this was the engine used in the 1934 record win (see last image).

Andrew, I think the straight eight engine would be a little beyond my reach at present but ever since I was a boy I have wanted to build an engine from scratch so who knows where life might lead.

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If I could figure out how to cast-in the iron cylinder liners I could definitely have a lash at casting a one piece block in aluminium, just sayin'.

It'd be a fair bit of work but not impossible. If a serious attempt were to be made it would need to be just that...a serious attempt. :unsure:

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From my good book NE 127 I have deduced this to be the first version of the Renault straight eight engine. Note the water pump driven from the back of the generator. Note also the fanned flywheel. Note also, also the lack of the oil cooler on this model compared to version 2 at the top of this thread. :geek:

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Fast forward again to 1934. From the good book PR 203 comes the images of the Nervasport engine. The build technology is quite different to the former engines. The last image shows a more modern looking flywheel (suitable for lightening JW) and the second last image shows the oil cooler that is secreted in the water jacket side cover.

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56 Fregate said:
From my good book NE 127 I have deduced this to be the first version of the Renault straight eight engine. Note the water pump driven from the back of the generator. Note also the fanned flywheel. Note also, also the lack of the oil cooler on this model compared to version 2 at the top of this thread. :geek:

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Non-rotating tappets by the look of it! Great book(s) to have. I see they had attached engine trays too - carried through all the way to the end of the R10, then undertrays for R12 and R16 for example. The cars with the rear-mounted radiator had a sealed bonnet/tray system too so the flywheel fan pulled air that had to come through the huge radiators.
That early one particularly is an expensive engine to make in small numbers you'd think!

Thanks for this material!
 
JohnW said:
Non-rotating tappets by the look of it! Great book(s) to have.
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Here at the facility in recent times I have pulled apart two of these old flat-heads, a 1936 Dodge engine and a 1934 Pontiac. The Dodge has the remnants of a radial grind on the end of the lifters, the Pontiac no so but both had the center line of the camshaft offset by about 5 mm to encoruage rotation. Great books yes, I have a few of them now.

JohnW said:
That early one particularly is an expensive engine to make in small numbers you'd think!
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The 1930s of course were tough years for everyone including Renault. But the rich folk still had a standard to live too and I reckon Louis was making a few big vehicles with big engines to help hold onto his rich customers. Indeed some of his big vehicles were produced in batches of 4. Renault produced the rolling chassis and outsourced the coach work to others to spread the risk. In outsourcing the coachwork the styling was still done by Renault but with a little artistic licence perhaps.
 
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56 Fregate said:
Here at the facility in recent times I have pulled apart two of these old flat-heads, a 1936 Dodge engine and a 1934 Pontiac. The Dodge has the remnants of a radial grind on the end of the lifters, the Pontiac no so but both had the center line of the camshaft offset by about 5 mm to encoruage rotation. Great books yes, I have a few of them now.


The 1930s of course were tough years for everyone including Renault. But the rich folk still had a standard to live too and I reckon Louis was making a few big vehicles with big engines to help hold onto his rich customers. Indeed some of his big vehicles were produced in batches of 4. Renault produced the rolling chassis and outsourced the coach work to others to spread the risk. In outsourcing the coachwork the styling was still done by Renault but with a little artistic licence perhaps.
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Interesting. The "big" Renaults were very well made from what I can see (and reports from an owner I know in Adelaide). And we'd agree that there's nothing wrong with side-valves apart from the gas flow opportunities that OHV designs offer. Given that, as I keep saying, most people want fridges to drive not interesting cars, most wouldn't know what they had except for performance and fuel economy as indicators. I don't know from personal experience but i imagine sidevalve engines have less tappet noise, given where it is generated.
 
The other issue with side valve engines when pushed ( supercharged etc ) is the fact that block gets very hot on one side, which is hard to deal with and produces head gasket and other failures.

THis was why MG ultimately beat the Austin sevens in long distance racing - Austin wanted to keep the side valve for marketing reasons. MG had started with overhead valve design

IN the end Austin got serious and made the twin cam 750 racer , which was a real thing of beauty and bloody quick, but had a short career because of WW2

Andrew
 
The American straight eight manufacturers had a replaceable water distribution tube running right through the port area to keep the exhaust valves cool, it seemed to work.

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Andrew Watkins said:
The other issue with side valve engines when pushed ( supercharged etc ) is the fact that block gets very hot on one side, which is hard to deal with and produces head gasket and other failures.

THis was why MG ultimately beat the Austin sevens in long distance racing - Austin wanted to keep the side valve for marketing reasons. MG had started with overhead valve design

IN the end Austin got serious and made the twin cam 750 racer , which was a real thing of beauty and bloody quick, but had a short career because of WW2

Andrew
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Interesting. Gorgeous thing, that twin-cam racer. Yes, side-valve is really best for relatively low stressed engines (the big Renault 8s were 20-30 bhp/litre territory, all about smooth low down torque I guess.
 
JohnW said:
I don't know from personal experience but i imagine sidevalve engines have less tappet noise, given where it is generated.
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There isn't any hint of a tappet noise here with my Dodge 6. I couldn't rev it cos there's no water connected. The muffler used for this demonstration is off an R10. (purely for the French content) :geek:
 
56 Fregate said:
There isn't any hint of a tappet noise here with my Dodge 6. I couldn't rev it cos there's no water connected. The muffler used for this demonstration is off an R10. (purely for the French content) :geek:
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If you can't hear the tappets at idle or fast idle, there can't be much noise from them! :) Nice.
 
The location of that auction engine might present a problem at the moment!

After the Dodge 6 vid I can see you developing an interest in stationary engines so you can go along to shows and just watch them tick over.

If you were going to try to build a straight eight, you would make your life much easier using a crankshaft and some other key internals from an existing engine to improve your chances of getting decent metallurgy in those key components. Buick made their 8s in a variety of capacities, so taking a crank from something like that might be a place to begin looking. Casting that much iron would be a larger undertaking than casting the same volume of aluminium, but not being a monoblock would have helped to limit the casting size and distortion problems. You might be wanting to have something large cast commercially. Liners you can find in pretty much any size you like and slip them in later, so you don't need to cast around a liner. When something like an XK Jaguar 6 is being rebuilt it is common to step and overlap the new standard size liners so they lock together because the blocks (iron) are prone to cracking between the bores. The difference in expansion between iron/steel liners and an aluminium block means you likely wouldn't want to lock the liners all together by overlapping tops. Overall, you'd get a better result just stumping up what is likely to be a substantial price for an original engine.
 
Luckily it is 52 PLACE STALINGRAD, in Vizille, France. Wouldn't cost much to crate and ship to Oz...... :) Lovely old thing, isn't it.
 
Thank you David,
If, just for kicks I did attempt to build an engine from scratch I would def be using an existing crank and rods from a Yankee engine. Parts for American engines are available in great number in USA and perhaps parts could be found here as well. The length of the iron liners are a concern which exacerbates the thermal expansion differences between Al and iron leading to breakage or distortion but there must be a way to do it. Sourcing a genuine Renault engine has proven fruitless due to the number of units produced in the first place and remember Hitler melted everything he could get his grubby hands on while occupying France, including Renault engines. They are scarce and I live on the wrong side of the equator.

I note that almost all of the American engine producers had their ports on the RHS of the engine (look at my Dodge 6) whereas Renault were the opposite (see the original pics above). This means of course that the crankshafts are in opposite orientation between the two, but they can be made from billet no problem.

You are quite right about the amount of energy it would take to produce a cast iron engine block by the home hack sand caster but aluminium is definitely doable, I feel it in my waters. I wouldn't even consider outsourcing a casting to a commercial operator, that would kind of defeat the purpose.
 
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