The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Ridiculous stovebolt triple

If you have the time, money and just for giggles, why not.

Fox Looks like a tremendous job for something you'll have to guard the rest of your life. I have some nice paint I don't care about guarding,so just cruise it let em look in passing. 327 with Q-jet sounds good w/ 4 speed thru the gears.

That's dumber than a box of hammers.

I'm with you Otto. Not good for much than showing how much work was done for a limited return.

Chain drive? What could go wrong?

If the two side engines are connected by chains to the center engine's crankshaft, how can you be sure that all three engines will operate at exactly the same rpm?

What if one engine is turning faster than the others?

Don't know, but Tommy Ivo and Mickey Thompson seemed to have figured it out.

The chains mechanically connect all three engines to one another, so if all the sprockets have the same number of teeth, they will all turn the same RPM, even if one if the engines wasn’t running.

Certainly not my cup of tea, but you got to love the ingenuity.

It's his truck. Do what you want.

yikes! Interesting concept... for someone else to build.

Tractor pull guys have been using multiple engines for many many years.

Otto Well it will rip the chains off !! I suppose you can take the chains off carefully set all 3 RPM's put it back. Not our monkeys !!

I'm no engineer (as you all remind me), but I grew up around the ship building industry and my professional career was mostly spent around aircraft. The idea of a combining gear box (combining multiple inputs into a single output) is a common concept in ships as well as helicopters. If you think the idea of combining three 235's into a single out put is something, you should see the engine room of a DDG-51 class destroyer (Remember, Bath-built is best built!) -- 4 GE LM2500 gas turbines (26,000 hp each) getting combined into two output shafts (any engine's power can drive either shaft).

Or the combining gearbox on a CH-53K King Stallion -- 3 GE38 gas turbines (~8,000 hp each -- although in tests, the GE38 broke the 10,000 hp water brake ... ) combing to drive a single mainrotor and the tail rotor.

I think the common basic concept is that the input shafts each drive a planetary gear with an overrunning (aka, Sprague) clutch all on a common output. So really doesn't matter if the RPMs are matched or not -- the load/torque will tend to regulate the fastest engine to match the slow pokes and even out the torque inputs. So if you have an issue with an engine and have to drop it off line, it won't kill the others.

Or something like that ...

The ones in ground vehicles, like pulling tractors, etc, probably work on a very similar concept. I *do* know that you do not want to be anywhere near one when they decide to fail -- which usually happens in a fairly spectacular fashion (usually in a high torque mode ...).

We used to de-tune all engines to the one with the lowest torque but a really sharp fellow in Ohio came up with a torque box that each engine is tuned to max output and bolted to the torque box. Box only cost 20k fifteen years ago but if you want to win------.

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/PC2kc3pj/Model-A-and-pull-truck-014.jpg[/img]

Evan
Only 4 blown V-8’s? Where’s the fun in that? It’d take 6 or more of them to impress me.

I say God bless those have unrestricted thinking and ambition!
And - thanks to the guy who brought up Mickey Thompson , I’m sure that the 666 would make him smile.

A lot of time and moola put into that rig

As the tailgate says......WTF !! (Wheres The Fuel)

Getting the to the same rpm is easy. Getting them to the same load is hard.

Warning to all, make sure you check your links for proper family friendly content before posting. Thank you.

I want to hear what it sounds like.

"There's no substitute for cubic dollars!"
Jerry

Jerry, I think you are getting old and cynical. Or crotchety as we would say back in the day.