We now get to see the results of this crazy gearhead’s work when he welded two inline 4-cylinder engines into a single inline 8-cylinder.
Last week, we found out that Russian gearhead Garage 54 was building something unique: a Lada powered by a 2.7-L 8-cylinder engine. This was not a typical engine swap, however, as the Lada’s original 1.35-L 4-cylinder was retained and another 1.35-L 4-cylinder was added to the first one.
As you can imagine, this required some extensive modifications to the old Lada. The entire nose of the car was gutted from between the headlights in order to install a cradle to hold the second engine. Then he performed some complicated alchemy to get the first engine and second engine synchronized.
Amazingly, the whole thing worked. The last video ended with Garage 54 vowing to continue the project to see just how much faster the Lada became thanks to its second engine. That, and also finish the build by linking the carburetors and installing a cooling system.
RELATED: GEARHEAD WELDS TOGETHER TWO 4-CYLINDER ENGINES MAKING INLINE 8-CYLINDER
Now we get to see the fruits of Garage 54’s labors. A coolant system was located by using the radiator of a household heater, and then all the rest of the engine’s components were hooked up. The end result was something out of a horror show, with an engine that sticks out of the Lada’s nose by what seems like a mile.
Due to excessive snow in Russia (imagine that), Garage 54 fitted his pet project with specially made snow tires, which are essentially regular snow tires with screws embedded in them. This would give the Lada enough grip to make it to 60 kph (37 mph), but not quite enough to make it to 100 kph (62 mph).
The end result was an increase of 0.3 seconds to 60 kph, performing the feat on snow in just 6.2 seconds. If the road had been clear, we might even see a faster time from the Lada.
So there you have it: welding two engines together does indeed increase power. However, we caution against it as Garage 54 mentioned that driving the car was “genuinely frightening” as the extra heavy engine pulled the car’s nose towards the ground at a terrifying angle.