I should have guessed that! The AL block had siamesed cylinder liners in pairs and used the same crank. I suppose they could have offset the rod just a bit on the pistons, but since the engine was designed that way they didn't need to. Neat trick for 1930s engineers! I know the original design came out in 1940 or 41, but was engineered using 30s techniques. In fact, engineering jumped by leaps and bounds between 1941 and 1946 due to the necessities of WWII. There really is no comparison between pre-war and post-war engineering, one reason the terms "pre-war" and "post-war" are used to refer to cars, and of course they mean WWII. Another reason is that civilian auto production was suspended for four years of the war (or was it five?), something that didn't happen (at least in the US) any other time. That gap makes it easy to use the war as a divider too. --------- Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:44:17 -0800 From: Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx> Frank Swygert wrote: > I wonder what the centers are on the 196? Has to be close to 4". ---- They're unevenly spaced, in pairs. Bigger where there's a main bearing. Helps make the motor short! -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC) For all AMC enthusiasts http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html (free download available!) _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://splatter.wps.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/amc-list