Re: [AMC-list] AMC Experimental Engines

[Frank Swygert <farna@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jack Dale asked about AMC experimental engines. Well, there were some. 
The info was pretty much considered proprietary in the 60s and not much 
info ever leaked out. The engines never got out of the engineering 
department. All the other manufacturers did the same thing -- they did a 
lot of development work that the public still doesn't know about. Only a 
few designs were leaked IF the company thought they could get some free 
publicity from it, or they were turned over to museums where they are 
displayed as curiosities (there's a few at the Henry Ford Museum). In 
some cases a few fell into private hands for some reason or other and 
got a bit of press. I've got a cover photo on an old Popular Mechanics 
(or Science, or Mechanicx Illustrated... something like that!) that has 
George Romney in front of several experimental engines. Hardly any info 
on them inside at all. There is a four cylinder and a flat six in the 
photo, IIRC. Maybe I need to dig that issue out...

The few experimental AMC engines I know about:

1. Air Cooled V-4. This isn't really experimental. It was used in the 
Mighty Mite Jeep built by AMC in the early 60s. The original MM design 
used a VW engine, but the US military wasn't interested in using a 
vehicle with a foreign engine. The company that designed the MM 
approached AMC about buying the air cooled V-4 that AMC was 
experimenting with. How they found out about it I haven't a clue! AMC 
bought the rights to the design and built several hundred for the 
Marines instead of selling the engine.

2. Aluminum Gen1 V-8. This wasn't a factory development, but I'll put it 
in here! ALCOA was trying to interest manufacturers in using aluminum 
for their engines. To demonstrate the weight savings they made AL copies 
of several blocks. They made some Ford and GM blocks also. At least a 
couple AMC 327s were made -- Larry Daum has one, or did. Complete ready 
to run engines, using stock AMC internals. I don't recall if the heads 
were aluminum or just the blocks. I'm not sure if this was done before 
AMC made the die-cast aluminum block 196 or not. The only cost savings 
at the time was in total vehicle weight and some machining costs since 
AL is cheaper to machine, so the manufacturers weren't interested. They 
would have had to change some of their foundry techniques and equipment 
(high cost) and AL at the time cost more than cast iron. Times change, 
many AL blocks now!!

3. Rotary. AMC spent over a million dollars for a license to produce a 
Wankel Rotary engine in the US. They partnered with Renault in the early 
70s to develop a rotary design. They came up with a five chamber design 
with valves. This was covered in one of the Science/Mechanics magazines 
rather extensively... I have a copy of the article somewhere. Of course 
nothing ever came of this.

4. In the late 70s AMC was involved with a US government grant project 
to develop an external combustion Stirling engine. A Stirling powered 
Spirit got some good press. Again, nothing came of it.


The venerable six just didn't need much development. It was never 
intended as a performance engine, just a "people mover". It is one of 
the best at what it was designed for. The 4.0L was a natural and much 
needed development of it, but an OHC version would not have been 
practical. If AMC had stayed in production an OHC V-6 would make more 
sense -- something that could be used in modern cars as well as Jeeps. 
That's one reason Chrysler stopped 4.0L production -- too long and tall 
for modern vehicles, except the Wrangler and full size trucks. The other 
reason is the tooling to build it was starting to wear out, and they 
weren't going to make a big investment in an obsolete engine to continue 
production.

The same can be said of the AMC V-8s. They were no better than the 
Chrysler V-8s, or any other US made V-8, really. Chrysler did adapt the 
port design of the heads to their engines to create the Magnum engines 
though. The AMC heads were always superior to the other manufacturer's 
run-of-the-mill production heads -- closer to some of their special high 
performance heads and later model (90s+) production heads.

Take a look at the 4.7L Chrysler engine. It has been rumored (but not 
confirmed!) that the engine was on the drawing boards at AMC when 
Chrysler bought them out. AMC just didn't have the capital to put it 
into production, but it was supposedly planned for a future Grand 
Wagoneer replacement (the Grand Cherokee... eventually). The fact that 
it was used exclusively in the Jeep GC the first year it came out lends 
some weight to the rumor. Not only that, but there are some definite AMC 
design traits in it -- mainly the timing cover/oil pump configuration. 
there are also some Chrysler and I bet even MB traits in there -- I'm 
sure their engineers would have looked over any new design coming out of 
the company at the time.


--
Frank Swygert
Editor - American Motors Cars Magazine
www.amc-mag.com

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