Guess that's why the British beat back the Germans in 1940 and why they gave us the Merlin engine for the P51!
Do measingold,
Thank-you for your kind words...
Who did what? Merlin was an Injected version of a WWI 1650 ci Packard Liberty. The bough old Liberty power plant and worked them over with injections and better superchargers.. Most of the Merlin's made in WWII was made by the same plant ..Same Cubic inches 1650.. The War Department put the lead engineer up in a hotel until he had a design during WWI.. Great Power but it was a Packard.. They had the first one running in six weeks..
LIBERTY ENGINE
Buick Motor Div.
General Motors Corp.
Hint, Michigan
TWELVE CYLINDERS - 1650 CUBIC INCHES (27.3L)
DISPLACEMENT - LIQUID-COOLED 45 DEGREE VEE CONFIGURATION - 400 HP AT 1800 RPM
A TOTAL OF 20,478 LIBERTY ENGINES WERE BUILT BY
THE PACKARD, LINCOLN & FORD COMPANIES, AND THE BUICK DIVISION OF THE GENERAL MOTORS CORP.
USED IN:
AMERICAN-BUILT DE HAVILLAND DH - 4s
CURTISS NC-4 SEAPLANES
FOKKER T-2 AND MARTIN LB-4
KEYSTONE LB-5A AND DOUGLAS M-3
FORD-STOUT 2-AT "PULLMAN"
CURTISS "CARRIER PIGEON"
MANY OTHER AIRCRAFT OF THE 1920s
The Liberty Engine was designed by Jesse Vincent of the Packard Co. and E.J. Hall of the Hall-Scott Engine Co. in a Washington, D.C. hotel suite between 30 May and 4 June, 1917 in an effort to provide a modern aircraft engine for the United States Army Air Service during World War I.
It was designed to meet a wide range of wartime requirements with the intention of building versions with differing cylinder numbers. The first engine, a V- 8, was tested by 3 July 1917!
The quality and dependability of the Liberty varied considerably depending on the maker--Packard being the worst and Lincoln being the best. Used also in cars and boats, the Liberty was also built in England in 1938 to be used in several types of British tanks!
THIS BUICK LIBERTY ENGINE IS ON LOAN
FROM THE ALFRED P. SLOAN, JR. MUSEUM
FLINT, MICHIGAN
V-1650-7 MERLIN ENGINE
(Rolls Royce)
Continental Motors Corp.
Muskegon, Michigan
TWELVE CYLINDERS - VEE CONFIGURATION
1600 HP - 1650 CUBIC INCHES (27.3 L)
DISPLACEMENT
USED IN:
NORTH AMERICAN P-51 MUSTANG
SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE & AVRO LANCASTER
HAWKER HURRICANE & DE HAVILAND MOSQUITO
CURTISS P-40F WARHAWK
Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan began aircraft engine production in 1915. During World War I, Packard had produced 6000 units of the famous V-12 Liberty engines. Packard began production of the Merlin in September 1940. under a British contract.
In 1942, production began for the Packard-Merlin engine to be installed in the famous P-51 Mustang aircraft. (The original Mustangs were equipped with General Motors' V1710 Allison engines of 1320 hp. The Allison engine could not maintain power at high altitude, thus the Mustang was converted to the more powerful Merlin engine.)
Continental Motors was a subcontractor to provide additional needed engines for the war time demands. The Muskegon company built 800 of the units making this example a very rare engine indeed!
Other companies producing the Merlin were: Rolls Royce (150,000). U.S. Packard (54,700), and Australian Commonwealth Aircraft Corp. (100).
What has confussed is Packard's 2500 inch PT Power.. It was not a Merlin but looks like one.. Merlin did not come in a 2500 ci beast..
Packard V12 Marine Engine
The modelling objective here is to make an operational 1/20th scale Packard V12 Marine Engine that looks like the original V12 engine but is actually an electric motor (and possibly gearbox) housed in a cast shell and when completed it should fit the exact mounting bed of the original engine.
Contrary to popular belief the Packard V12 4M-2500 marine petrol engine did not start it's life as a licence built US made copy of the British Rolls Royce Merlin engine, this has been pointed out to me by various people and the historical evidence proves this, the Packard V12 1M 2500 engine was used extensively by Garr Wood in his world record holding speed boats of the 1930's and the licence built Merlins were not produced by Packard until well into the war years.
"Despite the commonplace assumption, the new-generation Packard marine engine, initially tagged the 4M-2500, was anything but a re-popped Liberty. Instead, Vincent, Packards lead engineer, started with a clean sheet and designed a four-stroke, 60-degree V-12 with an aluminum block with a bore of 6.04 inches and a 6.50-inch stroke, which brought it to 2,490 cubic inches. Weighing 2,900 pounds, the 4M-2500 had four valves per cylinder, a 6.4:1 compression ratio, and a centrifugal supercharger, later models were also fitted with an intercooler. A Holley 1685F aircraft carburetor supplied the fuel, 100-octane gasoline, fired by two spark plugs per cylinder. The first engines developed 1,200hp, but improved versions with higher boost levels nominally made 1,500hp. Packard built 14,000 marine engines during the war, three of which went into each of the Navy's 768 PT boats, two astern and one amidships for better service access. "
see:
www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2006/01/01/hmn_feature17.htmlPackard built many thousands of engines prior to the second world war including car engines, of course, and the famous "Liberty" aircraft engines and Packard's own developments and patents and other developments and inventions by the likes of General Electric on superchargers went into the development of the Packard marine engine that were produced in their thousands during the war to power the U.S. Elco and Higgins PT Boats and the British Vosper MTB's (Motor Torpedo Boats).
The Packard 4M 2500 engine powered most, if not all, of the US built PT Boats. The pre and early world war II engines developed some 1200 brake horse power, this had been increased to 1350 BHP and then by the end of the war 1500 BHP, therefore a late war Elco 80' PT had three engines producing a total of 4,500 brake horse power and could guzzle 5000 gallons of 100 octane aviation fuel in one night of operations. The cruising speed of the Packard was stated as 2400 rpm but note that the Elco "dashboard" tachometers show a top speed of 3000 rpm. I assume that this means that the top speed of the Elco at some 41 knots could only be sustained for a relatively short period of time.
I'm told that some crews upgraded the engines in the field by changing the gear ratio's on the supercharger impeller, increasing the engines horsepower but making them quite temperamental.
Packard made a three terminal electrical device to synchronise the three engines. I am trying to find out more about how that worked.
The centre engine faced aft and drove the centre prop shaft directly, whereas the port and starboard wing engines faced foward and drove into a Veedrive gearbox which then drove the wing propshafts back down under each engines. Note that all three propellers turned the same way, clockwise looking from aft.
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