@VDCdriver mentioned the Buick but Chevy introduced their OHV Stovebolt 6 in 1929.
There were expensive American cars that had even more advanced engines like the Duesenberg… Straight 8, DOUBLE overhead cams, with 4 valves per cylinder making 265 hp.
After the war, Hispano Suiza made some fantastic, high-performance cars. This one is a 1933 J-12, with a V-12 under the hood:
Not to cast aspersions at the J12, but its V12 was a pushrod design rather than the H-6 OHC 6 cylinder it replaced. A bit of a technical step back. But 9.4 liters of V12 engine will out-torque a 6.5 liter 6 even with OHC!
Two stroke diesels went away due to excessive oil burning caused by the cylinder ports. I doubt this engine will pass emissions either.
I decided to revive this thread in order to post a pic. The New Brunswick, NJ Historical Society published this pic, which was taken at that city’s Wright-Martin aircraft factory in 1918, and the caption is, “Manufacturing Hispano-Suiza Airplane Engines…Government Testing”. The noise from those straight pipes must have been… amazing.
Cool photo. The Hispano-Suiza 8 only ran ~5:1 compression ratio with displacements between 700 to 1,100 in2, so I’m guessing it wouldn’t be as loud as you’d think due to the significantly reduced cylinder pressure when the exhaust valve opens. The engine is running in the photo and no one seems to be too concerned about the noise level.
They were already deaf.
Have you ever been to drag racing, even near a NASCAR engine?
What?? I thought Zoomies were the quitter ones… 
If you’ve ever heard Top Fuel or Funny car engines fire up, you’ll notice that they start them on gasoline before they switch over to nitromethane. For the few seconds they run on gasoline, they’re not very loud at all even with zoomies and those engines only run ~6.5:1 compression ratio. At 5:1 on the Hispano-Suiza (even with the much larger displacement), I’m guessing the noise is tolerable to open ears. It would be fantastic to hear that thing.
I’m a small block guy, but I love the sound of a big cube engine, nothing like it…
I would love to hear Pat Musi’s 959ci monster…
I would also love to hear one of Noonan’s Hemi’s, much smaller but what an engine… Davesgofundmenoonanhemi .com, sounds good to me… 
Maybe you’ve seen this? If you have, it never gets old. Engine starts at 7:05. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t love to drive that thing around the neighborhood? 
Oh heck yeah, I had not seen that one, but I have watched them tear downs many times on Street Outlaws… I’m not sure if the Noonan’s Hemi intake ports aren’t bigger than Musi’s heads, but still any engine with 1800+ HP N/A is amazing… Plus what 5 plates on top of that, gezzz… I did notice how black the cambers were… lol
Hey speaking of building engines, do you remember the old GM oil supplement for building engines from the 90’s, I think it went away for years but is it back and still as good as it used to be??
I know you could assembly an engine cam and all only using that stuff and bag it and for get it for a year and it was still well lubed… I even started a 1986 Buick 3.8L (with the last of the flat tappet cams) and run it at 2,000 RPMS for 20 minutes for new cam break-in, and when dropped down to idle had 0 oil pressure, well of course I pulled the engine back down ready to replace all the bearings and cam only to find the GM oil supplement did it’s job (no new oil flushing it away yet) and I was a firm believer in it… I built my fun car engine (and many more) using it back in the early 90’s and the oil pan has never been off since, nor have the heads, I have no issues turning the old budget build to 6000 at every shift… Kirks machine shop (closed years ago) did all the machine work, I assembly 100% in home garage including file gaping the rings and fully porting the heads, but they did the valve job…
Anyway, I would like to get some more of the old GM supplement for some possible builds and upgrades on the fun car…
I’ll have to look around my stuff to see but I don’t recall using an oil supplement. Just a very liberal application of some great assembly lube a buddy introduced me to. Will have to see if I have any still in stock here That stuff really saved my bacon once when I got distracted by the usual hooligans hanging around for a first fire up and forgot to put oil in it. I thought it was going to be toast but still running fine 30 years later…
My hooligans moment on that same 3800 was forgetting the China wall gasket/sealant after drinking a little, we decided after assembling the engine for the second time after the oil pump didn’t prime (big issue with them back then, but never had an issue before), and taken a long break (few hours maybe) to have a few Beers, and then to finish it up since the only thing left was the intake and stuff, I mean come on how hard is that? so after I installed it my buddy said from the other end of the engine to bend down, then he turned the light on and I could see it from under the intake… Oops, no problem, pulled it, added new and ALL the proper gaskets and sealant and installed the intake again…
Great!! we are on a roll, now lets bolt the transmission up to it so it will be ready to install it in the morning… Well it looked really strange before realizing I had installed the intake backwards, as if it was going in a RWD instead of a FWD… I simply said i am done for the night and realized drinking and engine assembly was not my thing to do,… lol
Go to 8:59
I did see Tommy’s early version of the car, parked but never saw or heard it run.
I don’t think the video does the sound justice.
There was GM’s E.O.S Assembly Lube, It had a pretty high zinc content.
I think the EOS stood for engine oil supplement and was mainly for the flat tappet cams.
Thought they did away with it because of catalytic converters.
Interesting, I never knew that meaning of the acronym. I guess I did use an engine oil supplement then
We never used it, but the Owner’s Manual for my father’s '63 Plymouth made mention of Mopar’s Sperm Whale Oil additive.
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/mopar-sperm-oil-hi-performance-additive.139928/
