The XI-2220 Hemi V-16: first Chrysler engine with a Hemi head design
Retired Chrysler engineer Pete Hagenbuch said while leading a tour of the museum:
Pete Hagenbuch also wrote that Mel Carpentier was head of Engine Design at the time (Carl Breer was Director of Research and would have been involved to some extent); Carpentier continued to run the Hemi V8 car engine program.
The engine was built by "The Motor Room," part of Engine Development and Testing, which was headed by Bill
Drinkard, then Harold Welch, and then by Ev Moeller, who was the manager in early 1956 when Pete arrived on the scene.
These are many of the people worked on the V16 plane engine, including Carl Breer, near the center (in a suit); George Heubner; Dean Engle, later chief engineer at Dodge and later an engine man at Central Engineering; and Bill Chapman was in charge of testing the later turbine, later becoming head of Ford's turbine truck projects.
Willem Weertman, in his Chrysler Engines book, noted that many of the team members went on to make "significant contributions" at Chrysler. He called out Syd Terry, Robert S. Rarey (later Chief Engineer of Engine Design and Development), R. Dean Engle (to be Chief Engineer at Dodge before succeeding Rarey), Ev Moeller (later assistant to Rarey and Engle), and George Huebner, then Carl Breer's assistant, who would succeed Breer as Director of Research and who would also lead the turbine program. Dyno man Herb Bevans later rose to become Executive Engineer of Powertrain Engineering.
Al Bosley wrote a good deal more about the people involved in the V16 and later turboprop engine projects.
Flight testing results
by Curtis Redgap
and David Zatz
Two specially built Republic Thunderbolt XP-47H planes, with extended noses, were used to test the Chrysler 16-cylinder XIV-2220 engine in 1945. Speed was reportedly below the expected 490 mph, but with jets clearly the technology of the future, the engine was unlikely to see mass production regardless (the project had begun in 1941, well before jets were in use). Internal documents showed the engine beating 3,000 horsepower on the dyno.
The V-shape was chosen to reduce the length of the crankshaft and the forces on it (it had two crankshafts); the block was a single cast aluminum piece. The engine underwent 27,000 hours of tests with different samples and two different combustion chamber designs. The air tests were delayed due to problems with the Curtis XP-60C, and the P-47 was modified instead. After 18 flight hours, the propeller shaft failed, due, engineers believed, to the sudden application of power from turbocharging. (Thanks, Doug Hetrick and USAraud.ee)
Marc Rozman found a typewritten specification sheet which noted that the 2,440 lb engine had a bore of 5.8" and a stroke of 5.25", displacing a total 2,219.2 cubic inches. The propeller gear ratio was 2.456:1 and the compression ratio was 6.3:1 on AN-F-28 fuel. A single stage GE CH-5 radial "turbo-supercharger" was used, with an 11" diameter impeller and 6.46:1 impeller gear ratio. The intercooler and aftercooler were both liquid cooled. Based on the preliminary flight rating test:
Retired Chrysler engineer Pete Hagenbuch said while leading a tour of the museum:
Pete Hagenbuch also wrote that Mel Carpentier was head of Engine Design at the time (Carl Breer was Director of Research and would have been involved to some extent); Carpentier continued to run the Hemi V8 car engine program.
The engine was built by "The Motor Room," part of Engine Development and Testing, which was headed by Bill
Drinkard, then Harold Welch, and then by Ev Moeller, who was the manager in early 1956 when Pete arrived on the scene.
These are many of the people worked on the V16 plane engine, including Carl Breer, near the center (in a suit); George Heubner; Dean Engle, later chief engineer at Dodge and later an engine man at Central Engineering; and Bill Chapman was in charge of testing the later turbine, later becoming head of Ford's turbine truck projects.
Willem Weertman, in his Chrysler Engines book, noted that many of the team members went on to make "significant contributions" at Chrysler. He called out Syd Terry, Robert S. Rarey (later Chief Engineer of Engine Design and Development), R. Dean Engle (to be Chief Engineer at Dodge before succeeding Rarey), Ev Moeller (later assistant to Rarey and Engle), and George Huebner, then Carl Breer's assistant, who would succeed Breer as Director of Research and who would also lead the turbine program. Dyno man Herb Bevans later rose to become Executive Engineer of Powertrain Engineering.
Al Bosley wrote a good deal more about the people involved in the V16 and later turboprop engine projects.
Flight testing results
by Curtis Redgap
and David Zatz
Two specially built Republic Thunderbolt XP-47H planes, with extended noses, were used to test the Chrysler 16-cylinder XIV-2220 engine in 1945. Speed was reportedly below the expected 490 mph, but with jets clearly the technology of the future, the engine was unlikely to see mass production regardless (the project had begun in 1941, well before jets were in use). Internal documents showed the engine beating 3,000 horsepower on the dyno.
The V-shape was chosen to reduce the length of the crankshaft and the forces on it (it had two crankshafts); the block was a single cast aluminum piece. The engine underwent 27,000 hours of tests with different samples and two different combustion chamber designs. The air tests were delayed due to problems with the Curtis XP-60C, and the P-47 was modified instead. After 18 flight hours, the propeller shaft failed, due, engineers believed, to the sudden application of power from turbocharging. (Thanks, Doug Hetrick and USAraud.ee)
Marc Rozman found a typewritten specification sheet which noted that the 2,440 lb engine had a bore of 5.8" and a stroke of 5.25", displacing a total 2,219.2 cubic inches. The propeller gear ratio was 2.456:1 and the compression ratio was 6.3:1 on AN-F-28 fuel. A single stage GE CH-5 radial "turbo-supercharger" was used, with an 11" diameter impeller and 6.46:1 impeller gear ratio. The intercooler and aftercooler were both liquid cooled. Based on the preliminary flight rating test:
Power | Rating type | Fuel Consumption (lb/bhp-hr) | |
2,500 bhp @ 3,400 rpm | Take-off power | .54 @ 2,500 bhp |