The Volvo B36 is a petrol V8

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

engine designed and built by

Volvo The Volvo Group (; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of truck ...

. It first appeared in a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle or show vehicle) is a car made to showcase new styling or new technology. Concept cars are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not ...

in 1952, and was later used in Volvo's truck line from 1956 to 1966.

History

In 1952 Volvo unveiled a concept car called the

Volvo Philip The Volvo Philip was a concept car built by Volvo Cars, Volvo in 1952. It was designed especially for the United States market, and so was fitted with a prototype V8 engine, V8 engine called the Volvo B36 engine, B8B, which produced at 4000 ...

. This American-style sedan was powered by a newly designed prototype V8 engine called the B8B. The Philip did not go into production, but its V8 engine, redesigned and renamed the B36, did a few years later, when it appeared in the

Volvo Snabbe The Volvo Snabbe and Trygge was a series of light trucks produced by Swedish automaker Volvo between 1956 and 1975. Volvo L420 Snabbe Volvo introduced its first forward control truck L420 Snabbe ("Fast") at the end of 1956. It had a payload of ...

and Trygge trucks. The V8 was produced by Volvo in their facilities in

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

and

Skövde Skövde () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and urban centre in Skövde Municipality and Västra Götaland County, in the Västergötland, Västergötland (Western Gothland region) in central southern Sweden. Skövde is situated around 150 k ...

. The engine's full name was B36AV. In March 1958, shortly after the end of production of the large PV830 model, Volvo started work on internal Project 358. The project's goal was to develop a replacement for that earlier,

inline-six A straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine balanc ...

powered car using the V8 engine from the Philip showcar. This project failed to reach production. Volvo revisited the idea of a V8-powered passenger car again later with the

Volvo Amazon The Volvo Amazon was a mid-sized car that was manufactured and marketed by Volvo Cars from 1956 to 1970. It was introduced in the United States as the ''122S'' at the 1959 New York International Auto Show. The Amazon shared the wheelbase, tall ...

. For the first exercise, called "Project Victor", five copies of a revised B36 called the C8B were built. These engines had a displacement of just 2.5 litres, but to fit them into the Amazon engine bay the sheet metal had to be modified. When the project was cancelled the engines were essentially abandoned in the factory at Skövde. Another project, called Amazon Brede (Wide Amazon), installed a C8B in an Amazon made by welding together two separate cars, widening the whole structure by . The Amazon Brede project remained a one-off. Versions of the B36 were used in products from Volvo's Penta

marine propulsion Marine propulsion is the mechanism or system used to generate thrust to move a watercraft through water. While paddles and sails are still used on some smaller boats, most modern ships are propelled by mechanical systems consisting of an electri ...

division. The MB36A was available from 1956 to 1965 and produced , and the MB36B version was sold from 1964 to 1965 and produced . The B36 was also used in the Penta AQ180.

Technical features

The B36 is a 4-stroke V8 with a 90° angle between the cylinder banks. The engine block and cylinder heads are made of

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

. The cylinder

firing order The firing order of an internal combustion engine is the sequence of ignition for the cylinders. In a spark ignition (e.g. gasoline/petrol) engine, the firing order corresponds to the order in which the spark plugs are operated. In a diesel engi ...

is: 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2. Cylinder bore diameter is and the piston stroke is , for a total displacement of . The original compression ratio is 7.6:1. Power and torque output are at 4000 rpm and at 2200 rpm respectively. The engine weighs . The intake manifold and a two barrel

Carter carburetor The Carter Carburetor Company was an American manufacturer of carburetors, primarily for the automobile industry. It was established in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1909 and ceased operation in 1985. Founder William Carter started experimenting with a ...

are centrally located between the cylinder banks. Because the B36 had exactly the same bore and stroke dimensions as the later B18 and the two engines also have some valve-train parts in common, some suggest that the B18 is one-half of the B36 V8. Significant differences between the B36 and the B18 include different crank lengths and piston heights. Also, while the V8 engine has

crossflow cylinder head A crossflow cylinder head is a cylinder head that features the intake and exhaust ports on opposite sides. The gases can be thought to flow across the head. This is in contrast to reverse-flow cylinder head designs that have the ports on the sam ...

s, the four cylinder has a

reverse-flow cylinder head In engine technology, a reverse-flow or non-crossflow cylinder head is one that locates the intake and exhaust ports on the same side of the engine. The gases can be thought to enter the cylinder head and then change direction to exit the head. T ...

. Due to these differences others assert that the engines are for the most part separate designs.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Volvo B36 Engine B36 Gasoline engines by model V8 engines