The Duesenberg Straight-8 engine was produced from 1921 to 1937 and sold in
Duesenberg automobiles. Fred and August Duesenberg got their start building experimental racing engines which achieved a great deal of success. Among their accomplishments are wins at the
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of India ...
, the
1921 French Grand Prix and speed records at the
Bonneville Salt Flats
The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the ...
. They used the expertise they had gained to start building production engines and cars which were renowned for their performance and luxury.
Among the novel design features (for a pre-1940 production engine) seen on various Duesenberg engines are single- and double-
overhead camshaft
An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion ...
s, three- and four-valve heads,
supercharger
In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement.
The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced indu ...
s and aluminum castings.
Production engines
Competition engines
The engines listed below were designed by Duesenberg for the Indianapolis 500. Some engines of the 122 CID and 91 CID design were bored/stroked to larger displacements for other races classes, after the 1930 rules change at Indianapolis.
See also
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Duesenberg
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Multivalve
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OHC
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Overhead valve
An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...
*
Straight-8
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Lycoming Engines
Notes
References
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External links
Grand Prix Car
Straight-8, OHC, Multivalve
Automobile engines
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Straight-eight engines