Porsche 917 16-cylinder engine

[John Z Goriup]

I have no idea if these photos have ever been posted on this forum. I just found them on an obscure 1/43 modeling site. I personally have never seen these shots before.

Chuck: if this is a duplication please feel free to delete
___________________________________
Supposedly this is a running unit that was used for testing and research by the factory in conjunction with the 917 program.

I took the photos of the car that houses this engine at RR III in '07. To this day, no one who was at Daytona can tell me if it was actually started there or not. I did not hear it run.

JZG

[John Z Goriup]

a couple more to finish up

[Homemade 911]

As I always understood this - the 16 cylinder program/car was stillborn...Porsche stopped developing this engine & platform idea early on, in favor of the flat twelve stuff...and the rest...is history. The car seen at rennsport is apparently non-running. I guess - and this would make perfect sense - it's the only existing 16 cyl example out there and, of course, it lives in the museum...

If it turns out I'm wrong on any of this - please set me straight.

Cheers
R/Thom

[Jim Garfield]

John, the engine at RRIII was not a runner, but according to the people from the museum, it will run in the future.

The 16 cyl 917 did in fact have track time at Weissach. Mark Donohue mentions seeing it run in his book. Norbert Singer spoke about the engine recently in CT. Because of the vast development costs Helmuth Bott told NS that he felt the 16 cyl car needed to have the track record to justify it's existence. They called in Willi Kauhsen to set the mark. After numerous attempts he managed to better the 917-30 mark around the test track by .01 second. Singer told Bott they had bested the time, and Bott told Singer to put the engine in the museum and keep going with the turbo 12 development..... the last time the 16 officially ran.

Donohue says that he could hear the front of the engine start before the back part caught.

[gulf908]

This would have been a very expensive little excercise in its day !
I can imagine Ferry's hair turning white at the bill !!
Although it did the job and scared Ferrari off further development of the 512 S/M.
I look forward to hearing it one day.

Cheers,
Dennis.