Exploring the Operation of V8 Engines 35, 39, and 42 for Peak Performance
ENGINE
DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION
5
Engine without suffix B added to serial no. illustrated
OPERATION
The V8 engine is an eight cylinder, water cooled unit
comprising of cast aluminium cylinder block and
cylinder heads.
The two banks of cast iron cylinder liners are shrink
fitted and are located on stops in the cylinder block.
The banks of cylinders are set at 90
°
to each other.
The crankshaft is carried in five main bearings,
end-float being controlled by the thrust faces of the
upper centre main bearing shell.
The centrally located camshaft is driven by the
crankshaft via an inverted tooth chain. The valves
are operated by rockers, pushrods and hydraulic
tappets. The distributor - if fitted, is driven by a skew
gear from the front of the camshaft.
The aluminium alloy, pistons have two compression
rings and an oil control ring and are secured to the
connecting rods by semi-floating gudgeon pins. On
later 4.2L engines the gudgeon pin is offset 0.5 mm
(0.02 in), identified by an arrow mark on the piston
crown, which must always point to the front of the
engine. Plain, big-end bearing shells are fitted to
each connecting rod.